Chapter 2

Selene POV

I spent three days pretending the world hadn't ended.

Three days of dragging myself to classes I couldn't concentrate on, picking at meals that tasted like cardboard, and dodging concerned looks from my roommate Jessica. Three days of my phone buzzing with texts from Dario that I deleted without reading.

By Thursday morning, I'd almost convinced myself I was fine.

Almost.

The coffee shop near campus buzzed with its usual chaos of students cramming for midterms and freelancers camping out with laptops. I claimed a corner table, spreading my marketing textbooks across the scarred wood surface like armor. If I buried myself deep enough in consumer behavior theories and brand positioning strategies, maybe I could forget the way Dario's hands had moved across another man's skin.

Focus, Selene. You have a presentation tomorrow.

But the words on the page kept blurring together, and every time someone laughed too loud or a chair scraped against the floor, I jumped like a startled cat. My nerves were shot. Everything felt too bright, too loud, too much.

I was reaching for my lukewarm latte when a shadow fell across my table.

"Miss Marcellus."

The voice was deep, accented with something faintly European that made my name sound like music. I looked up, expecting to see another student or maybe Professor Chen checking on my progress.

Instead, I found myself staring into the most piercing gray eyes I'd ever seen.

The man standing beside my table was tall intimidatingly so with silver threading through dark hair that was perfectly styled despite the October wind. His suit was charcoal wool, cut so precisely it looked like it had been sewn directly onto his body. Everything about him screamed money and power, from his Italian leather shoes to the expensive watch glinting at his wrist.

But it was his face that made my breath catch. Sharp cheekbones that could cut glass, a jaw that belonged on a Roman statue, and lips that were currently curved in what might have been a smile if it had reached his eyes. He was devastating in the way that dangerous things often were beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was a small miracle considering my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest.

"Not yet." He gestured to the empty chair across from me. "May I?"

Every instinct I had was screaming at me to say no. This man radiated danger like heat from a flame. But something about the way he'd said my name, like he already knew secrets about me that I didn't know myself, kept me frozen in place.

He sat without waiting for permission, moving with the fluid grace of a predator. Up close, I could see the faint lines around his eyes, the slight crook in his nose that suggested it had been broken at least once. He was older than me maybe forty, maybe more but age only made him more compelling.

"You look like your mother," he said, and the bottom dropped out of my world.

My hands went numb. The coffee shop noise faded to white static. "What did you say?"

"Your mother. Maria Santos, before she married. You have her eyes." His gaze moved over my face like he was memorizing it. "Though your stubborn chin comes from your father."

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Nobody talked about my father. Nobody knew anything about my father except that he'd died in a car crash when I was a baby, leaving my mother alone and pregnant and broke.

"I don't know what game you're playing," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper, "but you need to leave. Now."

"This isn't a game, Selene." The way he said my name made something shiver down my spine. "And I'm not going anywhere until you hear what I have to say."

"About what? About my dead father? About my mother who you've apparently been stalking?" I started shoving my books into my bag with shaking hands. "I'm calling campus security."

His hand shot out, covering mine before I could reach my phone. His skin was warm, callused in unexpected places, and the contact sent electricity shooting up my arm.

"Your father isn't dead."

Time stopped.

The words hit me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. I stared at him, searching his face for any sign that this was some sick joke, but his expression was deadly serious.

"That's impossible," I whispered. "He died in a crash. My mother told me"

"Your mother told you what she needed to tell you to keep you safe." His thumb brushed across my knuckles, a gesture that should have been comforting but somehow felt possessive. "But you're not safe anymore, Selene. Not after what happened with Dario."

The mention of my ex-boyfriend's name made me flinch. "How do you know about Dario?"

Something that might have been amusement flickered in his gray eyes. "Dario is my son."

The world tilted sideways again, just like it had three nights ago in that perfect apartment. But this time, I felt like I was falling into an abyss with no bottom.

"Your son," I repeated numbly.

"Caspian Santoro." He released my hand and extended his own in a mockery of polite introduction. "And you, my dear, are about to learn that everything you thought you knew about your life was a lie."

I didn't take his hand. Couldn't. My brain was trying to process too much information at once and failing spectacularly. Dario's father. The man whose son had just shattered my heart was sitting across from me, telling me my entire life was fiction.

"I don't understand." The words felt thick in my mouth. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

Caspian leaned back in his chair, and I caught a glimpse of something dark and dangerous lurking beneath his polished exterior. "I want to offer you a choice, Selene. Because in about twenty-four hours, you're not going to have one."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means your biological father Lucien Marcellus knows exactly who you are and where to find you. And unlike me, he doesn't believe in giving people options."

The name hit me like ice water. Marcellus. My last name. The name I'd always been told came from my mother's first husband, a man who'd adopted me before disappearing from our lives when I was too young to remember.

"You're lying." But even as I said it, I could hear the doubt in my own voice.

"Am I?" Caspian reached into his jacket, and for one terrifying moment, I thought he was going for a weapon. Instead, he pulled out a photograph and slid it across the table.

It was old, the colors slightly faded, but clear enough to make my heart stop. A man who looked exactly like me same dark hair, same stubborn chin, same wide brown eyes stood with his arm around a woman I barely recognized. My mother, but younger, happier, wearing a white dress and a smile I'd never seen before.

"Wedding photo," Caspian said quietly. "Maria Santos and Lucien Marcellus, 1999. You were born eight months later."

I stared at the photograph until my eyes burned. The man in the picture looked nothing like the faceless figure I'd imagined my entire life. He looked real. Solid. Alive.

"This could be anyone," I whispered, but the words sounded hollow even to me.

"It could be," Caspian agreed. "But we both know it's not."

He was right. Looking at that photograph was like looking into a mirror that showed me thirty years in the future. The resemblance was undeniable.

"Why now?" I asked. "If he's alive, if he's been alive this whole time, why hasn't he"

"Contacted you? Tried to see you?" Caspian's smile was sharp as a blade. "Because your mother made a deal with very dangerous people to keep you hidden. But deals like that don't last forever, especially when the stakes change."

"What stakes?"

"War, Selene. The kind of war that leaves bodies in the street and blood on the evening news." He leaned forward, and I caught the scent of his cologne something dark and expensive that made my head spin. "Your father wants to use you as leverage. A bargaining chip to secure alliances and settle old debts."

"Use me how?"

The question seemed to amuse him. "Marriage, most likely. To someone who can help him consolidate power. Someone ruthless enough to keep you in line and valuable enough to make the alliance worth his while."

My hands were shaking again. Everything felt surreal, like I was trapped in someone else's nightmare. "This is insane. I'm nobody. I work at a coffee shop and live in a dorm room that's smaller than most closets. I'm not I can't be"

"You're Lucien Marcellus's daughter," Caspian interrupted. "His only child. His heir. In our world, that makes you royalty whether you want it or not."

Our world. The way he said it made something cold settle in my stomach.

"What world?" I asked, even though part of me already knew the answer.

Caspian's smile was all teeth and shadows. "The kind where power is currency and blood is collateral. Where men like your father and I decide who lives and who disappears in the night."

He stood, straightening his perfect suit, and suddenly the coffee shop felt too small to contain him. Too ordinary for whatever he represented.

"I'll be in touch, Selene. Soon." He dropped a business card next to the photograph heavy cardstock with just a phone number, no name or company. "When you're ready to discuss your options."

"Wait." The word tumbled out before I could stop it. "You said I had a choice. What choice?"

Caspian paused, his hand on the back of his chair, and for a moment, something almost like pity flickered across his features.

"Marry my son," he said simply. "Let me protect you from your father and his plans. Or wait for Lucien to come for you himself."

Then he was walking away, leaving me alone with a photograph of parents I'd never known and the sudden, terrifying understanding that my ordinary life had just become extraordinary in the worst possible way.

I picked up the business card with trembling fingers. The paper was still warm from his touch.