Dusk didn't flatter Artemis. It made the glass look bruised, the marble colder, the money less clean.
Galathea Brooks stepped out of the employee entrance with her bag slung high on her shoulder, tugging at her half unbuttoned blouse that exposed a strapless tube top, and her blazer folded over her forearm like she hadn't just spent the last hour pretending her hands didn't shake when she signed paperwork. The street behind the gallery was narrower than the front—service doors, deliveries, staff who moved fast and didn't make eye contact. It was the kind of place where people cut corners because they assumed no one was watching.
That assumption was always wrong.
"Galathea."
The voice came from the mouth of the alley, where the streetlamp flickered like it couldn't commit. Marcus Hale stepped into the dim light as if dusk had agreed to hold him in place.
He'd changed his jacket since the café. Same thinness, different color. Different tactic. He was trying to look less like someone who showed up to beg and more like someone who belonged.
Galathea stopped, not surprised, just annoyed at how predictable the escalation was.
"Are you following now?" she asked, calm as a closed door.
Marcus spread his hands. "Not following. Just waiting for you."
"That's worse," Galathea replied. She adjusted her grip on her blazer. "Move."
"I just want five minutes," he said, already stepping into her path.
Galathea's expression didn't shift. "No."
Marcus' smile flickered. "You didn't even hear what -- "
"Whatever it is, the answer is still no," she said.
His jaw tightened. He had the look of a man trying to figure out whether charm or pressure would be more efficient. "You don't remember what it was like," he said, voice sharpening.
Galathea blinked once. "Try again."
Marcus' eyes flashed. "You've got a private elevator in that building. You've got a boss who -- " he stopped himself, glancing toward the main street as if the word "billionaire" might get him arrested. "You've got resources now. You don't even know what that does to someone who doesn't."
Galathea took a slow breath, feeling the shape of the moment. This wasn't nostalgia anymore. This was accusation dressed as intimacy.
"Stop," she said quietly.
Marcus scoffed. "Stop what? Telling the truth?"
"Romanticizing poverty," Galathea replied. "It wasn't a story. It was a condition."
His eyes narrowed. "So you're just going to forget people."
Galathea's voice stayed even. "People aren't being discussed. Choices are."
Marcus stepped closer, lowering his voice like he was sharing something tender. "Back then, you had my back."
Back then, Galathea thought, there had been no backs. Just walls closing in.
"Back then," she said, "was not a contract."
Marcus's shoulders rose, fell. "It's not a contract. It's -- " he searched for a word that would make it sound noble. "It's loyalty."
"It's leverage," Galathea corrected.
Marcus' mouth tightened. "You really think I'm trying to use you."
"Yes." Galathea replied flatly.
The simplicity of it hit him harder than an insult. He stared at her, stunned that she could say it without heat.
"You don't even care," he said, voice bitter.
Galathea looked past him to the door behind his shoulder—the service entrance with its keypad and camera dome. It was still. It was always still until it wasn't.
"Care isn't the point," she said. "Boundaries are."
Marcus' laugh was sharp. "Boundaries. Right. That's what people say when they don't want to help."
"That's what people say when they refuse to be bled out slowly," Galathea replied sharply.
He flinched as if she'd stepped on something fragile in him. Then his face hardened.
"Okay," Marcus said, too calm. "Fine. Don't 'help.' Just… let someone else in. I don't need you to steal. Just open the door. One time."
Galathea's stomach went cold. "No."
Marcus' voice rose. "You don't even know what I'm asking for."
"You're asking for access," Galathea said. "To a building full of priceless objects. The kind of place that doesn't forgive. The kind of place that eats people like you and me and calls it security."
Marcus' eyes flicked to the keypad again. "You talk like you're above it."
Galathea's mouth tightened. "No. I am speaking like someone who knows exactly how fast everything falls apart."
He leaned in, urgency spilling out now. "You don't understand. This is survival."
Galathea laughed once, short and humorless. "Survival is not breaking into a museum for someone else's payday."
Marcus' face twisted. "Someone else? You think I'm doing this for fun?"
Galathea stared at him until the alley seemed to narrow. "Then who's paying you?"
Marcus hesitated. Just a fraction. Enough.
Galathea felt the answer settle in her bones: it didn't matter who. The pattern mattered. The audacity mattered.
"Marcus," she said, voice low, "this is the part where you leave."
His chin lifted, stubbornness replacing reason. "No. This is the part where you remember what it feels like to be hungry."
Galathea's eyes sharpened. "Don't."
He stepped closer again, crowding her space, trying to make proximity feel like authority. "You think you're safe because you've got a badge now? You think you're better because you've got a boss who looks at you like --"
"Stop," Galathea snapped, and this time there was steel in it.
Marcus froze, surprised by the heat.
Behind him, the service door beeped softly.
A staff member was approaching from inside -- footsteps, the muffled rattle of a cart. Marcus's gaze darted to the door, then back to Galathea, something hungry sparking behind his eyes.
He moved.
Not toward her.
Toward the keypad.
Galathea's body reacted before thought finished forming. She stepped in, palm flat against his chest, stopping him short.
"Don't touch my building," she said, voice like ice.
Marcus grabbed her wrist, not hard, but enough to make it a claim.
Galathea didn't yank away. She lifted her free hand and tapped her employee badge against the wall-mounted sensor.
A red light blinked.
Then a camera lens above the door rotated with a faint mechanical whirr.
Marcus noticed. His grip loosened immediately.
Galathea's mouth curved, not into a smile, but into a warning. "That camera records audio."
Marcus' eyes widened. "You wouldn't --"
"Try me," Galathea said.
The staff door opened suddenly. An intern pushed a cart out, stacked with protective foam and framed placards. She took one look at Galathea, one look at Marcus, and her face went carefully blank.
"Everything okay?" the intern asked, voice polite, too polite.
Galathea didn't look away from Marcus. "No."
Marcus forced a laugh, stepping back as if he'd simply been chatting. "It's fine. We're just talking."
Galathea turned her head slightly toward the intern. "Can you call security and tell them someone is attempting unauthorized access through the service corridor?"
The intern blinked. "Uh--"
"Yes," Galathea said, still calm. "Now."
The intern's gaze flicked to Galathea's face, then to Marcus' hands, then to the camera dome above them. She swallowed and nodded quickly, fumbling for her phone.
Marcus' anger flared hot and immediate. "Are you serious?"
Galathea's gaze returned to him. "Deadly."
His voice dropped, sharp with betrayal. "You'd do that to me?"
Galathea's expression didn't change. "You did this to you."
Marcus' jaw worked, pride and panic wrestling. "I wasn't going to hurt anyone."
"That's what people say right before someone gets hurt," Galathea replied.
The intern spoke into her phone in a rushed whisper, eyes wide. "Hi—security? It's… it's the service corridor -- yeah, someone's --"
Marcus' face drained of color. He looked past Galathea, scanning the alley like there might be an exit that didn't cost him dignity.
Galathea watched him calculate. Watched him decide. Watched him realize he'd lost control of the narrative.
"You think you're so tough now," Marcus hissed.
Galathea stepped closer, lowering her voice so only he could hear it. "No. Just finished being soft for people who confuse desperation with entitlement."
His eyes flicked to her wrist where his fingers had been. He dropped his hand as if it burned.
"You've got no heart," he muttered.
Galathea's laugh was quiet. "Oh, even my dark, dreadful heart wouldn't give credence to this."
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor—security moving fast, keys jangling, radio crackling.
Marcus took a step back, then another, eyes on Galathea like she'd become unfamiliar territory. "This isn't over," he said, too quickly, as if threat could patch the hole in his pride.
Galathea didn't flinch. "Yes, it is."
Marcus turned and disappeared into the dusk, moving faster than someone who claimed he wasn't scared.
The alley went still again, except for the intern's shaky breathing and the approaching security guard rounding the corner with a flashlight already in hand.
"Ms. Brooks?" the guard called. "You alright?"
Galathea nodded once. "Yes. He left."
The guard's eyes swept the corridor, the keypad, the camera. "You want a report filed?"
Galathea's gaze drifted upward, just for a second—toward the camera dome, toward the quiet blinking light.
Someone was always watching.
Not just security.
Somewhere farther back, in a shadowed window across the street, a figure stood still long enough to be mistaken for reflection. Cael didn't come closer. He didn't interfere. He simply watched the way her spine stayed straight, the way her voice never shook, the way she ended it clean.
He learned something without asking.
Of course, Galathea did not see him. She felt eyes on her back, though. Just unsure to whom those eyes belong.
Galathea turned back to the guard. "File it," she said. "Use his name. Marcus Hale."
The intern swallowed hard. "Do you… know him?"
Galathea adjusted her blazer over her arm, her posture resetting into something calm and professional again. "Used to."
She started walking toward the main street, leaving the service corridor behind. The air felt clearer out there, less cramped with old histories and worse assumptions.
Behind her, security radioed in details, the intern murmured, the camera kept recording.
Galathea didn't look back.
Survival was not a bond she owed anyone.
She strode away from the building that seemed to loom after her. Debating with herself whether to dine out or have dinner at home, she entered a convenience store.
'It's times like this that made me thankful for the invention of chocolate.' She said as she looked through the candies aisle.
Buzz.
Her phone on her pocket interrupted.
She frowned at the message.
'Who is this?' she replied.
No answer.