Chapter 14 Smoke and Mirrors
Celeste Bellerose
Celeste sat on the edge of the bed, her legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees. The soft glow of the bedside lamp barely touched the shadows stretching across the room, but it was enough to illuminate the tension wrapped around Nick’s shoulders like a vice.
He hadn’t moved since the message arrived.
Across the room, he stood with his back to her, his phone gripped tight in his hand, his body rigid with barely restrained fury. The message— "The pieces are already in motion, Malone. You’re just too late to stop them."—still burned like an open fire between them.
Celeste knew that silence, knew the storm that brewed beneath it.
Nick wasn’t just pissed.
He was calculating.
Planning.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe past the knot forming in her chest. This wasn’t the Nick she had spent the night tangled with, the one who had worshipped every inch of her body, made her feel like she was the center of his world.
This was the Nick that the criminals of New York City whispered about. The hunter. The predator. The man who didn’t just go after threats—he eliminated them.
A shiver crawled down her spine, but it wasn’t fear.
It was something far worse.
Doubt.
Nick had been the only person she trusted since this nightmare began. But how well did she really know him?
She bit her lower lip, watching him as he made another call, his voice sharp, edged with quiet authority. She had no idea who he was talking to, what orders he was giving, or what the hell the next step was.
And that realization gnawed at her.
She had spent her entire life being kept in the dark, being lied to, being protected from things instead of being trusted to handle them. First by her father. Then by her late husband. And now...
Now, she was terrified that Nick was doing the same damn thing.
Her fingers curled into the sheets.
The sex had been incredible. But if she had let it cloud her judgment, if she had let herself blindly trust a man, she still barely knew…
God. She was a fool.
Nick hung up the phone and turned to face her. The second their eyes met, something changed in his expression—concern, maybe? But it was buried under layers of restraint.
“We have a lead,” he said, his voice steady. “Graham traced the origin of the last message. It wasn’t sent from some random burner phone.”
Celeste’s brows furrowed. “Then where?”
Nick hesitated.
That second of hesitation was all it took.
Her pulse kicked up, her nails digging into the fabric of her jeans. He’s hiding something.
She pushed off the bed. “Nick.”
He exhaled through his nose, rubbing his jaw. “It came from an encrypted line used by my own people.”
The air between them shifted.
A slow, creeping cold spread through Celeste’s chest. “Your own people?”
Nick’s jaw ticked. “Someone on my team fed them information.”
Her breath left her in a sharp exhale.
Betrayal.
A fresh wound. A new scar. How much more can they take?
She swallowed hard, crossing her arms over her chest. “And you didn’t think to tell me that immediately?”
Nick’s brows shot up, like the question surprised him. “I just did.”
“No,” she said, her voice quieter now, sharper. “You hesitated. Like you were deciding what to tell me and what to keep to yourself.”
Nick’s expression hardened. “You think I’m lying to you?”
Celeste didn’t answer.
Did she?
Every instinct inside her screamed no—but the ghosts of her past whispered yes.
Nick let out a slow breath, then stepped forward. He reached for her, his fingers skimming along the edge of her wrist. “Celeste, I’m not keeping anything from you. But I need you to trust me when I say this is bigger than either of us. I have to handle this my way.”
She flinched at that.
I have to handle this my way.
Exactly the kind of thing her father used to say.
Exactly the kind of thing her late husband used to say.
And now Nick.
Her chest tightened, her throat began to burn. “So, what does that make me, then?” she whispered.
Nick frowned. “What?”
“If you’re handling this, what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and wait? Let you make all the decisions? Let you dictate what I get to know and what I don’t?” Her voice rose, shaking. “I can’t do that, Nick. I won’t do that.”
“Celeste—”
“No.” She took a step back. “I spent my whole life being lied to, being managed—I can’t be in another situation where I’m just along for the ride.”
Nick exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then prove it.”
Nick’s eyes darkened.
Celeste’s pulse hammered, but she didn’t back down.
Nick took a slow step forward, his voice dropping an octave. “You want me to prove it?”
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin.
“Fine,” he said, gaze locked onto hers. “Then come with me.”
Celeste blinked. “What?”
“We’re not waiting for the next move,” he said. “You want to be involved? Then be involved. I need to know how far this betrayal goes, and I need you to help me figure it out.”
Celeste’s heart pounded. “You trust me to do that?”
Nick reached for her hand, gripping it tight, grounding. “I trust you to do a hell of a lot more than that, princess.”
Something in her chest loosened.
Finally, a man wasn’t telling her to sit on the sidelines.
Nick was bringing her into the fire.
She nodded once, gripping his hand tighter. “Then let’s go.”
Nick’s lips curled into something dark, something dangerous.
“Buckle up, Bellerose. We’re about to burn some bridges.”
***
Celeste’s pulse pounded as they stepped out of the house and into the cold night air. The moon hung low, casting a silver glow over the estate’s grounds, illuminating the skeletal branches of the trees lining the long driveway. The silence between her and Nick wasn’t tense—it was charged.
Nick had given her a choice. Had brought her into the storm instead of shielding her from it. And that, more than anything, meant everything.
Sabre trotted in between them, seemingly guarding them both, his ears perked, his body tense with awareness. He knew something was off.
Nick moved with precision, so did Sabre, his posture locked in that predatory way that told her he was already calculating the next ten steps. His eyes cut to her, sharp, assessing. “You good?”
Celeste exhaled, nodding. “Yeah.”
“Then let’s go.”
They reached Nick’s SUV, the black paint slick under the glow of the moonlight. He opened the door for her, watching her closely as she slid inside. The back door was next. Sabre jumped to his assigned spot.
As he rounded the vehicle, something cold slithered down her spine. That prickling feeling of being watched.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe.
“It’s just the paranoia,” she told herself.
Nick climbed into the driver’s seat, shutting the door with a solid thunk. He pulled his phone from his jacket, his fingers moving with swift precision as he pulled up the encrypted thread.
Celeste leaned in. “What are you looking for?”
Nick didn’t answer immediately. His eyes swept over the screen. “Patterns.”
She frowned. “Patterns?”
Nick shifted in his seat, angling toward her.
“Messages like this—they aren’t random. Someone wants us to know they have access.
They want me to see this.” He tapped the last message, his expression darkening.
“But here’s the thing—most of my team wouldn’t have known about the trap we set. Which means…”
Celeste’s stomach dropped. “Which means whoever sent this was watching us, listening to us. In real time.”
Nick’s silence was all the confirmation she needed.
A cold sweat broke out along the back of her neck.
Nick’s voice was low, edged with something lethal. “I don’t like being watched.”
“Neither do I.” Celeste was quick to join in her two cents.
Celeste curled her hands into fists. Someone had been monitoring them this entire time.
And that meant…
She sucked in a breath. “Nick.”
His eyes snapped to hers.
“The cameras in the house,” she said. “Wallace said the system had been left untouched. But what if…” She trailed off, feeling her pulse spike.
Nick’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “If someone got into the surveillance feed—”
“They would’ve seen everything,” Celeste finished, her breath hitching.
Think about what we did back there, on the dining room table. What they watched and heard. We’re going to up on TENDER or some freaking dirty website like that.”
Nick didn’t waste another second. He threw the SUV into reverse, the tires spitting gravel as they peeled away from the house.
“Where are we going?” Celeste asked.
Nick’s jaw was set, his gaze locked on the darkened road ahead. “To see exactly who’s been watching.”
***
The location was unexpected.
Nick pulled the car into a dimly lit parking garage beneath an upscale residential building, the kind of place where doormen in crisp suits stood outside, catering to Manhattan’s elite.
But down here, in the belly of the structure, the polished veneer disappeared.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting an eerie glow on the oil-stained concrete, while the noise of distant traffic barely penetrated the thick walls.
Celeste’s brow furrowed as she glanced around. “This isn’t like your usual spots.”
Nick killed the engine, his grip tight on the wheel. “Because this isn’t my usual contact.”
Her stomach tightened. A new player. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Nick stepped out first, his movements calculated, scanning the level before motioning for her to follow. Sabre stayed close to her side, ears perked, his body tense with instinctual awareness.
At the far end of the garage, nestled between two vacant parking spots, was an unassuming utility door. A keypad was embedded into the wall beside it.
Nick tapped out a sequence so quickly, Celeste barely caught it before the lock disengaged with a quiet beep. The door creaked open, revealing a narrow, concrete corridor. A place no luxury building should have.
“Come on,” Nick said, his tone low.
Celeste followed, her pulse picking up.
Nick led her down a stairwell, each step echoing off the walls. They descended two more levels before emerging into a space unlike anything Celeste expected.
A high-tech surveillance hub.
Banks of screens covered the walls, multiple feeds running in real-time, displaying angles from traffic cameras, building security systems, even body cams. The air buzzed with quiet urgency, and at the center of it all, standing behind a massive, curved console, was Silas Ward—a former intelligence operative turned underground analyst.
Celeste had never met him, but she had heard of him. A ghost in the system. A man who could find anyone. For the right price.
Silas hadn’t always worked in the shadows.
Once, he had been a rising star in intelligence—an asset with a talent for infiltrating deep networks and extracting information no one else could touch.
He had built entire operations from the ground up, taken down cartel strongholds with nothing but a laptop and a phone line.
But then, a mission went south. A government betrayal left him burned, hung out to dry, his name erased from every record that mattered.
Instead of going under, Silas reinvented himself. He took his skills private, carving out a new empire in the underbelly of intelligence. Now, he operated off the grid, answering to no one, dealing in secrets more valuable than currency.
And right now, he was their best shot at unearthing the truth.
Silas didn’t look up immediately. He was typing, his expression impassive beneath the dim glow of the monitors.
“You’re late,” he said.
Nick folded his arms. “We had a detour.”
Silas smirked, finally shifting his gaze to Celeste. “I don’t usually work with civilians.”
Celeste met his stare without flinching. “And I don’t usually trust underground analysis, but here we are.”
Silas’s smirk widened. “I like her. Spunky!”
Nick wasn’t amused. “Tell me you have something.”
Silas clicked a few keys, and the main screen changed. “It took some digging, but yeah. I have something.”
The surveillance feed that appeared wasn’t from security cameras.
It was from inside Celeste’s penthouse.
A tight, suffocating silence filled the room.
Celeste’s breath hitched. “What the hell—?”
Silas didn’t glance away from the screen. “This isn’t just a hack, sweetheart. Someone’s been watching you for a long time.”
Nick’s fists clenched at his sides. “How long?”
Silas exhaled slowly. “Long enough.”
The images changed—Celeste walking through her living room, scrolling through her phone. Celeste asleep in bed. Nick. Entering the penthouse.
Nick’s eyes darkened into something lethal. “Who the hell has the footage?”
Silas tapped the keyboard. “That’s the problem. The access bounced through so many encrypted channels, tracking it was a bitch. But before the last connection cut off, I traced a single ping.” He turned the screen.
Celeste’s stomach dropped.
The name on the monitor wasn’t a stranger’s.
It was a registered address.
Juliette Bellerose.
Her sister.
Nick’s jaw flexed. “There goes any doubt of her involvement now princess.”
Celeste’s fingers curled into fists, a chill racing through her veins. She had been watched in her most private moments. By someone connected to her own family.
Nick turned to her, his voice controlled but edged with steel. “We go to her.”
Celeste swallowed the rage burning in her throat. “We go now.”