MasukMason's POVWe pulled into the estate just after eight.The drive back from the office was the kind that moved without demands. Both of us mostly quiet, the day settling behind us the way it did when work was productive and nothing urgent was trailing.Jason was on his phone for part of the journey. I drove and let the city pass outside the window and thought about nothing in particular, which was a luxury that didn't always exist on a weeknight.By the time we pulled through the estate entrance I was already thinking about food and a quiet evening and nothing more complicated than that.It was the quality of the quiet inside that shifted all of that within about thirty seconds of stepping through the door.Not the familiar kind. Not the settled quiet of an evening where everyone was in their own space and things were running in the background the way they should.The entrance lights on the way Neris left them when the main rooms were unoccupied, and an absence of anything living movi
Celeste's POVI hit the bottom hard.The impact knocked the air from my lungs and I stayed still for a moment, just breathing, making sure nothing was broken. My palms were raw from instinctively reaching out on the way down. My left knee ached. Everything else was rattled but intact.Above me, footsteps. Fast, receding, already swallowed by the forest before I could even call out.Daren was gone.I pulled myself upright and looked up at the opening of the pit.Too high. Even standing at full height with my arms raised I couldn't get close to the edge, and the walls were sheer packed earth with nothing to grip, no footholds, no roots protruding from the sides that might give me something to work with.I was not getting out of this alone."Help!" I screamed, the word came out of me before I finished the thought. "Someone help me! I am down here! Help!"Silence.The forest. The dim sky above the opening, not yet fully dark but getting there. And nothing coming back but the echo of my ow
Celeste's POVThe drive home from Mercer and Vale was the quiet kind that asked nothing from me.By the time I pulled into the estate I was already thinking about food and a long shower and nothing else in particular. Both Mason and Jason's cars were absent, which wasn't unusual. They kept unpredictable hours when work extended into the evening and things tended to sort themselves out without much drama. I wasn't worried.I went upstairs, changed out of my work clothes, and was midway through loosening my hair when I heard the soft knock at the bedroom door.Neris.She stood in the doorway looking composed but carrying something uncertain at the edges of it, which was not her usual state."Luna." Her voice was low. "There is someone downstairs asking to see you. He says he needs to speak with you urgently.""Who is it?""I have not seen him before." A brief pause. "He is young. A boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old." She hesitated. "He looks very panicked."A boy. Unfamiliar. P
Celeste's POVI knocked twice and waited.There was a pause on the other side that lasted slightly longer than it should have for someone simply sitting at their desk working through client files on an ordinary afternoon.Then the door opened.Vaelina's hair was doing something it was not doing an hour ago. Not dramatically, not in a way a stranger walking past in the corridor would necessarily clock immediately. But I knew Vaelina's hair. I knew what it looked like when she arrived that morning, every strand deliberate, the way she always came in. I knew what it looked like right now.These were two very different states of hair and no amount of styling spray was going to bridge the gap.Torren appeared from just inside the office, jacket on, composed, every inch the professional pack representative. He looked at me with complete calm."Celeste.""Torren," I said.He walked past me and out into the corridor without another word, the clean and deliberate exit of a man who was not int
Vaelina's POVI was back at my desk, half a mind on my files and the other half absolutely elsewhere, when the knock came."Come in."Torren opened the door.He was in a full suit, jacket on, the kind of composed presence he carried into every space he walked into without seeming to try.In one hand he was holding a paper bag that smelled, even from across the room, like something warm and good."I was passing by," he said, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him. "Like I said I would be."I looked at the bag. Then at him."You actually got me food.""You said you were hungry." He set the bag on my desk in front of me. "I said I would bring something. That is how this works."I opened the bag and the smell confirmed everything. I looked up at him. "You are serious.""I am always serious." A small, quiet smile. "Eat before it gets cold."I started pulling things out, already smiling despite every effort not to. He stood across the desk and checked his watch while I arrang
Celeste's POVThe morning at Mercer and Vale was the kind that moved quietly, and I was grateful for it.No back-to-back calls, no urgent requests landing before I finished my first coffee, no fires to put out before the day properly started. Just the clean, manageable rhythm of a Tuesday that intended to cooperate, which I accepted without question and settled into with both hands.I was working through the stack of client files on my desk when I came across it."Aiden Carter."His name on the tab, the file from Torren's proposal sitting in the pile as if it was perfectly ordinary. Professionally it was. Just another account. Another set of terms to manage, finalise, and move forward on.I opened it anyway.I went through it gradually, the way I always did with new material, reading properly rather than skimming. The figures were solid. The investment Aiden was putting behind this particular venture was more than I expected, the kind of commitment that showed he was serious about b







