Juno’s grip is iron on my wrist. She drags me up the stone steps of St. Perpetua’s before I can dig my heels in.

"Just ten minutes, Celeste," she murmurs, her shoulder checking the heavy wooden doors. "We show our faces, we’re out. It’s not even someone I was close to."

We step inside. The world instantly presses down on us.

Gothic arches soar overhead, trapping the thick, cloying scent of lilies and melting wax. Stained glass bleeds crimson and bruised blue light across rows of silent mourners.

Click. Click. My heels strike the black-and-white tiles. Too loud. Too fast. I shrink behind Juno's shoulder, my palm smoothing the hem of my black dress. My skin prickles. Every rational part of me is screaming to turn around and bolt.

Then, the hush in the room sharpens.

It feels like stepping into a frozen lake. Heads turn. Necks crane. The low hum of whispered condolences stops mid-sentence. The only sounds left in the cavernous space are the shuddering sobs of a woman in the front pew and the heavy, unsteady chime of the church clock.

My eyes pull toward the altar. I can't stop them.

White lilies. Flickering pillar candles. A polished mahogany casket.

And next to it—a photograph displayed on a gilded easel.

I freeze. My lungs stop working.

The woman in the picture has golden-brown curls. Storm-grey eyes flecked with green. A small, unmistakable mole sitting just beneath her left ear. Her smile is gentle, caught off guard by the camera.

I have never seen her before in my life.

But she is me. She looks exactly like me.

Ice coats my spine. A cold sweat breaks out across my nape. I force myself to look away from the easel, only to find a sea of strangers staring at me. Some gape openly. Others press manicured hands over their mouths.

A frail woman near the front row pushes herself up. Her hair is as white as the funeral flowers. Her hands shake violently as she points a crooked finger in my direction.

"Ondine?!"

Her voice is cracked. Raw. It slices through the dead silence.

The name echoes off the stone walls. My thighs lock together. My pulse slams against my ribs, a trapped bird battering a cage.

Juno’s nails bite into my forearm.

"Fuck," she whispers. The color entirely drains from her face. "Celeste, we need to go. Right now."

We backpedal toward the exit. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm in my throat. But before my hand can brush the heavy iron handle of the door, the crowd parts. It ripples open like a wound.

Someone is coming.

A man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in an immaculate, blacked-out Italian wool suit. His hair is ink-dark, swept back from a ruthless brow. His face is carved from ice and pure shadow.

Every step he takes is deliberate. Silent. Predatory.

He doesn’t look at Juno. He doesn’t look at the crowd. His storm-grey eyes—sharp as broken glass—are locked entirely on me.

My breath snags. The church spins, but it has nothing to do with the dead woman or the staring crowd.

It's him.

Not a rumor. Not a ghost. Him.

The man from a rain-slicked street in the West Village ten years ago. The man who shoved me out of the path of a speeding car and vanished. The man whose newspaper clippings are currently locked in a wooden box under my bed.

Thorne Ashbourne.

I have watched him from the shadows for a decade. I have played piano in candlelit halls halfway across the world just to stop thinking about him. And now, he is walking right toward me.

My panic roars. I need to run. But my legs turn to lead. I am rooted to the spot, entirely consumed by the gravity of him.

He clears the distance in three massive strides.

Before I can take a breath, his hand shoots out. Large. Cold. Unforgiving.

His fingers clamp around my throat. He shoves me back, hard.

My spine slams into a marble pillar. The impact punches the air from my lungs. White stars explode at the edges of my vision.

His grip tightens, his thumb pressing directly over my wildly fluttering pulse. The metallic glint of a Patek Philippe watch flashes at his wrist.

The scent of expensive scotch and bitter winter air washes over me. Intoxicating. Suffocating. His eyes bore into mine, ripping me open, searching for a ghost. I see the raw, festering wound there. The rage. The violent, consuming grief.

I claw at his wrist. My short nails bite into his warm, solid skin. My lungs burn for oxygen, but a sick, shameful thrill shoots straight to my core. He is touching me. "Let her go!" Juno’s voice cracks in panic. She grabs his arm, pulling with all her weight. He doesn't even flinch. He's a stone wall. "She’s not—she’s not Ondine, I swear!"

He ignores her. His attention never leaves my mouth. My eyes. The mole beneath my left ear.

His jaw ticks. The knuckles of his hand whiten against my skin. The beast inside him is fully awake, vibrating with the urge to either crush my windpipe or devour me whole. The entire church holds its breath.

He leans in closer. His thighs brush my skirt. The heat radiating off his body is a furnace.

"Who the hell are you?" His voice is a low, deadly vibration against my skin. "And why are you wearing her face?"

Thorne’s fingers tighten around my throat.

The world shrinks to a single, pulsing point of pain. My heart hammers so violently I can hear it in my teeth. Juno is beside me, shouting, pleading, pulling at his arm. I can barely hear her. Her words blur into a dull, rushing roar.

My vision darkens at the edges. Fraying into black. The air in the cathedral is suddenly too thick, suffocating me with the scent of melting wax and the sickening sweetness of funeral lilies. My lungs burn. They scream for oxygen.

For a terrifying second, my mind spirals. Is this how she died? The woman in the casket? Choked out by hands just like these?

Two security guards in dark suits step forward from the shadows of the nave.

Thorne doesn't even turn his head. He shoots them a single, peripheral look—so cold, so steeped in quiet violence—that both massive men freeze mid-step. They don't dare intervene. The entire congregation watches in stunned, breathless silence. Like they are witnessing a sacrifice.

My knees buckle. I'm slipping. The edges of the world are completely giving way.

Crack.

The sharp, echoing strike of wood against marble snaps through the church.

An old man steps out from the gloom. Augustus Ashbourne. The patriarch. His silver-tipped cane strikes the floor again, the sound vibrating straight through the soles of my shoes.

“Thorne.” Augustus’s voice is gravel and rusted iron. Commanding. Absolute. His face is carved from ancient stone, his eyes sharp and entirely unforgiving. “Let go. Are you planning to kill another soul at Ondine’s memorial?”

For a split second, Thorne doesn’t move. The beast inside him refuses to yield. His jaw twitches. His fingers remain clamped around my pulse, the heat of his skin searing into mine.

Crack. The cane strikes a third time.

Thorne’s hand falls away. Violently.

I hit the cold stone floor. Hard. Air rushes back into my lungs, burning like acid. I gasp, my coughs echoing harsh and ragged against the vaulted ceiling.

Augustus steps closer. The slow, deliberate tap-tap-tap of his cane stops right in front of me. He holds out a crystal glass of water. His hands are weathered, veins mapping rivers beneath translucent skin.

I take it. My hands are shaking so badly the water sloshes over the rim, freezing against my skin. I force myself to drink. The cold grounds me, easing the raw fire in my throat just enough to speak.

Augustus studies my face. His gaze is surgical. Peeling back my skin. “Child. What is your name?”

I press my thighs together to stop them from trembling. “Celeste.” My voice is a broken whisper. “Celeste Marlowe.”

A dangerous, suffocating hush falls over the room. The name rolls through the pews. It stretches. It twists. I feel a hundred pairs of eyes settle on my skin—heavy with disbelief, suspicion, and a very sharp, distinct fear.

I glance up. Thorne is staring at me. The pure rage in his storm-grey eyes is now fractured by a violent, disorienting confusion.

“Thorne,” Augustus says quietly, his breath rattling in his chest. “Let her leave. This isn’t her fault.”

Thorne stands over me. A towering shadow of bespoke Italian wool and suppressed violence.

“No.” His voice is flat. Terrifyingly calm. “She can’t leave.”

The words drop like lead weights. My core clenches.

Thorne turns his head slightly, not looking away from me, but addressing a sharp-jawed man in a navy suit standing near the front pew.

“Get her identity. Her address. Everything.” Thorne's tone leaves no room for negotiation. “I want it on my desk tonight.”

The lawyer simply nods. He pulls out his phone and starts typing immediately.

A fresh wave of ice floods my veins. This isn't just a funeral. I've stumbled into a deep, dark ocean, and I don't know how to swim.

Juno hooks her arms under mine. She hauls me to my feet. The cathedral spins, but I force my legs to lock. I force myself to walk.

Thorne doesn't stop us this time. But I feel his gaze burning into my spine the entire way down the aisle. Relentless. A promise of ruin.

....

We push through the heavy wooden doors. The bruised, angry sky above the city has cracked open. Icy rain pours down in sheets.

We stumble across the slick pavement. Juno shoves me into the passenger seat of her car and slams the door. The world outside instantly blurs, the rain streaking down the windshield like violent tears.

Juno’s hands are shaking so badly she misses the ignition twice.

“Celeste.” Her voice cracks. Mascara tracks run dark down her pale cheeks. “Oh my god. Do you have any idea what you just walked into?”

I press my cold hands over my face. My throat throbs, holding the exact shape of Thorne's fingers. “I don’t know anything.”

Juno drops her head against the steering wheel. She's hyperventilating. “The dead woman. Her name was Ondine Beaumont. She was Thorne’s fiancée.”

I stop breathing.

“She died three years ago,” Juno whispers, her voice shaking. “A yacht explosion in the Mediterranean. They only just recovered the body yesterday. Today was the memorial.”

My mind reels. The puzzle pieces smash together in chaotic fragments. I have his dead fiancée's face.

“You look exactly like her, Celeste.” Juno turns to me. Her eyes are wide with terror. “Exactly like her. That’s why he lost his mind.”

The car falls dead silent. Only the thunder of the rain hammers against the roof.

I pull my phone from my clutch. I need something solid. Something that belongs to me. I tap the screen. It glows to life, illuminating the lock screen.

It’s the blurry photo. Ten years old. A man’s silhouette, his back turned, half-lit by an amber streetlight. The man I just left standing in the cathedral.

I trace the blurry outline with my thumb. My pulse kicks into a low, frantic rhythm.

The Ashbourne family is coming for me. A billionaire who could snap my neck is going to tear my life apart tonight to find out who I am. He will find my address. He will find my debts. He will drag me into his world whether I scream or not.

I should be terrified. Every rational part of me is begging me to pack a bag and disappear before morning.

But as I stare at the photo, tracing the broad line of his shoulders, a dark, shameful heat pools in my stomach.

I’ve been hunting him in the shadows for ten years.

Now, he is hunting me.

And goddess help me... I am going to let him catch me.

The knock comes at 2:00 a.m.

Not a polite tap. Not a neighbor who locked themselves out. Three hard, deliberate slams. The wood rattles in the frame.

I jolt upright from the couch. My pulse instantly slams against my ribs. I am still wearing the black funeral dress. My throat aches—a deep, sharp throb holding the exact shape of Thorne Ashbourne’s fingers.

I cross the living room, my bare feet silent on the hardwood. I press my eye to the peephole.

Two men. Dark suits. Blank expressions. The taller one has a thick manila envelope tucked under his arm.

I slide the chain on and open the door just an inch.

"Miss Marlowe." The taller man doesn't wait for a response. He shoves the envelope through the narrow gap. It's heavy. I catch it with both hands. "Have a good night."

They turn and walk away. The dim hallway swallows them up, quiet as shadows.

I close the door. Lock the deadbolt. I carry the envelope to the kitchen table and let it drop.

The clasp is already undone.

I pull out the stack of papers.

My own face stares back at me from a Juilliard ID photo I haven't seen in twelve years. Twenty-year-old Celeste Marlowe. Hair pulled back tight. Trying to look serious. Below it is my complete undergraduate transcript. Piano performance. Every grade. Every professor's name. Every recital I ever played.

My stomach tightens. I flip to the next page.

A police report. Date: March 14th, fourteen years ago. Vehicle collision. Route 9, upstate New York. Two fatalities.

My parents' names are printed in cold, bureaucratic type. I haven't looked at this document since the week of their funeral. I didn't even know a civilian could just obtain it.

I keep going.

Every freelance curating contract I’ve signed over the past six years. Tax filings. Bank statements. A receipt from my dentist dated eleven months ago—root canal, lower left molar, $1,400 out of pocket.

My hands stop shaking. Something colder replaces the fear.

Thorne Ashbourne has completely dismantled my life. He laid it flat on paper, organized it by date, and had someone annotate the margins in precise black ink. Whoever assembled this was thorough, efficient, and completely without mercy. I am stripped bare. Exposed.

But then, I notice it.

I flip through to the end, scanning the pages twice.

Nothing.

There is no mention of La Veilée. No Swiss registration. No concert recordings. No royalty payments routed through the account I set up in Geneva eight years ago. That identity is buried under three layers of legal insulation and a name I have never used in English.

Thorne Ashbourne has resources I can't even fathom—and he still hit a wall.

A small, reckless spark of triumph ignites in my chest.

Then I reach the bottom of the stack.

A single sheet of heavy, cream-colored cardstock. Unstapled. Sitting alone like a period at the end of a sentence.

Handwritten. One line.

Tomorrow. 9 a.m. Ashbourne Tower, 42nd floor. One second late, and you will never work in this city again.

No signature. He doesn't need one.

I trace the aggressive, sharp strokes of the black ink. He doesn't ask. He commands. The threat isn't a bluff. He will ruin me if I don't show up.

I should be terrified. Every rational, sane part of me is screaming to pack a bag, drive to the airport, and disappear.

But I don't.

Instead, I take the note into the bedroom. The fluorescent light of the bathroom mirror is unforgiving. I stare at my reflection. The curve of my jaw. The storm-grey eyes. The small mole beneath my left ear.

Ondine Beaumont had the same mole. I saw it in the framed photograph at the church.

I turn away from the mirror. I kneel beside my bed and pull out the wooden box hidden behind a stack of old shoeboxes. Dark walnut. Brass latch.

The lock clicks open.

On top is a newspaper clipping. Yellowed at the edges. Soft from being touched too many times.

Ashbourne Group Names Thorne Ashbourne Interim Director. The photo shows him at a press conference. Younger by a decade. Jaw set. Eyes already carrying that ruthless, heavy weight.

I cut this out of a business section ten years ago. The week after a stranger shoved me out of the path of a speeding car on a rain-slicked street in the West Village. He saved my life, bleeding onto the pavement, and disappeared into the crowd before I could even gasp a thank you.

I have kept this clipping for a decade. Below it are nine years of Ashbourne Group annual reports. A blurry photograph I took of him crossing Fifth Avenue, his back turned to me. A concert program from Zurich, where I played Chopin behind a white Venetian mask, pretending I wasn't thinking about him.

I trace his printed face in the old newspaper.

I am a stalker. I am insane. I am a moth actively flying toward an open furnace.

Heat pools low in my stomach. A dark, shameful thrill twists through my veins. He found me. After ten years of watching him from the shadows, Thorne Ashbourne is demanding I walk into his office.

I close the box. Lock it.

"Thorne," I whisper to the empty room. The name tastes dangerous on my tongue. Familiar and forbidden.

I pick up the heavy cardstock note and place it on my nightstand.

I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m.

I am going to walk right into his cage.