Celeste:

  The blood hadn’t even dried in the cellar before the music picked back up.

  Vincent ordered another bottle of 1895 Bordeaux opened like nothing had happened — because in this family, nothing ever happens, unless we say it did.

  The guests returned to the ballroom with trembling hands and fixed smiles, dancing beneath chandeliers that had just echoed with screams.

  That’s the Lysandre legacy: We turn executions into ambiance.

  I watched them spin — politicians, smugglers, heiresses in gowns laced with guilt and pearls. The band never missed a note. Glasses clinked like applause. A little violence wasn’t going to ruin the mood.

  And me?

  I couldn’t stop looking at him.

  Ethan.

  Black coat tailored, hair a little wild, blood at the cuff still not cleaned. He was laughing with one of my cousins — the one who once said he was "too pretty to be dangerous."

  Now she wouldn’t meet his eyes for more than a second.

  Because tonight… he wasn’t just mine.

  He wasn't just the husband.

  He was a threat.

  And God help me, I’d never loved him more.

  Ethan:

  I felt her watching me.

  Not like an admirer.

  Like a wolf waiting for the right moment.

  The party blurred around me — laughter, wine, a dozen whispered deals happening in the corners of the estate. I played the part: polite smile, sharp eyes, my hand always resting just a little too close to my knife.

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  But I only had attention for one thing.

  Her.

  She walked across the ballroom like gravity bent around her. Crimson silk, still flawless. Lips stained dark. One hand holding a glass, the other tucked behind her back like a promise.

  And when she passed me?

  She didn’t speak.

  She just slipped a hotel room key into my pocket.

  Except it wasn’t a hotel.

  It was the bathroom down the hall.

  Celeste:

  He followed exactly three minutes later.

  Not too fast. Not suspicious.

  But I felt it when the door opened behind me.

  I was leaning against the marble sink, lipstick freshly reapplied, gown adjusted, mask still on.

  He didn’t speak.

  He locked the door. Slowly.

  And I turned around.

  Formal.

  Composed.

  Deadly.

  I reached up and fixed the bloodstain on his collar with a napkin.

  Then I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.

  Not hungry.

  Not needy.

  Formal.

  Like I was reclaiming a king.

  Ethan:

  Her kiss wasn’t wild — it was deliberate.

  Calculated.

  Her mouth moved against mine like it had purpose. Like this was a power move, not a love letter.

  But her fingers? They curled at the nape of my neck. Soft. Reverent.

  She pressed me back against the door with a kind of tension I recognized from warzones — slow, measured, absolute.

  She wasn’t losing control.

  She was choosing to let it slip — just a little.

  I touched her waist. The silk. The shape.

  She pulled back, breathing hard.

  "Say it," she whispered.

  Celeste:

  "You made me fall in love with you again."

  I didn’t want to say it.

  But I needed to.

  Because when he shot Jules — no hesitation, no mercy — he didn’t do it for the family.

  He did it for me.

  Because he knew Jules was going to tarnish me.

  And Ethan?

  He’d rather kill every last guest than let someone make me look weak.

  And that?

  That’s love.

  "I don’t need flowers, Ethan," I whispered, lips brushing his ear. "I don’t need poems or songs. I need this."

  His mouth moved down to my neck. Gentle. Focused. Like he was painting in heat and breath.

  "This," I repeated, tugging his belt just enough to hear him groan. "The part where I know you’d kill a room full of people just so I don’t have to explain myself."

  Ethan:

  “I already have,” I murmured.

  And then I kissed her again — slower this time.

  Not because we had time.

  But because this wasn’t about lust.

  It was about power.

  About being hers.

  And knowing that no one else in the world — no one — could make someone like Celeste Lysandre melt in formalwear in a locked marble bathroom five minutes after a murder.

  We didn’t undress.

  We didn’t rush.

  We didn’t lose control.

  Because we didn’t need to.

  The whole city might call us monsters.

  But in here?

  In this echo chamber of perfume, blood, and gold leaf walls?

  We were just husband and wife.

  Still dressed for war.

  Still dressed for the party.

  But kissing like everything else was beneath us.