CHAPTER 12: MOVING IN

They didn't tell anyone about the text.

Not Pri, who hugged Temi so hard at the reception she nearly knocked the small bouquet from her hands, laughing and crying in equal measure and asking a dozen questions Temi answered with half her attention elsewhere. Not Naomi, who circulated through the small crowd of guests with the watchful efficiency of a woman still calculating risk even during a celebration. Not even Elias, who caught Temi's eye once across the room with an expression so knowing it made her wonder, briefly, whether he already suspected something had happened, before deciding she was reading too much into an old man's natural perceptiveness. The small reception, tucked into a private room adjoining the chapel, felt almost surreal in its ordinariness, string lights and a simple three tier cake and a handful of guests who had no idea what had nearly derailed the ceremony an hour earlier.

Adrian found her near the edge of the small gathering an hour later, two glasses of champagne in hand, neither of which either of them had actually touched. The band was still playing something soft in the background, guests drifting between tables in twos and threes, none of them aware of the quiet tension humming beneath the celebration's surface.

"Vivian's already looking into the number," he said quietly, handing her one of the glasses more as a prop than an actual drink. "Untraceable so far. Burner phone, purchased with cash, no account attached. Whoever sent it knew exactly what they were doing." He kept his voice low, angling his body slightly to block the view of anyone who might glance their way from across the reception hall.

"You think it's your father."

"I think it has his fingerprints on it, even if I can't prove it yet. The timing alone. Sent within minutes of the ceremony ending, which means whoever sent it either had eyes on the chapel directly or someone inside feeding them information in real time." Adrian's gaze swept briefly over the small crowd of guests, and Temi understood, with a small chill, exactly what he was doing. Wondering which of the smiling faces around them might not be entirely trustworthy.

"We should tell Naomi. And Vivian, properly, not just a quiet phone call." Temi kept her voice low, aware of guests still drifting nearby, the last thing either of them needed being overheard discussing threats in the middle of their own reception.

"We will. Tonight, after everyone's gone." Adrian's jaw tightened. "I don't want to hand him the satisfaction of watching it derail the one night my grandfather actually got to see me married. Whatever this is, it can wait a few more hours."

Temi nodded, though the tension sat heavy in her chest for the rest of the evening, a low current running beneath every toast and every photograph and every well wishing guest who had no idea the bride and groom they were congratulating had received an anonymous threat minutes after saying their vows.

By the time the last guests filtered out and the small chapel grounds went quiet under a sky full of more stars than Temi ever saw from her apartment in the city, exhaustion had settled into her bones in a way that made even standing feel like an effort. Adrian's driver took them back to the city in near silence, both of them too drained to fill the space with conversation, the day's events finally catching up in the stillness of the car. Temi watched the dark countryside give way slowly to the first scattered lights of the outer boroughs, her wedding ring still unfamiliar and heavy on her finger, catching the occasional streetlight as they passed.

The Voss penthouse, when they finally arrived, felt different to Temi walking in as a wife rather than a fiancée moving her things in temporarily. The space itself hadn't changed. Same soaring windows overlooking the park, same sparse, expensive furniture that looked more like a design magazine spread than an actual home. But something about the framing had shifted, the knowledge that this was now, legally and irreversibly, hers as much as his, settling strangely in her chest as she stood in the entryway still wearing her wedding dress. She ran a hand along the back of the nearest chair, half expecting the apartment to feel foreign the way it had the first time she'd walked through it weeks ago, and was surprised to find it didn't, not entirely.

"Your things are already in the east wing," Adrian said, setting his jacket over the back of a chair, his tie long gone, sleeves rolled up in the particular exhausted disarray of a man who had spent the day fighting several battles at once. "I had the staff move everything over this afternoon while we were upstate. There's a room set up for you. Whenever you're ready to see it." He gestured vaguely down the hallway, the gesture itself somehow more tired than anything he'd said all evening.

"Whenever I'm ready," Temi repeated, something in the phrasing catching her attention. "Separate rooms."

"That was the arrangement in the contract, unless you wanted to renegotiate." Adrian's expression stayed carefully neutral, though Temi caught the faint tension underneath it, the same bracing for weather she'd noticed in him the very first night they met. "I didn't want to assume anything had changed just because today happened the way it did."

Temi considered the question longer than she expected to, standing in the middle of a penthouse that belonged to her now in every legal sense and still felt entirely like his. She thought about the late night phone call two days ago, about the version of Adrian who'd told her about fishing off a dock with his grandfather, about the version who'd looked at her across that aisle today like she was the only steady thing left in a world actively trying to burn down around him. She thought, too, about how strange it was that a marriage born entirely out of desperation could somehow already feel like the realest thing she'd built in years.

"I think," she said slowly, "given everything happening with your father, and the clause we still have to satisfy, separate rooms might not make practical sense. At least not entirely."

Something flickered across Adrian's face, surprise and something warmer underneath it, quickly schooled back into careful neutrality. "That's your decision to make. Not something I want to pressure you into, tonight of all nights, given how the day actually went."

"You're not pressuring me. I'm telling you what I think makes sense." Temi crossed the room toward him, still in her wedding dress, still exhausted, still rattled by an anonymous threat sitting unresolved in both their phones, and found herself standing close enough to see the fine details of exhaustion etched into his face, the same details she'd started noticing more and more since that first night in the bar. "We got married today because of a will and a deadline and a father determined to destroy both of us in the process. But somewhere in the middle of all that, this stopped feeling like only a contract to me. I don't know exactly when it happened. I just know it did."

Adrian was quiet for a long moment, studying her with an intensity that made her pulse pick up despite the exhaustion weighing down every other part of her.

"It stopped feeling like only a contract to me too," he said finally, his voice rougher than usual. "Longer ago than I've been willing to admit, even to myself."

The admission hung in the air between them, more honest than anything either of them had said aloud since that first strange proposal in a dim, quiet bar days ago. The space between them had narrowed without either of them fully deciding to close it, and for a moment Temi thought he might kiss her again, properly this time, without an officiant's cue or a room full of witnesses waiting for the expected gesture. But before either of them could move any closer, Adrian's phone buzzed sharply on the counter behind him, the sound cutting through the quiet like something breaking.

He crossed to check it, and Temi watched his expression shift instantly from something soft and unguarded into something hard and alert, all warmth gone from his face in the span of a single breath.

"What is it," she asked.

Adrian turned the phone toward her without a word.

Another text. Same unknown number. A single attached photograph this time, grainy but unmistakable, taken from some distance away with what looked like a long lens camera. It showed the two of them standing together outside the chapel earlier that evening, caught in an unguarded moment neither of them had realized anyone was watching, close enough that whoever took it must have been hiding somewhere among the very hedges Temi had stood beside with Camille only hours before.

Beneath the photo, a single line of text.

*I have more where this came from. Meet my terms, or I make sure the whole world sees exactly what kind of marriage this really is.*

Temi stared at the words until they blurred slightly, the warmth of the moment before shattered so completely it felt like it had happened days ago rather than seconds. Across from her, Adrian's expression had gone somewhere cold and distant, the particular stillness of a man doing rapid, silent calculations about how much danger they were actually in, and how fast it was closing in around them both. Whatever fragile beginning they'd just found in that quiet living room now felt impossibly far away, buried under the weight of a threat neither of them had seen coming on what was supposed to be the one uncomplicated night of this entire ordeal.

Temi stared at the words until they blurred slightly, the warmth of the moment before shattered so completely it felt like it had happened days ago rather than seconds. Across from her, Adrian's expression had gone somewhere cold and distant, the particular stillness of a man doing rapid, silent calculations about how much danger they were actually in, and how fast it was closing in around them both.