Celeste:

  The Lysandre estate looked like something out of a dream that wanted to kill you.

  Moonlight dripped across the marble like spilled milk. Spotlights lit the hedge maze. The staff had been briefed twice, threatened once. And the guest list?

  Monsters in silk.

  Liars in diamonds.

  Family.

  It wasn’t a party so much as a declaration. Vincent’s way of reminding the criminal aristocracy who still held the crown. But this time was different.

  This time, Ethan and I were at the head of the table.

  Not him.

  He didn’t say it out loud, of course. He never did.

  But his eyes, those cold gray knives, lingered on us with a flicker of recognition. He knew. The room didn’t orbit him anymore.

  It orbited us.

  Ethan:

  They wore wealth like war paint.

  Uncles with gunshot scars beneath their cufflinks. Aunts whose smiles could ruin political careers. Cousins raised on bribes and blood, all sipping champagne and pretending not to plot against each other.

  The air was perfume and poison.

  I stood at Celeste’s side, sharp in black velvet, one hand resting on the back of her chair like possession. She didn’t need my protection. She needed my presence. A symbol.

  The poet turned predator.

  The husband who knew how to sharpen a secret into a weapon.

  One of the cousins — Jules — sauntered over. Younger, smug, too high on reputation and not enough on reality. He kissed Celeste’s cheek like he wasn’t already digging his own grave.

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  Celeste:

  “Still married, I see,” Jules smirked.

  “And still irrelevant, I see,” I replied sweetly.

  His smile twitched. “Your new pet still writes poetry, or does he just fetch your kills now?”

  Ethan didn’t say a word.

  He just looked at Jules the way fire looks at dry wood.

  Jules flinched first.

  And I?

  I leaned into Ethan’s shoulder, laughing lightly as if someone had just told me something harmless.

  “You should go back to your table,” I told Jules. “Before I let my husband get nostalgic.”

  Jules paled.

  Good.

  The Party Continued… Briefly.

  There was music — strings and jazz twisted together like lies. Champagne flowed. A deal was signed in the smoking room. A minor family offered us tribute in the form of a painting stolen from a fallen regime.

  Everything was perfect.

  Until the first scream.

  Ethan:

  Gunfire is never polite.

  It came from the east wing — two shots, followed by a crash, followed by panic like a kicked anthill. Glass shattered. People ran. Security scrambled.

  And through it all, Celeste and I stood still.

  She glanced at me. Calm. Sharp.

  I handed her the pistol tucked beneath the hem of my coat. Took the knife from my belt.

  “You thinking inside job?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Family.”

  “Of course,” she sighed, and strode into the chaos like it had RSVP’d just for her.

  Celeste:

  We found the first body on the marble stairwell.

  One of my cousins — Corinne — throat open, eyes wide. She always was too trusting.

  A masked man in formalwear turned the corner with an automatic tucked beneath his tux.

  Wrong move.

  I dropped him before he could blink. Two shots to the chest. Ethan caught the weapon as it fell and didn’t bother asking who he worked for.

  He already knew.

  Jules.

  Ethan:

  We found him in the cellar with three others. All armed. All dressed like party favors. Their plan was textbook: Kill Corinne, fake a security breach, create panic, eliminate the old man while the room scattered.

  And pin it on me.

  Because I’m the outsider.

  The wildcard.

  The problem.

  Too bad I’m also faster.

  The Fight Was Brief.

  Gunfire danced through the wine racks. Bottles exploded. Celeste moved like smoke — dancing between gunmen, laughing, never missing a shot.

  I took a bullet through the coat. Didn’t care.

  I slit one’s throat. Shot another through the eye.

  Left Jules for last.

  He was bleeding, cornered, shaking behind a cabinet of priceless vodka.

  “You’re not one of us!” he spat at me.

  I looked at him.

  Then at Celeste.

  Then back.

  “No,” I said. “I’m better.”

  Celeste:

  Ethan pulled the trigger without flinching.

  And I fell in love all over again.

  LATER THAT NIGHT — BACK UPSTAIRS

  The blood was cleaned. The guests were drunk enough to forget the screams. Vincent raised a glass to the room, voice cold but proud.

  “There was an attempt on this family’s life tonight,” he said. “It failed.”

  He looked at us.

  “To the future.”

  Everyone drank.

  Everyone smiled.

  But only Ethan and I knew:

  This wasn’t just a survival.

  It was a coronation.