Afternoon light slanted through the Chateau windows, the kind of light that made everything look either sacred or hungover. Lucian was both. He'd napped at Alex's, showered off the worst of the scotch, and now stood watching Safe endure a speech therapy session with the stoicism of a man who'd seen stranger things by breakfast.
Safe lay on a bed while the therapist worked on his throat with careful, practiced hands. Lucian dropped into the chair beside him.
"How is he doing?"
"He's doing great, Mr. Throne." The therapist's voice had that soothing, medically neutral tone that told you nothing and everything. She hesitated. "But I think his speech problem is psychological."
Lucian scoffed, already ahead of her. "You're going to say he can speak; he just doesn't want to. Aren't you?"
The therapist was caught. Red-handed, professionally speaking. She let the silence do her talking—which, given her profession, was either ironic or fitting.
"You should have told me that the first session I hired you."
"I just diagnosed him, Mr. Throne." She gestured for Safe to sit up.
Lucian leaned back. "I was mute for a month when I was fourteen. After watching my dad get mutilated. "He said it the way someone might mention a mild food allergy. "My buddy here needs to face his fear."
The therapist, to her credit, didn't flinch. "I prefer we use safe techniques, Mr. Throne—"
"You're dismissed."
She swallowed hard.
"Your fare?" Lucian was already on his phone. "How much is it?"
"You already paid me, sir."
"Good." He ascended the stairs without looking back.
Safe scribbled on his pad and held it up for her: You did really great. My throat feels great.
The therapist smiled—politely, professionally, and with the quiet relief of someone escaping intact. She packed her things and left.
Safe cleared his throat. The sound that came out surprised even him.
Lucian returned fresh-faced and casual in sweatpants and a T-shirt, a bag of crispy chips in one hand, the TV remote in the other. He dropped onto the couch beside Safe like a man settling in for a Netflix binge and a nervous breakdown.
Safe frowned. He patted Lucian on the shoulder and held up his pad.
What's wrong?
Lucian sighed. Where to even start? The list was practically a menu of disasters. Star kissing Adrian right after killing three people to save him. Frieda paying people to rob him—and renting people on his behalf, which was a new flavor of betrayal he hadn't known existed. His birth family still vanished into the wind, the only lead; a ring and a note. And the secrets from Star, gnawing at him like a hunger he couldn't name, because he still didn't know how she'd react. If she'd ever look at him the same way again.
Is Star with Adrian? Safe wrote.
"Yeah." Lucian stared at the TV, which was playing something he wasn't watching. "She kissed him last night. She killed for him." He shook his head. "You know Star said she'd kill her feelings for Adrian. Swore she wouldn't fall in love ever again. I think she's doing the exact opposite."
Safe patted his shoulder again. The gesture was becoming a language of its own. Then he wrote: I wish I remembered my own life. Only then I could relate to you. But if Star is made for you, she'll be yours.
Lucian looked at the words. Let them sit.
"You want to remember? And speak again? huh"
Safe nodded. Desperately. The kind of nod that had a whole person behind it.
"I wish I could help you. But you don't have your memories. I don't know where to start."
It was true. In Star's absence, Safe had become Lucian's safe pillow—the confessional he didn't know he needed. He'd tell Safe about his day; they'd watch TV and eat chips like two castaways on the same island. Lucian couldn't even remember the last time he'd been at his mansion. Lyrl lived there alone now, probably rattling around like a marble in an empty jar.
I've been having nightmares lately, Safe wrote.
Even the writing looked tired. The man could walk now—run, even, around the Chateau grounds—but the words still came slow, scrawled across the pad like a prisoner's letters.
"Can you talk about them?"
Safe nodded and began to write.
Ever since Star had brought him to the Chateau weeks ago, the nightmares had come. A hospital. Injections—drugs he couldn't name, couldn't describe, only feel. A woman who should have saved him, but instead she laughed. Every time, he woke up drenched in sweat and with a taste of betrayal in his mouth like old copper.
Lucian was quiet after reading. Then: "You'd been drugged to your body's capacity when Star found you. Maybe it's not a dream. Maybe it's a memory."
Safe wrote back immediately: If it's a memory, I don't want to remember it. It's filled with pain and betrayal.
"Pain and betrayal are what build us, Safe." Lucian's voice was softer now but no less certain. "You've got to face your own monsters if you want to speak again."
"Okay, Lucian, this is all the paper records I got from that client—"
Alex walked in mid-sentence, a box in his arms, still wearing his hospital scrubs like he'd escaped between surgeries. He stopped when he saw Safe. Safe stopped breathing.
Lucian noticed.
"Do you know him?" Lucian asked Safe.
Alex set the box down. "Who is this?"
He is always in my nightmare, Safe wrote, his hand a little shakier now. But younger.
Lucian turned to Alex. "Do you know my friend here?"
"Nope." Alex pulled off his glasses, squinting. "Should I?"
"This is Safe. The one I told you about. Star rescued him two years ago." Lucian's voice had shifted into narration mode—the storyteller assembling facts. "When we took him to the hospital, the doctor had to flush over a hundred different drugs from his system. He was tortured. Cut on his face. Beaten nearly to death. This man has some seriously angry enemies. He lost his speech, his memories." Lucian paused, letting the weight land. "Now we were just talking about the nightmares he's been having. And you, my friend, are in them."
Alex's expression hardened into something professional. "What are you getting at, kid?"
"You change people's faces. You kill them. You make them insane. You practically rewrite their existence. Mix their DNA." Lucian stood, meeting Alex eye to eye. "Tell me Safe here isn't one of them."
The room went quiet.
Alex looked at Safe—really looked. Then he sighed, stood, and walked toward him. Safe shrank back. He was older than Alex, probably in his late fifties, but without his memories, his identity, he was a book with no cover. Powerless.
"It's okay, Safe," Lucian's voice was gentle. "He's a doctor. And if he tries anything funny, we tangle him together."
Alex examined Safe's face with the cold precision of a man who'd done this work before—and undone it. He tilted Safe's chin, checked both sides, and peered into his eyes.
"His face is changed," Alex said, stepping back. "And he's got contacts in."
The words landed like a slap.
Lucian shot up. "You mean that's not his original face?"
"Yes. And I know the doctor who does work that perfect. But I can't risk anything further."
"What do you mean, you can't risk anything further? You just dropped a bomb on us."
Alex's voice didn't waver. "Lucy, the doctor who did that work is someone I owe my life to. And we don't know who this guy is. He could be just as dangerous as whoever did this to him. And I'm not about to do more damage—or become a snitch. You know the rules of the underworld. You run it."
Lucian stepped closer. "And as your king, I'm telling you: tell me. Alex, look at him. He's helpless. Who's he going to put in danger?"
"No." Alex was a wall. "For all we know, this guy is a ticking time bomb. I'm going to make a reservation with the doctor and check just to see if anything is amiss. But I can't risk my reputation, Lucian."
Lucian scoffed, frustrated, but he knew when Alex was unmovable. He turned back to Safe—and stopped.
Safe had removed the contacts.
Oceanic blue eyes looked up at Lucian. The color was startling, almost unreal, like something out of a myth. Safe's salt-and-pepper hair, his recovering muscles, and the bone structure that had been hiding under trauma—suddenly the man didn't just look old. He looked handsome. Disturbingly so. Like a spy who'd retired and forgotten why.
Safe wrote on his pad: I always felt itchy. I didn't know I had contacts.
Lucian exhaled, slow and heavy.
"You're a mystery, Safe."
***
Adrian glanced at his watch. Lunchtime was nearly dead and buried. He'd promised Star he'd be back soon but the stocks had other plans, and now the words sat in his chest like a small, guilty stone.
Lazarus entered the office again, and Adrian pounced before the door clicked shut. "What's the word, Lazarus?"
He'd put Lazarus on a pedestal today. Or a pyre. Depending on what he found.
"The COO isn't here to clarify." Lazarus got straight to it. "But I found money embezzlement. And these—" he held up a tablet "—these are supposed to be the real ratings."
Adrian stared. Blinked. Then his voice came out in a near-burst, a man holding himself together with twine and willpower. "You mean we've been topping the charts with fake ratings for nearly a decade?"
Lazarus sighed. Not the sigh of a man delivering bad news, but the sigh of a man who'd already done the math and hated the sum. "Our stocks are rigged. They've always been rigged. Whoever's been embezzling money from the company rigged the calculations to match up—even when they didn't. And those fake calculations are what got submitted. Every year."
Adrian's mind became a gearbox, spinning too fast. Who? Who had been embezzling? Who even had the access, the power, the deep-dish knowledge to rig the numbers without anyone noticing? Only one office touched everything. Only one person.
No. He refused the thought before it fully formed.
"If this year's ratings are correct—and actually true—does that mean fifty billion dollars has been in loss? For the past eight years?" His voice was quieter now. Colder. A man circling a truth he didn't want to catch.
Lazarus looked at him. He'd worked with Adrian long enough to know the man better than Adrian knew himself. And right now, he could see Adrian doing mental gymnastics, vaulting over the obvious conclusion. Lazarus had run an extensive investigation in just three hours, and the trail ended in one place: the COO's office. The Chief Operating Officer. The one person who knew every corner of the company's operations.
Maria Stark. Adrian's mother.
"Mrs. Stark has some explaining to do," Lazarus said. Short. Clean.
Adrian shook his head. Disbelief was a physical weight on his face. There had to be an explanation. Something reasonable. Maria was battling cancer—maybe she'd taken the money for treatments. She was mostly abroad, always in and out of the city.
He built the excuse brick by brick, desperate for it to hold.
If Maria was guilty, she would explain herself. In her own time. Besides, the company was still on top. Right?
He pulled out the USB from Attorney Alexander Shapua and handed it to Lazarus. A peace offering. Or a proof of trust. Maybe both. "Watch this."
Lazarus did. His expression shifted as the video played, eyes unblinking, mouth a straight line.
"That's big," he said when it ended. "But..." He trailed off.
"But what?" Adrian's frown returned, sharper now.
Lazarus scratched the back of his head. What he wanted to say might cost him his job. And he loved his job. He loved Adrian, too, in the way a bodyguard loves a puppy who keeps running toward traffic.
"How do you know you can trust me with this?" Lazarus asked instead.
Adrian almost laughed. "Come on, man. Apart from Star, you're the only one who knows this. I don't know who to trust anymore—especially when I know there's a mole giving my renderings to Kefas. Maybe that mole is the same person behind my father's disappearance. Maybe they're after the company."
Yes, buddy, Lazarus thought. And that mole is right under your nose. But your eyes are too blind to see. He kept the thought locked behind his teeth. He made a mental note to work twice as hard, protect the company from the inside out. Adrian was like a golden retriever—adorable, loyal, and utterly incapable of telling love from manipulation.
"If that's the case," Lazarus said slowly, "will you do what I tell you?"
"It depends if it's good."
Lazarus changed course. "Star knows about this too?"
"I just told you that." Adrian's voice edged into irritation. He could tell Lazarus was holding something back. It sat between them like a third person in the room.
Lazarus leaned in, voice dropping to a near-whisper. "I've never really interacted with Star. But what if you offer her a contract marriage? Keep it a secret from everyone around you—until the mole is exposed."
Adrian blinked. "That's brilliant." He was already spinning it. "Because the mole won't let the company go to the government. They'll have to make their move within the August 16th deadline."
"Right." Lazarus straightened up. "And I also don't know about this."
***
Adrian's car pulled up at the Stark mansion later that afternoon. The weight of the day clung to his shoulders, but he shed it at the door—backpack and jacket handed to a maid who whisked them upstairs without a word.
He heard them before he saw them. Laughter. Real, unguarded, the kind that leaves tears in the corners of your eyes. He followed the sound to the living room, where Star and Christine were curled on the couch, talking like old friends who'd just discovered they shared a favorite sin.
They didn't even notice him.
"I see you two are getting along well," Adrian said, announcing himself.
Star startled slightly, but the laughter still glistened in her eyes. "I've been waiting for you."
Christine spoke next, her tone shifting from warmth to worry with practiced ease. "I saw the ratings, son." Adrian settled onto the couch. "And it's really not a good sign—not since the mantle was worn."
Adrian accepted a glass of vegetable water from a maid. "What? This is about some superstitious thousand-year-old piece of fabric?" He scoffed into his glass.
"Adrian." Christine's voice was stone wrapped in velvet. "The mantle affects one's health, wealth, and wellbeing. Something is wrong."
He shrugged it off. Drank his water. Turned to Star. "Are you ready?"
Star nodded but didn't let him off the hook. "You need to listen to Grandma." She stood and, with the casualness of someone who'd been doing it all day, took the vegetable water straight from his hand and finished it herself.
"It was really good talking to you, Grandma. I'll see you around."
Christine smiled at Star, then grabbed Adrian by the arm. "Can I talk to you for a second?" She pulled him into the kitchen, shooing servants out like chickens.
"Ever since Bonita wore the mantle," Christine said, voice low and urgent, "bad things started happening. Instead of good things."
Adrian halted mid-step and rolled his eyes so hard they nearly left his skull. He had not walked to this kitchen for a lecture on family folklore.
"Cassian got into an accident last night. Saint caught a sudden cold—he's been in his room since breakfast. And now the company ratings dropped." Christine stepped closer, her eyes boring into him. "Don't you get it?"
Adrian got nothing. The mantle, in his mind, was fabric. Fancy, old, historically significant fabric. Not a curse. Not a blessing. Just... cloth.
"What are you saying, Grandma? I love you, but I play along with the family folklore. I don't believe in it."
Christine studied him. Then she changed tack entirely. "Star believes in it. And I think you two just lied to me."
Adrian's brows knitted together. "Lied to you about what?"
"Star's pregnancy behavior is exactly like mine was. The Stark blood sticks like an ant to sugar—that's why she's eating what you're eating. Craving what you crave. Moving how you move."
Adrian narrowed his eyes. His brain was flatly refusing to compute. "What are you trying to say?"
Christine didn't blink. "The baby growing in Star's belly has Stark blood."
Before Adrian could argue, could bring up the rape, the impossibility, the sheer absurdity of—
"There you are, my baby."
Maria swept into the kitchen, wrapped Adrian in a hug, and pecked his cheek like the ratings weren't bleeding out all over the floor. Christine's face tightened; she rolled her eyes and left the kitchen without a word.
Adrian looked at his mother. Something cold settled in his stomach. She was acting clueless. The ratings were cooked in her office, under her watch, and here she was, hugging him like it was Sunday brunch. His mind scrambled for an alternative—maybe the secretary. Maybe someone under her. Anyone but her.
"What are you thinking?" Maria asked, tilting her head. "Do you think that bastard Kefas has something to do with the ratings?"
"No. Um..." Adrian shook himself back into the room. "But I'm getting on top of it, Mom." He was already moving toward the door. "I need to take Star for lunch before she goes back home."
Maria's expression curdled at Star's name. She reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of still water. But her ears had caught something. Christine's voice, moments ago, about Stark blood and babies.
"Is Star pregnant?"
Adrian stopped mid-stride. Turned. The question had hooked him between the shoulder blades. For a moment, he didn't answer—he was reading her, trying to, and finding nothing but smooth, unbroken surface.
"Yeah." He swallowed. "She's pregnant." Then, because the silence demanded more: "It's mine."
The water went down wrong. Maria choked—a sharp, ungraceful sputter—and coughed into her fist. "What?!"
"We were going to tell you." Adrian's voice took on that nervous, backpedaling rhythm, the one he'd had since he was a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar or his heart in the wrong place. "But Star wasn't ready yet."
He could feel it already—the quiet fury Star would unleash when she found out he'd told his mother before she'd agreed to tell anyone. On one side, Maria. On the other, a woman who had already killed people this week. He was not sure which one scared him more right now.
Maria didn't move. She just stood there, water bottle suspended in her hand, looking at Adrian with an expression that was at once completely blank and entirely too full. He couldn't read it. He'd never been able to read her, not really, and today that felt less like a quirk and more like a warning.
Then the smile came. Smooth. Fast. A shutter dropping over something he couldn't name.
"I'm proud of you," she said.
She reached up and patted him on the arm—the head was too far now, he'd outgrown that years ago—and walked out of the kitchen. Her footsteps were even. Measured. The way someone walks when they're counting the steps to keep from running.
Adrian stood there a moment, the cold from the fridge still drifting past him. Then he shrugged the whole exchange off like a coat he didn't want to wear and headed outside.
Star was already in the car, waiting.
***
The restaurant was one of those places where the lighting made everyone look either conspiratorial or rich. Star and Adrian had a corner booth, two plates of lamb between them, and the kind of silence that only happens when two people are eating the exact same craving at the exact same time.
Star broke it first, gesturing with her fork. "Lucian must be cursing me right about now. His phone has been ringing all day." She popped a piece of meat into her mouth and chewed with the contentment of someone who had bigger problems but chose to ignore them.
Adrian set down his juice. "There's really nothing I can say to make you not go back to him, huh?"
"Lucian is my brother." Star's voice was firm, final. "And if he's the mafia boss, I don't blame him."
Adrian's frown dug deeper. "You're fine with him dealing drugs? Trafficking people? Instead of working hard, he threatens people for their hard-earned money?" He wasn't trying to pick a fight—not exactly—but he genuinely didn't understand. What was so special about Lucian Throne that Star clung to him like gravity?
"No." Star's fork paused mid-air. "He doesn't traffic people."
That was true. Lucian preyed on corrupted politicians. He trafficked drugs—had his own port for it, clean and untouchable—but Star didn't know that part yet. And Lucian intended to keep it that way.
Adrian leaned back. "Just because you two have been friends since you were five doesn't mean you're meant to be together forever."
Star set her fork down with a deliberate clink. She looked at him—not angry, but measuring. Deciding. "Lucian is a structural engineer by profession. If he wanted, he could build a technology company that would outgrow Stark Architect."
Adrian's eyebrow arched. "Are you trying to say he's smarter than me?"
"Yeah." Star didn't blink. "He is." A pause. Then: "Do you remember the tragic murder of a butler years ago?"
The shift caught Adrian off guard. "Yeah. Vividly. He was my father's butler. His right-hand man."
"Right. Mr. Throne was working for the Starks." Star's voice softened, turning over old memories like worn pages. "You weren't important back then."
Adrian's brow creased. "His name was Mr. Throne?"
Star stared at him in genuine disbelief. Then a small, incredulous laugh escaped her. "Let me guess—you were the rich brat who didn't know his servants' names?"
"No," Adrian said, defensive but not harsh. "His murder happened right after my dad went missing."
"Did you at least hear how he died?"
"Yeah." Adrian's voice dropped. "Mutilated in front of his son."
"That son is Lucian." Star's words landed like stones in still water. "He saw the whole thing. He was fourteen and he stayed mute for a month afterward. Traumatized."
Adrian's face shifted—the frown softening into something heavier, sadder. "What? That's tragic. I remember the kid was just—" He stopped, recalibrating. "Fourteen."
"Yep. He—"
Star stopped. Her eyes had caught something over Adrian's shoulder.
The restaurant was elite—the kind of place where lamb was an art form and the clientele smelled like old money and new ambition.
So the man seated a few tables behind Adrian was out of place not because of how he looked, but because of who he was. He wore a fitted suit now, his face clean-shaven and unnervingly good-looking compared to the last time she'd seen him. But the universe had a funny sense of humor. Because this man—this ghost at a linen-draped table—was exactly the person she'd been waiting to see.
"Is that my dad?" Star's voice came out in a near-whisper, a devious smile spreading across her lips before she could stop it. She was already on her feet, the fantasy blooming behind her eyes: Tomas's face when he realized she wasn't dead. The shock. The terror. The reckoning.
Adrian's hand caught her wrist. Firm and grounding.
"What are you doing?" Star frowned down at him, genuinely baffled. "I want to greet my dad."
Last night, while fantasizing about her revenge on Frieda, Star also vowed to make Tomas pay. But for now, Frieda and Tomas believe she's dead—and that belief keeps her safe. That's why he's not about to let this vengeance-driven princess act on impulse.
"They think you're dead," Adrian said, his voice low and steady. "And you're not ready. Not yet."
Star opened her mouth to protest—she was always ready, she wanted to say, she'd been ready since the moment they threw her away—but the restaurant suddenly rippled with commotion. Heads turned. Murmurs rose like a tide.
Crestfall Senator Lydia Manuel had just walked in.
And then Star watched, her protest dying on her lips, as the senator glided across the dining room and sat down at her father's table. Not a business meeting. Not a political handshake. A lunch. Together. Like a date.
Star's brain short-circuited. Her father had pulled a senator? In a week? Where was Frieda? They had kids. Didn't they have kids? She stood frozen, caught between the revenge fantasy and this new, bewildering reality, her expression cycling through confusion, disbelief, and the first cold drip of something she couldn't yet name.