Chapter 4 Before the storm

The rain didn't stop. It poured harder, soaking through Celeste's jacket and plastering her hair to her skin, but neither she nor Jace moved to go back. Something about the downpour made the moment feel real-unforgiving, cold, honest.

Jace finally pulled his jacket off his shoulder and draped it over her without a word. She didn't protest. Her fingers gripped the edges, not for warmth, but for grounding.

"You'll have to fly to Geneva," he said after a long beat. "There's no way to get the drive remotely. It's hard-coded into the vault's access panel-only opens with retina and fingerprint scans. Mine."

"So we go together," she said simply.

He hesitated. "If I walk in with you, Victor will know something's wrong. He monitors travel patterns. I've been avoiding that vault for years. The moment it registers a visit-"

"We'll mask it," she interrupted. "Take a private plane under a proxy company. You said Victor taught you how to disappear. Use it."

A trace of a smirk flickered on his face, tired and sharp. "Didn't think you were listening when I said that."

"I always listen," she replied. "Especially when people underestimate me."

He studied her. In the past, he might've teased her. Asked if she'd always been this relentless. But not now. Not in this storm, not with what they were planning.

"You're not afraid of him anymore," he said quietly.

"I am," she admitted. "But I'm more afraid of staying silent."

Jace looked away for the first time. "You remind me of my brother."

She hadn't heard him speak of family-not in depth. Not like this.

"He left years ago," Jace continued. "Cut ties with everyone. Said if he stayed, he'd become just another pawn. Victor hated that. Sent people after him. Claimed it was to bring him home. But it wasn't. He wanted to make sure he stayed quiet."

"Is he alive?"

Jace nodded. "Last I heard. But he's in hiding. If this goes south, I might have to find him. Warn him."

Celeste stepped forward, her voice lower. "If this goes south, we'll both have blood on our hands. But if it works-"

"We burn Victor's empire to the ground."

Their eyes met. No hesitation. No fear. Just resolve.

They started walking back through the garden, footsteps soft in the wet grass. The house loomed ahead, lights glowing faintly through the mist. The storm blurred the edges of everything, but it made one truth clearer than anything else had in years.

They were done waiting.

They were done surviving.

It was time to take control.

Together.

Celeste didn't sleep that night.

She lay in bed with the jacket Jace had given her still draped across her shoulders, the scent of him lingering faintly-clean soap, leather, rain. Her mind replayed every word, every detail, every possibility. There were so many ways this could fall apart.

But it didn't matter anymore.

Inaction had cost her too much already.

By the time morning crept in through the thin curtains, she was up, dressed, and seated at her desk with a burner phone, crafting the first leg of their travel route. Jace had sent over the codes they'd need-secure airfields, identity swaps, encrypted contacts. The kind of access that took years to build and a single mistake to destroy.

At breakfast, she showed up at the dining table like nothing had changed. She sat across from Victor's wife, who picked at her grapefruit and barely looked up. The staff moved quietly, trained for silence.

Victor wasn't back. That was a gift.

She met Jace's eyes only once-when he entered the room fifteen minutes late, dressed in a fitted navy shirt with a casual looseness that didn't match the tightness in his jaw. He greeted his stepmother with a quick kiss on the cheek, poured himself coffee, and sat beside Celeste without a word.

To anyone watching, it was mundane.

To her, it was strategy.

"Going out today?" his stepmother asked, her voice distant.

Jace shrugged. "Might drive down to the coast. Get out of the rain."

Celeste didn't even look up from her cup. "I've got errands. Might join him."

It was the perfect lie-simple, boring. The kind that didn't invite questions.

Later that day, they met again in the garage, away from staff and cameras. Jace handed her a flash drive, and with it, a simple phrase:

"Time to disappear."

They didn't use their real passports. They didn't drive to the city. They took the back road behind the estate, changed cars twice, and boarded a jet under false names.

Celeste kept her head down the entire time, the adrenaline sharp but contained. She wasn't afraid of flying, but she knew the altitude made people think-made secrets echo louder in your head. And for once, her mind was quiet. Focused.

When they landed in Geneva, it was night again. Cold, crisp, with snow flurries beginning to fall like ash.

The city lights shimmered over the frozen lake as they made their way to the private bank, an obsidian building tucked between old stone and modern steel. Jace moved like he'd done this before. He had.

The vault was underground, past three layers of biometric scans and a voiceprint that made her pause.

"Speak the key phrase," the guard instructed.

Jace looked at her, then leaned in and whispered to the mic: "I'm not my father."

The door opened.

Inside, it was silent. Cold. Lit by strips of light embedded in the ceiling.

He approached a long, flat drawer and pressed his palm against it. There was a hiss, and it slid open, revealing a black drive in a steel case.

"This is everything," he said.

She stared at it, her pulse thudding in her ears. It looked so small.

He handed it to her.

And just like that, the balance shifted.

The war had begun.

The weight of the drive in Celeste's hands felt heavier than it should've. Not physically-it was light, almost delicate-but the truth it held was massive.

Years of secrets. Ledgers. Audio recordings. Surveillance footage. Paper trails leading to illegal deals, offshore accounts, buried names... murder.

Victor Vescari's empire laid bare.

She slipped it into the lining of her coat. Jace didn't speak. Neither of them did as they walked out of the vault, past the silent guards, and back into the Geneva night.

Outside, the cold hit them like a wall, but it helped. Kept them alert.

The car was waiting where they'd arranged, parked under an overhang with its engine quietly running. Jace held the door for her, and she slipped inside, fingers curled tightly around the edge of her coat. The moment the doors shut, he turned to the driver.

"Drive the long way. We need to make sure we're not followed."

The man nodded, pulling into the silent street.

They drove in silence for almost fifteen minutes. The city passed them in a blur-snow-covered shops, glowing windows, lives that went on unaware of what sat in Celeste's lap.

Eventually, Jace spoke. "We're not going back to the estate."

"I figured," she said, eyes still on the window.

"There's a place outside Florence. Quiet. Secure. Friend of mine owes me a favor."

She looked at him then. "You trust him?"

"With my life. He got me out once before."

Celeste swallowed hard, her voice low. "We're going to release it, aren't we? The drive."

Jace didn't answer right away. He looked at her, his gaze clear despite everything. "Not all at once. If we dump it now, he'll run. Hide. Bury himself and kill anyone who knows anything."

"Then what?"

"We leak it slow. Controlled. To people who can't be bought. Law enforcement, certain journalists, international bodies. Piece by piece. Enough to back him into a corner without giving him time to chew his way out."

Her chest tightened. "It'll paint a target on us."

"It already has."

Celeste turned away again, her hand tightening around the drive. Her thoughts drifted to her father, to the promises she made to herself the day she buried him. Justice. Revenge. Survival.

Now, she had all three within reach.

But none of it would come easy.

Jace shifted beside her, voice lower. "You can still back out. I won't think less of you."

She met his gaze, unwavering. "We passed the point of no return the moment I took your hand in that garden."

He stared at her for a second, like he wanted to say something more. Maybe about how much this had changed him. Maybe about how much she had.

But instead, he just nodded.

As the car crossed into the outskirts of the city, the snow thickened. The world outside felt muted, distant. But inside, in the low hum of the engine and the quiet between them, everything sharpened.

They weren't just surviving anymore.

They were striking back.

They reached the safe house just before dawn.

It was tucked into the hills outside Florence, where the roads narrowed and the air smelled of pine and old earth. The house itself was modest-stone walls, iron fixtures, shutters worn by time-but inside, it was fortified with quiet precision. Reinforced windows. Surveillance screens hidden behind antique mirrors. A vault beneath the floorboards that no one would suspect.

The man waiting for them was older, graying at the temples, with eyes that missed nothing.

"Rossi," Jace greeted him with a clasp of hands.

"You bring trouble," Rossi said, glancing past him to Celeste.

"I always do."

Rossi's gaze settled on her, not unkind, just sharp. Measuring. Then he gave a slight nod. "Come in. The fire's going."

She stepped inside, warmth licking at her skin as the door shut behind them. Jace stayed close, his hand resting lightly at her lower back-not possessive, just there. A steadying point. Something she didn't know she needed until it was gone.

They didn't speak much as Rossi showed them around. There were two bedrooms, a small study, a pantry stocked for weeks. In the cellar was the secure room where they'd work.

Celeste sat down only after the door to the study locked behind them. She pulled the drive from her coat and set it on the desk between them.

Jace sat across from her, shoulders tense, eyes locked on the tiny device like it might detonate.

"This is it," she whispered.

He nodded. "First step."

Celeste inhaled slowly, her fingers trembling just enough to notice. She steadied herself. Clicked open the drive.

The screen lit up, and with it came the faces of men who had laughed at her father's funeral. Contracts signed in secret. Footage of meetings that should've never happened. An entire world that operated above the law-until now.

Jace leaned forward, scrolling through the files with sharp precision. "We start with the arms deals. Expose one of his foreign buyers. He'll panic. Pull back."

Celeste watched him work. Efficient. Cold. But she saw the flicker in his eyes when her father's name popped up.

"You don't have to carry all of it," she said quietly.

"I'm not. I'm giving it back to the one person who has reason to see it burn."

He looked at her then-really looked-and for a moment, everything fell away.

All the masks. All the silence.

She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. He didn't flinch. Didn't pull away.

"You saved me," she said, voice raw.

He shook his head. "You were never the one who needed saving."

They sat like that for a while. Not planning. Not hiding. Just... being.

The fire crackled in the next room. Snow still fell beyond the shuttered windows.

And inside that small stone house, a storm was quietly building-one that would change everything.