Chapter 2 He's Watching

Lyra Vale had broken into banks, private penthouses, and once, a high-security embassy gala. But nothing, nothing felt like this. The basement of the Arceo estate wasn't just locked. It was alive.

She had slipped past the guards like smoke, heels swapped for silent flats, dress hem tucked above her knees. She made it past the coded doors and steel-lined vault like she was meant to be there.

But now? Now the walls were whispering.

A red light blinked quietly from a carved arch she hadn't noticed before.

"Shit," she muttered, breath catching.

This wasn't just a basement.

It was a net.

Upstairs, beyond the chandeliers and wine glasses, Damian Arceo leaned forward in the surveillance room, lips curling in quiet interest.

"There," he said, pointing to the screen. "She's in deeper than expected."

Lucien raised a brow. "You want her caught?"

Damian watched as she pulled open a dusty file case and pocketed a few folded documents, then swiped three old photos into her purse with a thief's grace.

"No," Damian said coolly. Deep in thought.

Lyra's breath grew tighter with every echo of boots in the hallway outside.

She clutched the stolen files close, ducked low, and pressed her back against the cold wall. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

There's no way back out.

The route she came in through had been locked automatically, she guessed. A smart system. One she hadn't prepared for.

She tried to move, fast and low, toward the secondary corridor, but two guards rounded the corner too soon. She flattened behind a pillar, heart hammering.

A sudden whisper behind her: "Wrong turn, princess."

She spun, nearly lashing out - until a firm hand grabbed her wrist mid-air.

The man was tall, casually dressed in a gray hoodie and worn jeans. Not a guard. Not a guest. And definitely not part of her plan.

His face was shadowed, hood drawn low, but there was something deliberate about the calm in his voice.

"Unless you want to get caught," he said, "you might want to follow me."

Lyra hesitated. She didn't trust anyone, especially strange men in castles she didn't belong to.

But she had no choice.

He moved fast, silent. Down a narrow, unlit hallway that wasn't on any of the floor plans Isla had hacked. He tapped something on the wall, a hidden panel, maybe and a door clicked open into darkness.

"In," he said.

She slipped inside, and the panel closed behind her with a hiss.

She was in a utility tunnel, barely wide enough for two. Pipes above her head. Dust and rust everywhere.

She turned to thank him, but he was already gone.

By the time she emerged behind the east greenhouse, breathless and soaked in sweat, the estate was still humming quietly with polite grief. No one noticed her rejoin the party from the side garden. No one saw the panic in her eyes.

She disappeared into the crowd before any guard could ask questions.

Back inside, in one of the estate's many private wings, Damian pulled down the hood of his sweatshirt and watched the security footage rewind in silence.

There she was again - smart hands, sharper instincts, but not nearly sharp enough.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small locket she had dropped in the scramble.

He opened it.

A photo inside. A woman he recognized. From the past.

A memory that shouldn't have returned.

Damian's lips curled into a faint smirk.

"Got you."

The city lights blurred behind the tinted windows as the car sped away from the Arceo estate.

Lyra sat in the backseat, silent.

She hadn't spoken since she slid into the vehicle. Not even when Marco looked at her through the rearview mirror with that familiar blend of panic and awe.

"You made it out," he finally muttered. "Barely."

Lyra exhaled, eyes locked on the documents in her lap. A name. A birth date. A photograph. A handwritten line beside her mother's name, something scrawled in old ink: 'Unverified. Non-consensual. No claim filed.'

She didn't know what it meant yet, but it was something. A thread in the mess of her life she was finally ready to pull.

"I had no exit route," she murmured. "They locked the path behind me. Auto-triggered doors."

"You were supposed to have twenty minutes."

"I had ten. Maybe less."

Marco swore under his breath, pulling into the underground parking of their safehouse. "We're scrapping the rest of the plan. They saw you."

"They didn't catch me," she snapped.

"You don't know that." He slammed the door shut behind them, voice low and sharp. "You underestimated the Arceos, Lyra. That wasn't some rich guy's wake, that was a viper's den. You don't just walk in and out of places like that. That place watches everything."

Lyra paused mid-step.

She remembered the soft red light in the hallway. The doors that locked behind her. The way that strange man, hooded and calm, knew exactly where to go. Like he knew the place as if he belonged there..

Her chest tightened.

She touched her locket on instinct. Eyes widened.

Gone.