Kiara （Present）
Kiara
Present
Another day crawls by.
I pull on sports leggings with a top and dig through drawers looking for sneakers. Instead, my hand lands on an empty diary.
Great. A blank book. A perfect place to unravel.
I sit on the edge of the sofa and start writing down everything I’ve pieced together about the Vermilion so far.
Old notes, old theories, old ghosts.
I flip back to the beginning. The fire. The Varners—this town’s charity darlings on the surface, criminals underneath.
Two years ago, I traced Kasien’s adoptive father to drug deals and money laundering. Maybe connected to Vermilion, maybe not. Everything in this city eventually is. I remember thinking that if Kasien is alive, he’s somewhere in the criminal underworld.
But for years there was never one real trace of him.
Nothing linking him to anything. Nothing proving he wasn’t a corpse.
And now that I know he’s alive? The whole puzzle looks even more fucked up.
Enemy of Vermilion? Part of Vermilion? Betraying them? Protecting me? Using me? Every theory I write contradicts the one before.
I fill the rest of the page with one word. The one that kept appearing in the files I studied for my articles.
Myortvets.
I circle it.
Once. Twice. Five times.
Dead man.
I shut the diary before it swallows me whole and force myself into another lap around the suite—the only cardio I’m getting while being kidnapped—when the door opens.
Adrien stands there, grinning like he owns the world. Heat coils under my ribs.
I hate that. I hate that he can do this to me.
He’s in his usual combats and oversized black sweatshirt, tattoos crawling up his neck and hands, curls messy like he rolled out of someone’s bed.
Dear universe, if this is Stockholm syndrome, make it stop. I refuse to be a cliché.
I stare at him, trying to decode that stupid little grin, and he steps aside from the door like some gentleman, arm out, shoulder offered.
“What? I can go?” I light up and almost smile.
He just nods and smiles wider. I push his hand away, give him the middle finger instead, and step out of the door when he suddenly jumps in front of me like an overexcited golden retriever.
“Rules first.” He lifts one finger in front of my face. “One—you never leave the suite without me, Kas, or one of the guards.”
He adds a second finger.
“Two—when we send you back, you stay there until we say otherwise.”
Third finger.
“And Troubles, this one’s gonna hurt you.” He tilts his head, smirking. “You don’t talk to anyone except me or Kas.”
I roll my eyes so hard I see my own brain and slap his fingers away.
“If you break anything I just said, you’re back under lock. Got it?”
“Is it a problem if the other guards see me?” I ask him as I glance into the lobby. Yeah, there’s a little army down there.
“No. They’re loyal. Don’t worry.”
His voice softens like we’re sharing a secret.
My dynamic with Adrien is still quite messy. A mix of comfort and caution wrapped in sarcasm and trauma.
But the truth is—I do feel safer with him than I should.
He keeps me sane. His warmth, his stupid jokes, the way he looks at me like I’m not just a bargaining chip in a gothic murder palace.
But I can’t forget the other part of him.
Four days ago, he shot a man in front of me without blinking.
Empty expression. No hesitation. No soul behind his eyes.
With Kasien, it’s different.
The void, the emptiness—it has always been there. He is the void most of the time. At first, I thought it came from growing up in a family where he never fit.
But then he told me his last memory of his mother.
So later I realized it was something deeper. Something he carried long before me. Something he could never say out loud.
And six years ago, the last time I saw him, I understood how bad it really was.
But I also remember the moments when he let it all fall away. The way he loved—deep, obsessive, fierce, almost terrifying, but it was love.
His version of it.
And I ran from it.
I got scared and I fucking ruined it.
Yet I believe this part of him is still there somewhere. Adrien thinks so too, I can tell.
However, the frustration of Kasien’s silence now is eating me alive. Why is he avoiding me? Why hasn’t he come to see me once? What does he actually want from me?
Adrien takes me on a detour through the manor, skipping the second wing. He doesn’t have to say anything, it obviously belongs to Kasien.
The manor is stunning. In that old-money, luxury, Russian-literature-nightmare kind of way. We pass the lobby and step into a massive kitchen. Sleek marble counters, industrial stove, enough space to feed an army.
Except it’s empty. Silent. No staff. No woman humming over a pot. No clatter.
“Where is everyone?” I mutter, scanning the spotless surfaces. “Does anybody actually live here? Or do the ghosts cook?”
Adrien huffs a laugh. “We get food delivered. We don’t keep a big staff.”
“No women at all? Not even one?” It slips out before I can think. The whole place feels like a testosterone bunker.
Adrien shrugs. “We don’t like having women around.”
I stop dead and stare at him. “Excuse me?”
He lifts his palms like he expected that reaction.
“Not like that. We just—” Adrien searches for words. “It’s unsafe here. It puts everyone nearby at risk. We don’t want civilians caught in anything.”
Oh. Of course. My inner feminist deflates.
“That’s actually surprisingly considerate,” I retort, then narrow my eyes. “Still sexist. But considerate.”
Adrien snorts. “Believe me, women can handle themselves better than most men here. That’s not the issue.”
I don’t want to ask, but my brain does it anyway.
“So he never has girls over?”
Adrien’s smirk is immediate and evil. “I said women don’t live here. I didn’t say they don’t visit, Troubles.”
A cold shiver slashes down my spine. Images I absolutely did not request enter my brain.
No. Nope. Delete. Burn that thought.
I force my eyes forward just in time for him to guide me into another hall.
“And this is the gym,” he adds.
My breath actually catches.
The entire far wall is glass. A panoramic view into a fog-covered garden. Black gazebo veined with ivy. Lanterns glowing like floating embers. Moonlight turning everything silver.
It looks unreal, like a cursed fairy tale.
The rest of the gym is sleek. Black walls, dim lighting, equipment spaced perfectly, purple LEDs trimming the floor. And the air smells like expensive cologne. For a second, I just stand there staring like an idiot.
“You want to exercise?”
“Uhm, actually yeah, that’s exactly what I need.” I nod, thrilled I can finally be somewhere other than my velvet prison.
Adrien walks ahead of me toward the corner of the gym, where a punchbag hangs from the ceiling. He grabs a pair of gloves and casually tosses them at my face one by one. I barely catch them.
“I don’t know how to box, Adrien,” I deadpan.
“You want to wander around a house full of men and you don’t know how to throw a punch?” He lifts his eyebrows like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard.
“Wait, I never said that.” I grin.
“Okay, show me.” He taps his own cheek, inviting a hit.
“Oh God, this is gonna be funny.” I slip on the gloves and inhale dramatically.
What follows is complete chaos. I swing and he dodges instantly. I swing again and he ducks like a damn cartoon character. Every time I punch, he’s already in a different ZIP code.
We fuck around like this for a while, he’s laughing so hard he actually snorts once, and that alone nearly kills me.
I can’t stop laughing either. We're both out of breath, running around the gym like idiots pretending to fight.
I throw one more dramatic punch and he tries to dodge it, but this time he miscalculates and slams straight into the punchbag with his back.
I bend forward, wheezing from laughter. He straightens up and runs a hand through his messy curls.
“Okay, that was really bad, Troubles. You didn’t catch me once!” he complains.
His gaze suddenly flicks behind me and a knowing smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, the kind men give their best friends right before saying you’re welcome.
And without a word, he’s gone.
I turn around and, of course, Kasien is leaning on the gym entrance, watching me with infuriating calm.
The dim purple light carves his silhouette out of shadow.
I shift fully toward him, boxing gloves still on my hands.
I’m in nothing but a sports bra and leggings, barefoot since Adrien insisted it’s better for balance.
My breath comes out quick and sharp from all the movement I finally got after almost a week, my skin glowing with sweat along my collarbones, chest, shoulders.
He just stands there, staring at me. He’s wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his wrists, exposing a black leather watch. His loosened tie hangs open enough to reveal the long line of his throat and a hint of chest.
He looks like he just walked out of a billionaire gala, or straight off a crime scene.
I hate how he does this. How he walks in and suddenly the whole room remembers who it belongs to. He’s so stupidly beautiful it feels like a personal attack.
I gather what little courage I have left and take a few steps toward him, stopping five feet away, ready to smack some words in his face.
Except my brain short-circuits the moment I’m close.
My throat goes dry. My legs are suddenly made of air.
He makes me so goddamn nervous it’s embarrassing. And he knows.
He must smell the panic on me, because he pushes off the door and starts walking toward me, slow and deliberate, closing the space between us like he owns every inch of it.
Meanwhile, I accidentally take a step back.
He stops in front of me, towering, overwhelming, his scent hitting me hard and clogging every coherent thought I had left. Leather. Cardamom. Smoke.
Kasien.
“So you don’t mind hanging out with killers anymore, I see.” His voice is low and sharp, sliding right into my bones.
Wait. Is he jealous?