Chapter Four

The lights snapped off like a breath held too long.

One second, Sera stood in a high-security surveillance room, pages of her sister’s secrets trembling in her hands. The next, darkness swallowed the walls whole dense, electric, absolute.

She froze. “Lucien ”

“Stay still,” he said, already moving.

A subtle sound followed like a mechanism unlocking, soft metal clicking deep in the walls.

Lucien’s voice was steady, but something beneath it cracked. “Backup generator should’ve kicked in. It’s been overridden.”

“By who?”

“That’s what I’m about to find out.”

Sera heard him open a drawer. Something heavy clinked.

A gun.

The tension sliced through the dark like wire.

“This isn’t just a power outage, is it?” she whispered.

“No,” Lucien said. “It’s a message.”

A red glow buzzed to life in the far corner a low emergency light pulsing like a slow heartbeat. It cast everything in blood. Sera could see him now, his face painted crimson, expression carved in granite.

Lucien handed her a slim black device. “Panic remote. Press this, my guards will come.”

“Why me?”

“Because if they take me out first, someone has to call the cavalry.”

He turned toward the door but paused when he saw her clutching the notebook again.

“You should’ve never found that.”

She stepped forward, voice low. “But I did.”

He looked at her, something unreadable behind his eyes.

Then the security feed blinked back on.

Just one camera. One room.

Her room.

The screen showed someone standing in it.

Not a guard.

Not Lucien.

A woman.

Facing the bed.

Watching it.

Sera’s heart hit her ribs. “That’s ”

“Mara,” Lucien growled. “She’s not supposed to be on this floor.”

They ran.

Down the hall, boots hitting marble, the notebook clutched tight to Sera’s chest. The emergency lights flickered as they passed, casting their shadows like ghosts across the walls.

Lucien keyed the override.

The door to Sera’s room slid open.

Empty.

No Mara.

But the closet door… was ajar.

Lucien raised his weapon, approached carefully hand poised, breath steady. He yanked the door wide.

Nothing.

Just a blinking red light inside the wall.

Sera stepped closer.

A tiny lens, tucked into the closet frame. Blinking.

Another camera. But this one didn’t match the others.

Lucien’s expression shifted from confusion to fury.

“This isn’t ours.”

Sera looked up at him. “Then who the hell’s been watching me?”

Before he could answer, his phone buzzed.

He read the message on screen.

His face drained.

Sera’s voice was almost a whisper. “What?”

Lucien handed her the phone.

MESSAGE FROM UNKNOWN

“Your house is full of windows, Lucien. And all of them break.”

Sera read the message twice.

Once for the words.

Twice for what it didn’t say.

Your house is full of windows… and all of them break.

“They’re not just watching,” she whispered. “They’re warning you.”

Lucien’s face was stone. “No. That’s not a warning. It’s a promise.”

A soft, rhythmic sound echoed down the hall mechanical. Deliberate.

Footsteps?

Sera turned to the door, heart thudding.

Lucien motioned her back and crossed the room in three strides, checking the hallway beyond with his weapon raised.

Nothing.

But the lights flickered again.

A ripple of electricity skated across the air like static. Something was wrong with the house. Not just a breach a hijack.

He tapped a panel on the wall. “Command, status check.”

No response.

Another try. “Security, report.”

Silence.

Lucien cursed under his breath, the first crack in his carefully contained demeanor.

Sera hovered near the closet, eyes glued to the unfamiliar camera. “What happens if they’ve already gotten into your system?”

He didn’t look at her. “Then we’re not guests. We’re bait.”

She swallowed. “Why?”

“Because Elise wasn’t just being hunted,” he said. “She was protecting something something bigger than herself. Than me. And they think it’s in this house.”

“Is it?”

Lucien turned to her slowly. “Do you still want the truth, Sera?”

She nodded, heart hammering.

“Then you’d better start asking better questions.”

Before she could respond, a sudden crash shattered the air a burst of glass, sharp and violent, somewhere deeper in the penthouse.

Sera flinched. “That wasn’t a threat.”

“No,” Lucien said, already moving. “That was the first break.”

He pressed a panel on the wall. Another screen lit up showing hallway footage. A shadow moved across it. Dark. Fast. Deliberate.

Sera stepped closer.

It wasn’t Mara.

It was someone in a mask.

Lucien leaned in. Paused the frame. Zoomed.

Across the intruder’s chest: a patch. Stylized initials.

A.M.

Sera’s voice cracked. “Aiden Mara.”

Lucien’s hands curled into fists.

Then another crash. Closer.

The camera feed cut.

Sera backed away. “They're already inside.”

Lucien grabbed her wrist, eyes hard. “Then it’s time you see the part of this house no one else knows exists.”

She stared at him.

“What part?”

He didn’t answer.

He just pulled a painting off the wall, slammed his palm against a scanner beneath it then yanked open a concealed panel.

Inside: a dark stairwell leading downward.

“Come now,” he said, voice cold. “Before they do.”

Sera hesitated at the mouth of the stairwell.

Cold air breathed up from the dark below, heavier than it should’ve been, thick with silence and secrets. Lucien was already halfway down, disappearing into shadow like he belonged to it.

“You coming?” His voice floated up, low and sharp.

She gritted her teeth and followed, the panel sliding shut behind her with a hiss that sounded far too final.

Each step down was colder, narrower. The walls turned from polished luxury to concrete. No cameras. No lights. Just faint strips of LED guiding them like breadcrumbs toward God knows what.

“How far down does this go?” she asked, hugging herself.

“Far enough.”

It wasn’t a real answer. But nothing about Lucien was ever real not fully.

At the base of the stairs, a biometric scanner blinked to life. He pressed his palm to it, then leaned forward. Retinal scan. The door hissed open.

Beyond it: a room that didn’t match the world above.

No marble. No glass. Just metal shelves. Cabinets. Lockers. Screens. Weapons. Files. It looked like a war bunker masquerading as a panic room.

Sera’s heart dropped.

“This is where you keep your skeletons?” she asked.

Lucien didn’t smile. “This is where I bury the ones that still bite.”

He walked to a cabinet and opened a secure case. Inside were rows of drives, labeled only by numbers and symbols.

He pulled one out. Inserted it into a terminal.

A folder opened: ELISE – UNVERIFIED LEADS.

Sera stepped closer. Dozens of files.

Surveillance stills. Voice recordings. Newspaper scans. All things she never had access to.

“You were tracking her,” she whispered. “All this time.”

“I never stopped.”

Sera’s throat tightened. “Why?”

He stared at the screen. “Because she was the first person who lied to my face... and made me believe her anyway.”

Sera looked at him. And for the first time, she didn’t see power or control.

She saw regret.

Before she could say anything, the overhead light flickered once, twice and then the screen in front of them switched.

The surveillance feed from upstairs flicked back on.

Footage scrolled fast hallway to hallway, door to door.

And then, the living room.

Mara stood in the center of it, still as a statue.

Looking directly into the camera.

She smiled.

And raised her hand holding Elise’s notebook.

The one Sera still had.

Sera looked down.

The notebook in her hands… was gone.