Back at the penthouse, the air had shifted.

  The glitter still floated, champagne still bubbled, but something was different—like a note played off-key that kept ringing in the background.

  They felt it.

  Jasper Blackwood leaned against the far wall, fingers tracing the rim of a half-empty glass. His sharp eyes tracked the crowd, lingering momentarily on the now-empty spot Kira had occupied. He didn’t speak, didn’t share what he was thinking. He rarely did. But there was something in the way she had walked through the room—silent, deliberate—that lodged in his mind.

  Not one of us, but not beneath us either.

  That alone made her worth watching.

  Sebastian Cross dropped into a velvet armchair with practiced carelessness, arms slung wide. He’d been charming some foreign heiress a moment ago, but his attention had shifted the second Kira disappeared into the night.

  “Did anyone catch where the little firecracker ran off to?” he asked, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth. “She plays invisible, but she walks like she owns the place.”

  No one answered.

  He tilted his head, running a thumb over his bottom lip, remembering the way she slipped from under his arm that morning without so much as flinching. Most girls froze or fluttered under his attention. She didn’t even blink.

  And now she was gone—vanished with Lilah Carson like they had their own secret world.

  That annoyed him.

  “She’s not like the rest,” he muttered, half to himself, half to provoke the silence around him.

  Liam Carrington stood near the balcony, drink untouched. The city sprawled beneath him like a kingdom, but tonight, his mind wasn’t on the view.

  “She speaks fluent Italian,” his assistant had said. “Talked supply chains, consumer psychology, international partnerships—she knew her numbers.”

  Liam had nodded, but he hadn’t needed the confirmation. He’d seen the way Kira handled the investor—controlled, sharp, and still relaxed enough to let a playful smirk slip through.

  She wasn’t bluffing. That made her dangerous. Or useful.

  Maybe both.

  Still, she didn’t chase the spotlight like the others. She didn’t fall for his name or the myth of the Carringtons. If anything, she’d barely looked his way—and that was rare.

  Liam took a slow sip, letting the silence settle between them.

  “Thoughts?” Sebastian asked, raising a brow at him.

  Liam's gaze remained fixed on the door she’d walked out of. “She’s not one of us,” he said simply. “Not yet.”

  Jasper gave the smallest nod, already ahead.

  Sebastian chuckled. “But she might be something else entirely.”

  Liam didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His mind was already moving ahead—calculating angles, outcomes, possibilities. There were pieces on the board now he hadn’t accounted for.

  And Kira Sinclair?

  She had just become the most interesting move yet.

  The next morning at Lamburgh University, Bella Walker made sure to keep her voice louder than usual.

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  "Of course they noticed you," she said as she walked beside Kira. "You did look like you'd swallowed the whole room."

  Kira didn’t bother responding.

  The whispers around them felt heavier today—charged. Some students glanced her way with vague curiosity, while others watched with narrowed eyes. Kira ignored them all.

  Jack jogged up beside them, smiling despite the bandage still tucked under his collar. “Hey,” he said. “Heard the event was wild.”

  Bella rolled her eyes. “Wild’s one word for it.”

  Kira offered a tight nod. She knew Jack wanted to talk—maybe check in, maybe just say thanks again—but not now. Not here.

  Instead, she leaned closer as they neared the lecture halls and muttered just loud enough for him to hear, “Keep your ears open. Let me know if anything shifts.”

  He blinked. “You think they’ll come after me again?”

  “I think,” she said, “it’s better to stay alert. I don’t want you becoming a target—again.”

  Jack nodded slowly, his posture tightening. “Got it.”

  That evening, she returned to The Silver Plate. It was a quieter shift, slower than usual, and for that, she was grateful.

  Kira worked her way through the familiar rhythm—dishes, refills, quiet smiles. But as she passed the bar, her ears caught a thread of conversation between two suited men reviewing a partnership document over wine.

  “…Garrick Industries signed the final clause last week…”

  Her steps faltered for half a second.

  The name curled like smoke through her mind. Garrick Industries.

  It had been a long time since she’d heard it outside her own head. A name that belonged to a world she was never meant to return to. A world that had thrown her out before she could speak in full sentences.

  Her father’s company.

  She kept moving. Didn’t let it show.

  No one knew. Not yet. She was just a girl with sharp eyes and good instincts. No one needed to know that Garrick blood ran through her veins. Or that her past was tangled in boardrooms, betrayal, and bloodied promises.

  She had taken this job to listen—to learn. And tonight, she’d heard exactly what she needed.

  As the shift ended and city lights faded in her rearview mirror, Kira drove in silence—one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely near the radio she never turned on.

  The Garrick name still echoed in her head, looping with a rhythm too dangerous to ignore.

  She’d taken the job at The Silver Plate for proximity—for whispers, for glimpses of the world her father ruled from the shadows. But tonight changed everything. Now, the whispers had names. Contracts. Signatures. The veil between her past and present had thinned, and she wasn’t sure how long it would hold.

  Her eyes flicked to the road ahead, the soft bends winding through the countryside as the city slowly gave way to the quiet charm of Lamburgh.

  This was meant to be the calm before the storm.

  But calm wasn’t coming easy.

  She needed to start investigating the missing names from her past—the allies who vanished, the ones who never made it out. They mattered. Some of them had raised her, trained her, bled beside her. And if they were being silenced, erased, then someone was cleaning up loose ends.

  And she wasn’t about to be one of them.

  The possibility that they’d been kidnapped—or worse—sat in her stomach like a stone. The kind of fear she didn’t often allow herself to feel. Not for herself. But for them? She still cared. Too much, maybe. Enough to want answers. Enough to be afraid of what those answers might mean for her plan.

  Then there were the Kings.

  Liam Carrington. Jasper Blackwood. Sebastian Cross.

  They weren’t her concern—not directly. But power like theirs didn’t exist without cost. If they were even remotely entangled in the world she was trying to dismantle, then she needed to know. Not to fight them. Not yet. Just to understand if they were pawns or players.

  And Elijah…

  Kira’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

  She hadn’t checked in on him in days. He could take care of himself—he always had—but that didn’t stop her from worrying. He was the only real constant left from her past. The only person who knew most of what she had endured, even if he didn’t know it all. If something had happened to him…

  No. She’d make time. A day or two down the old lane. Clear it with the boss. Tie up anything loose before things began to spiral.

  Because they would spiral. They always did.

  She was balancing on too many edges now—unraveling the past, dancing around the present, and planning a future soaked in revenge. Too many variables. Too many shadows.

  The headlights cut through the mist as she turned down the familiar road, where Lamburgh’s stillness welcomed her like a secret only she understood.

  And as she parked outside her small apartment, the exhaustion hit all at once.

  She stepped out, locking the door behind her, eyes lifting to the dim glow of the attic window above.

  A breath slipped from her lips—tired, heavy, laced with something unspoken.

  Maybe peace wasn’t a place. Maybe it was a pause—something you fought for between battles.

  And tonight, all she wanted was to crawl under that thrifted blanket, curl up in the warmth she’d built for herself, and forget—just for a few hours—that the world outside was always hunting.

  Who do you think is the biggest wildcard in Kira's story right now?