I don't wait for midnight.
By midnight, the rooftop will be crawling with bodyguards, and the music from the ballroom below will have thinned into a hum too quiet to cover the whisper of death I'm bringing with me.
So I'm moving now.
Rain beads along the glass in slow streaks, the soft sound of the drops hitting the window cheering me on as I move. My dress clings to me—slit high enough to show skin and distract, but low enough to hide my blade. The stiletto at my thigh is warm from being pressed against my skin.
Lucius Ravelle is supposed to be dead before the champagne runs out—that's the plan. My rifle is hidden in a secure location on the rooftop, and I've run into no issues so far, so this should be easy.
I've carried out dozens of similar missions before, but this time my uncle ensured I knew every last grueling detail of the hit. Lucius's schedule, his route from the gala, where his guards would rotate… even when the cameras were supposed to flicker.
I'm meant to be the shadow he never saw coming, a blade in the dark.
Yet, as I exit the staircase and stand on this expansive rooftop, with the feeling of cool rain trailing down my back, I feel a chill crawl up my spine.
Someone else is here. I glance around, searching for someone hiding, but to my surprise, the person my gaze lands on isn't trying to hide themselves at all.
In fact, he looks as though he's dying to be caught.
…And it's him. Lucius.
He's here, on the same fucking rooftop I was meant to shoot him from ten minutes from now. Everything has been going by the book. I haven't heard a word from my uncle or any of the others working with me about a change in plans—by all accounts, he shouldn't be here.
But here he is.
For a heartbeat, I consider the idea that this is all a coincidence—but then he turns his head and those steel-blue eyes find me through the shadows, like he already knew I'd be here. I can see his murderous intent when I stare into those fathomless pools of ice. Lucius serves me a condescending smirk, calm and collected.
My pulse kicks, but not from fear.
I'm furious.
Because if Lucius Ravelle is here, it means none of this was an accident. It means someone fucking lied to me.
I move forward, each step taken with professionally trained silence, my heels making no sound against the slick tile. Lucius mirrors me, his movements precise and graceful, with a gun angled low at his side.
Two predators dressed in silk, ready to pounce on the other. We were both sent here to kill the other—a hilarious joke.
"Miss Marchesi." His voice is velvety and smooth, the low timbre resonating in my skull, stirring feelings I don't even want to think about. He isn't surprised or even amused. He adds dryly, "Should I be flattered?"
I lift the stiletto from my thigh, the moon's reflection catching on the sharpened blade. "You should be afraid."
Lucius chuckles, and the sound is soft and dangerous; the kind of sound men make before they ruin your life.
Then we move.
Our initial clash is brutal but silent. My blade is grazing the pointed line of his jaw, and the barrel of his gun is pressed harshly against my ribs. We're close enough that I can smell his cologne mixed with the remnants of his last cigarette… Close enough that if I breathe in, I will steal his breath.
For three heartbeats, no one wins.
Then he leans in, his soft lips brushing over the shell of my ear. His breath caresses my skin like I'm something precious, as if the gun he's pointing at me wouldn't kill me the moment he pulled the trigger, like I couldn't slit his throat right where we stand.
"Tell me, Ophelia… who will die first?"
The question is a tantalizing dare. Part of me wants to answer with the truth—tell him I was sent to blow off his skull, tell him he was sent to take my head—watch his face when colliding plots come home. But words are only blunt instruments when what I really need is to finish the job. Yet, despite knowing that, something in my stomach churns.
"You could try," I whisper instead of acting. My voice is clipped, but quiet and deliberate. "You might succeed."
He presses harder, so close I can feel the faint rasp of his stubble along my cheek. "Try me," he breathes. "It'll be worth the story."
He tastes intoxicating, like smoke and blood… like power. His proximity makes the air in my lungs burn, and I fucking hate it.
I hate him for being able to make me feel this small and threatened, yet somehow excited all at once.
I shove him hard in an attempt to unbalance him and create space for a killing blow. He stumbles, not from the force but from the sheer surprise of being moved—because it's common knowledge that no one pushes Lucius Ravelle and walks away breathing. He regains his footing with smooth, practiced grace, and the world narrows again, only us, our weapons, and the rain.
We trade blows so quickly that a normal person probably couldn't keep track of the battle. I nick his jaw—just enough to paint a thin red line, a signature of me across his disgustingly perfect face. He fires a warning shot into the night, a sharp crack that sends pigeons scattering like ghosts.
The noise should draw guards, alarms, and attention, but it draws nothing except the rain and the city's indifferent glow. He knocks my arm, twists my wrist, and for a split second the stiletto flashes toward his throat—centimeters from kissing his skin.
He doesn't flinch or show any sign of panic. Instead, he tilts his head as if considering it for a moment, as if measuring whether the cost of letting me live would be worth the entertainment. Then, with a move that is almost tender, he catches my wrist and folds my hand against his chest. The tip of my blade rests against the flattening of his sternum. I can feel the beat of his heart through his tailored shirt—steady, completely unfrightened.
He looks down at the blade and gently touches the smear of red along his jaw with his index finger to inspect the blood, as if surprised he bled at all. Then brings that icy gaze back up to me, but to my surprise, there is no contempt in his expression.
There's something far more terrifying behind his stare—interest, and something warmer, more dangerous, lurking beneath.
"You're reckless," he says. "I like that."
I let out a sound close to a laugh, but it has no humor. "You should," I say. "Because if I wasn't—" I don't finish, allowing my half-spoken sentence to linger in the air as a threat.
Suddenly, we both go completely still and silent, our attentions caught.
A footstep. A shadow moving along the stairwell. Someone's laugh from the service entrance. For the first time since I set foot on the roof, the practical part of my brain—the one Uncle trained and sharpened like an instrument—flares. We are loud enough, sloppy enough, to have been heard.
His jaw tightens. For a heartbeat, our eyes lock, and the fight evolves into something else: strategy. He tilts his head like a man listening for a melody I can't hear, and, to my astonishment, he levels his gun at the stairwell and motions.
A figure appears—one of his men, whose suit is soaked from the rain. The guard pauses at the rooftop threshold, seeing Lucius poised with a woman and a blade. He falters, uncertain what his boss might need.
Lucius doesn't lower the gun. He turns his head, not to the guard but to me. "Miss Marchesi," he says softly, like he's giving me a gift. "We'll have to finish this later."
Something in that voice isn't only a promise, it is a verdict—and yet, the way he says it is almost apologetic.
He steps back, releases my wrist, and for an instant—an impossible, traitorous instant—he brushes his thumb over the faint bruise that will bloom there from the twist of my arm. The touch is ridiculous; it's intimate, and it makes my spine melt, then harden like folded steel.
The guard takes a breath and turns away—because orders aren't only given verbally, they're given by insinuation… and it's clear that Lucius doesn't need him here. He leaves with a glance that says he will not pry, and the rooftop shrinks back to only the two of us and the rain.
Lucius watches the guard go until the figure disappears down the stairwell into the building, swallowed by the party's noise. Only then does he turn his attention back to me. The gun lowers to his side again, but his eyes have altered. There is now an unabated curiosity, overlapping with something like hunger.
"You know," he murmurs, stepping closer until the raindrops thread between us, spilling down our fronts, "I always thought I'd hate the person who took me."
I flare, too clever by half. "You're not dead yet."
"No," he agrees thoughtfully, "and I don't plan to be."
His words press against me, weighing on my chest. I yank the blade free with a movement practiced enough to be second nature and slide it back into the slit at my thigh, the metal warm against my skin. My hands smell faintly of smoke and fresh blood.
I should be elated—no, what am I thinking?! I should be pissed. I should be ready to run, vanish, and report this betrayal and the fact that Lucius Ravelle stood on my roof… but my limbs refuse to obey the script.
He steps close again and, without warning, kisses the line where my jaw meets my ear. It's not the affectionate claim of a lover… It's something more primal. It feels like the marking of territory by an animal that appreciates what it has already tasted.
The motion is quick, and yet it radiates through me like an electric current, leaving a ghostly warmth behind.
"Who dies first?" he repeats, softer now, but I hear a challenge in his tone that has nothing to do with orders and everything to do with desire.
I should answer with hatred—with the anger of every Marchesi who ever pointed a blade at a Ravelle—but the sound that slips out of me isn't anything so aggressive. Instead, my voice is only firm, betraying none of my feelings, "Not yet."
He looks at me then, properly, like a man finding a promising chess piece on the board after being at a stalemate. For the first time, I see his mask crack—the usual predatory tilt, the amusement, the bizarre tenderness—and under it the calculation of a man who isn't used to being surprised.
He smiles like someone who's been given a new toy.
"Good," he says. "Then don't make it easy for me."
He steps back into the shadows, and I'm left with rain on my skin and the taste of smoke on my teeth. Without his presence next to me, the rooftop feels too wide, and the night is too small. The rifle I walked here for gleams harmlessly under a vent, untouched.
My hands shake just enough to remind me how pathetic this failure is.
When I smooth my dress and tuck the stiletto back into my thigh, Lucius is already moving away. He pauses at the stairwell door, glances back once, and that look—sharp and hungry—burns my skin.
He shouldn't be here. He's the one I was meant to kill. He should die tonight.
Instead, I walk away knowing two things with terrible clarity: someone lied to me, and now—because of that lie—I have been seen.
…And once a Ravelle notices you, he never forgets your face.