CYRENE TEMPEST

  There were too many watching screens to hide from—even if none of them had caught a clear view. After the competition ended, I didn't stick around. I went back to the penthouse just long enough to pack up what mattered. Devices. Clothes. The drives. I was out before the sun rose on Thursday. Quiet. Clean. Ghost protocol.

  The new place wasn't far—still tucked inside Edinburgh—but it was less glamorous, less traceable. Exactly what I needed. I laid low for the next few days. No networks. No pings. No footprints. I kept the curtains drawn, rotated devices, slept in short bursts with one ear always open.

  And now, finally, it was Saturday.

  I woke up to silence and a city that felt calm again. Got dressed slowly. No rush, no pressure. I left the hoodie behind today. No sunglasses. No cap. Just me and the cold Scottish air.

  I wasn't hiding anymore—not today.

  Today, I wanted history.

  Holyrood.

  It wasn't just another palace on a list. Holyrood had history—real history. Layers. Stories that didn't need dramatizing. I'd seen it first in Reign, years ago. Candlelight, silk gowns, long corridors full of secrets. It was the drama that pulled me in, but what kept me curious was the power beneath it all. Mary, Queen of Scots. The danger of being a woman who tried to lead.

  Now I was here. Not watching it through a screen—walking it.

  The sky was overcast, breaking into sunlight in patches, like it couldn't make up its mind. Typical Edinburgh. I liked it that way—nothing was ever handed to you too easily.

  I moved through the gates and into the courtyard. The palace wasn't flashy. It didn't need to be. The power was in the details: worn stone, heavy wooden doors, portraits older than most countries. Every corner felt like it had something to say if you listened long enough.

  I stayed quiet through most of the tour. I wasn't here for commentary—I wanted to feel the place. The rooms were colder than I expected. Not physically, just...quiet in a way that got under your skin. Ancestral weight.

  Mary's chambers were the reason I came. I followed the guide and the group upstairs. He started talking about David Rizzio—how he was dragged out, murdered right there in front of her. Fifty-six stab wounds. A message written in blood. I didn't need the explanation. I already knew the history. It wasn't jealousy. It was about control. Politics wrapped in emotion. Religion used as a cover.

  There was a spot on the floor where the bloodstains used to be. Faint, but still there if you looked hard enough.

  I looked.

  It didn't shake me. It made sense. Power comes with consequences. It always has.

  I stayed back after the group moved on, just for a minute. No cameras, no one asking questions. Just me, standing in the same place a queen had once stood—watching everything fall apart around her, and trying to hold onto something that couldn't be kept.

  It stuck with me. The silence. The restraint. The way her story was told like a cautionary tale, when really it was a warning: this is what happens when you move too far ahead of the time you live in.

  I left the palace and crossed over to the Abbey ruins.

  It was open to the sky, half-eaten by time, wind pushing through the broken arches. The place felt honest. No attempt to restore it. Just raw stone and space. Vines creeping up the walls like nature had taken its turn at rewriting the past.

  I walked to the far end, where the windows once were—no glass now, just sky. Something about it settled me. After days of laying low, running silent, watching the edges of networks... this was the first time I felt like I could breathe again.

  No one recognized me. No whispers. No threats buried in code. Just space.

  I sat on a bench inside the ruins and took out a small notepad from my coat pocket. Not digital. Actual paper. I hadn't used it in a while.

  I didn't write anything tactical. Just thoughts.

  Something about legacy.

  Visibility.

  What power costs.

  I didn't overthink it. Just let the pen move.

  The name Maddison Carter still felt like it was clinging to my skin, but it wasn't who I was. It was just something I wore for a few hours. A shell. A signal.

  I hadn't heard from Lucian. Or Kara. Or anyone at CipherWorks. And that was fine.

  Or at least I told myself it was.

  I stayed there a little longer, letting the wind run through my hair, boots pressed to old stone, history breathing quietly all around me.

  I didn't have to fade into the background today. And that felt right.

  I lingered a little longer in the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. The chill of stone beneath me, the quiet bite of wind threading through arched bones of forgotten grandeur. This place... it had a way of making time feel weightless. Honest. As if the world outside could pause for just a while and let me listen to what's been buried too long.

  I didn't come here just for history.

  That was the excuse I told myself. That I was laying low after the challenge, clearing the digital trails, staying smart. But the truth? It had claws deeper than code. I came because I needed space to breathe—space away from him.

  He stirred something in me I wasn't prepared for.

  That thought alone made my jaw tighten. I wasn't the type to get caught up in feelings, and especially not the kind that came wearing tailored suits, danger, and discipline so sharp it cut the air when he walked into a room. But he did something to me. Stripped away the control I wore like armor. I hated it. I wanted more of it.

  God, that was the worst part. Wanting it.

  We've barely spent real time together. Fleeting hours. Heated glances. A touch too long here, a silence too weighted there. And still, he got under my skin. I couldn't stop thinking about the way he watched me—like he saw through every layer I'd spent years perfecting. And worse, I think I let him.

  Why?

  Because with him, I felt alive.

  Not just adrenaline alive. Not hacker-high, not running-on-caffeine-and-paranoia alive. No—this was different. He made the quiet feel meaningful. Even silence in his presence felt charged, like I was standing at the edge of something big. Dangerous, but electric.

  And maybe I wanted that.

  I'd been moving in shadows for so long, building systems to protect myself, to stay a ghost in a world that wants everything documented, tagged, and filed. But Lucian... he made me want to be seen. Not exposed. Seen. There's a difference, and it's one I never gave a damn about—until now.

  A couple walked by behind me, laughing gently. Tourists, map in hand, completely unaware of the storm I was sorting through in my own head. I didn't envy their simplicity. But I did envy their ease. Love came easily for some people. Not me. Not with my mind. Not with my world.

  I ran a hand down the sleeve of my coat and stared up at the hollowed-out window again. The sky was pale, shifting fast. Typical Edinburgh mood swings. I used to feel just like that—always between storms, never fully clear. But not today. Today, I was done pretending I didn't know what I wanted.

  I wanted him.

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  Maybe it didn't make sense. Maybe it was reckless. Hell, it was probably the dumbest move I could make with everything else on the line. But I wasn't wired to run from fire. I stared it down and asked for more.

  And Lucian Castellan was nothing if not fire.

  I stood slowly, brushing dust from my jeans. My fingers lingered at the edge of the bench. One more breath. One more beat. I looked around the ruins and let the stillness settle inside me. No more doubting. No more dodging. I'd come here to find clarity. And I had it now.

  It was time to go.

  I took out my phone, checked the clock. Two hours till my flight. Enough time to grab my bag and make it to the airport without rushing. I'd booked the ticket last night after staring at the ceiling too long, knowing I couldn't stall this any longer. There was nothing left for me here—not right now. The walls had done their job. The silence had told me everything I needed.

  I tucked the notepad I'd scribbled in earlier back into my coat pocket and started toward the exit. My boots made soft contact with the stone as I walked—quiet steps, but purposeful. A different kind of departure. Not retreat. Return.

  By the time I got to the street, I could already feel the difference in my posture. Less weight. More direction.

  I flagged a cab and slid into the back seat, giving the driver my address. The modest flat I'd used since ditching the penthouse wasn't far, and packing wouldn't take long. I'd been ready. I just needed to admit it to myself first.

  As the cab rolled through Edinburgh's winding streets, I thought about what waited on the other side. Not promises. Not guarantees. Just possibility. And that was enough.

  I wasn't expecting some storybook ending. That's not how my life works. But what I felt—what he made me feel—was real. And if there was even a fraction of a chance that this thing between us could become something more... I wasn't about to walk away from that.

  Even if it scared the hell out of me.

  Back at the flat, I moved with purpose. Folded clothes. Disassembled my devices. Packed only the essentials. No hesitation. I'd already made the call, and second-guessing wasn't my thing—not when clarity like this hit. Everything important fit neatly into my carry-on. I zipped it shut, then sat for a moment, letting the silence stretch just long enough to be real.

  The flat was still. Safer than the penthouse, quieter than the streets, but temporary. Like most things in my life. I stood, checked for anything I might've left behind, and took one final glance at the space before I locked the door.

  But I didn't head straight to the airport. Not yet.

  There was one more stop I hadn't planned on making.

  I found it tucked between two cafes on a narrow street near the Royal Mile—bare signage, no window displays, no tourists inside. Just clean lines, warm wood, and glass cases lit with quiet reverence. This place wasn't made to be stumbled into. It was meant for those who knew what they were looking for—even if they didn't know it until they saw it.

  And I saw it.

  Silver, understated, masculine. The lines were smooth, seamless, almost architectural. But what caught me wasn't the design. It was the black diamond—real, rare, set where the face of a watch might've been. No time to be read, just that quiet, impossible stone sitting in place like it didn't answer to anyone.

  It reminded me of him.

  I didn't ask questions. Didn't ask if there were others like it, because I already knew the answer. One-of-one. The kind of piece you don't advertise because it's not meant to be sold—it's meant to be claimed. Just like him. Singular.

  The price didn't make me blink. Two million. I slid my card across the counter and signed without a word.

  The box fit in my palm. Slim. Black. I tucked it into the zip compartment of my carry-on and walked out without looking back.

  As we pulled away from the curb and the streets of Edinburgh started to fade behind the tinted glass, I exhaled slow.

  I hadn't said a word to him. Not a message. Not a call. But the silence hadn't cooled anything. If anything, it made the pull stronger. Louder in the quiet.

  He didn't ask me to change. He didn't try to fit me into his world. He just looked at me like he saw—really saw—what I carried, and didn't flinch. That mattered more than I wanted it to.

  It was overwhelming. Dangerous. But even knowing all of that, even knowing he came with consequences, I wanted more. Wanted to see where it would go. Whether it would crash or burn, I was done standing still.

  _________________

  I didn't think I missed the heat. But the moment I stepped off the plane and that familiar warmth settled against my skin, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

  It wasn't suffocating—not the way heavy heat sometimes is. This was different. This was Sicily, and Sicily had a way of pressing itself gently against your lungs like it belonged there. Like you were never really meant to leave. The breeze was fragrant too, not overwhelmingly so, but enough to remind me I was home. Citrus trees in the distance. Dry earth. Salt brushing in from the sea.

  The airport was quiet for once. My driver waited at the usual terminal, an older man who didn't talk much. I liked that about him. I handed off my single carry-on—everything else I needed had already been here, untouched. I wasn't even gone a full week, but it felt like a season had passed.

  I slid into the backseat and leaned against the window. The drive up toward the hills was just as I remembered—terraced fields blurring into olive groves, jagged rooftops, a haze of sun that made even the simplest shapes look golden. I tilted my head against the glass and let it lull me. I didn't sleep, but I didn't speak either. My thoughts drifted to the project I'd just completed—the one Lucian wanted to buy the formula for. It was done. Safe. Locked behind layers of encryption and housed in three separate vaults across the grid.

  I should've been relieved. I was. But my mind had already moved on to the next project.

  Something greener. More tactile.

  Maybe lavender microgreens. Maybe a new strain of calming indica. Maybe both. Something to ground me again. I needed that. Something physical to tend to while the rest of the world boiled in silence around me.

  When the car pulled through the gate of my building, I took another deep breath—deeper this time. My penthouse waited just as I'd left it. No fanfare. No signs of intrusion. Only the faint scent of linen spray and eucalyptus, and the sound of a distant songbird outside the balcony doors.

  The housekeeper had been coming in while I was gone—of course she had. She was meticulous, the kind of woman who didn't miss anything. The floors gleamed. The countertops sparkled. My pantry had been restocked with surgical accuracy—dried mango, ginger tea, protein bars, saffron, coconut milk, specialty ramen, even my preferred rolling papers.

  She knew me too well. I was grateful for that.

  I dropped my bag by the foyer and padded down the hallway, tugging my sweatshirt over my head as I went. The shower was already calling to me, and I didn't hesitate. Hot water. Steam. Silence. I let it wash away everything—the streets of Edinburgh, the cold stone walls of Holyrood, the adrenaline of that challenge, the memory of a black diamond glinting under boutique lighting, and the unspoken reasons I'd chosen it for him.

  Twenty minutes later, wrapped in a cotton robe, I wandered into my closet and slipped on my favorite onesie—the pale blue one with little black cats scattered across the fabric. It was soft, worn in, a little ridiculous. I didn't care. It was my armor of choice tonight.

  I padded barefoot to the cloud room, flipping the switch on with the side of my knuckle. The walls came alive with soft, reactive light. A ripple of white, then a calming pulse of lavender blue. My plants were still thriving—ferns, air plants, trailing ivy and moon orchids. The oxygen felt better here. Thicker. Sweeter.

  I sat cross-legged on the large sunken couch and pulled out the glass tray from the drawer beneath the armrest. The same one I used the night he was here.

  The same tray we shared that bud on.

  It was still there—stored perfectly in its tiny amber jar. I opened it and brought it to my nose, letting the scent roll through me. Earthy, slightly citrusy, with that unmistakable clean pine finish. My fingers worked with muscle memory as I rolled it—not rushed, not mechanical. Just a quiet ritual that brought me back to center.

  I lit it, held the smoke in for a breath longer than usual, and exhaled slowly into the room.

  The high came with force yet gentle.

  Not just from the bud—but from being back. From silence. From the fact that I could still feel the echo of his presence even when he wasn't here. I didn't fight it. I just leaned back, eyes tracing the flicker of light on the ceiling, letting my body sink into the cushions like they were made for me.

  My onesie was soft against my skin, the little black cats scattered across the pale blue fabric like a private joke only I was in on. It smelled faintly of detergent and lavender. Familiar. Like the kind of comfort that didn't ask questions. I drew in another slow breath, pulled the smoke deep into my lungs, and let it dance there before exhaling.

  The silence wasn't just around me—it was inside me, too.

  My mind had been racing for days. Weeks, maybe. Ever since the competition. Ever since I walked away from Edinburgh, from the stone ghosts of queens, from that quiet admission I made to myself under a sky full of history. But back here—in my cloud room, where everything was still and grounded—I felt it begin to settle.

  That high-voltage tension I lived with... dialed down. Not gone, but manageable. Like I could breathe again without checking for shadows behind the breath.

  I tapped ash into the tray and took another hit, slower this time. The taste was earthy with the same crisp sharpness we'd shared that night. The memory crept in before I could stop it—his hands, his voice, the way he looked at me like I was something dangerous and divine at once.

  I closed my eyes. Let it stay. No point in pretending anymore. I didn't want to forget how it felt.

  Eventually, I sat up—groggy, but clear-headed enough to move. I padded barefoot down the hall to my bedroom. The door clicked open, and I flicked on the dim light.

  My bags were still stacked neatly in the corner, right where I'd dropped them after returning. I crouched, unzipped the larger one, and pulled out the satchel that held my gear—laptops, drives, custom routers, signal masks, hardware most people wouldn't recognize unless they lived in the cracks of cyberspace.

  The moment my fingers touched the cool metal of my primary device, something in me clicked.

  Time to work.

  I glanced at the clock—2:30 a.m. Sunday. I'd be expected to show up at CipherWorks and Castellan on Monday like I'd never skipped a beat. And I wasn't about to be caught slacking.

  I carried everything down to the hidden panel in my wardrobe, pressed the small touchpoint only I knew how to find, and stepped through as it hissed open. Cold air brushed my skin as the passage revealed my underground workspace—my sanctuary.

  The lights flicked on automatically, illuminating rows of screens, processors, and terminals. This was my real penthouse.

  I powered up my system. It greeted me with familiar warmth—a hum that sounded like home. Within minutes, my screen lit up with data streams and backend pathways, firewalls already reaching out, threading through encrypted channels like veins looking for a pulse.

  First, CipherWorks. I needed to reassert my internal presence, realign access points, bury footprints from Edinburgh just in case. It didn't take long. My setup here was cleaner, faster. Like working with my own DNA.

  Then Castellan. I tapped into the steelworks servers through an anonymous tunnel, running trace scans, looking into any recent partnerships they'd formed in my absence. Some were routine—nothing I didn't expect. But one flagged my attention. A new logistics firm tagged for offshore operations. I filed it for deeper digging later.

  Next: the team.

  Arlo's devices were sloppy, as usual. I ghosted in like a breeze through an open window, pulled what I needed, and got out before the logs even registered movement.

  Dante took a little more finesse. His firewall had a new patch, one he clearly didn't build himself. It almost made me smirk. I skirted it, slid into his personal drive, mirrored the contents, and left a breadcrumb so subtle it would take weeks to notice—if ever.

  Elena was clean. No extra encryption, just sterile architecture. I pulled her logs, messages, work files. She was hiding something—not in her systems, but in her silence. I knew the pattern. I'd seen it before in people who had nothing to delete because they only ever spoke in person.

  Rafael? Surprisingly easy. He didn't guard his digital life the way you'd expect from Lucian's brother. That, or he trusted someone to guard it for him. Either way, I got in, grabbed what I needed, and moved out. No alarms. No ripples.

  Xander, though.

  He had layers. Like a smug bastard who thought he was cleverer than the ghost knocking at his door. But I liked a challenge.

  It took twenty minutes. He'd buried a self-erasing loop to destroy anything unauthorized in his root directory. Cute. I rewired it mid-cycle, mirrored his drive while tricking the system into thinking it was under maintenance. When I finally cracked through, the data came pouring in.

  And I grinned.

  Because nothing felt as natural to me as this. Sitting in the glow of screens, watching the data streams unfurl like veins of light across black glass. I was in my element again. In control. No hiding. No running.

  Just me and the code.

  I sat back, letting the files download in the background, hands finally still for the first time in hours. My neck cracked slightly as I rolled it. A good kind of ache.

  I stood, wandered back upstairs, craving something sweet. The kitchen lights were soft, automated. My housekeeper had restocked everything just the way I liked it. Almond flour, Belgian chocolate, fresh berries, oat milk.

  Perfect.

  I whisked a small batch of crepes, poured the batter into the pan, watched the edges brown just right. I dusted them with powdered sugar, stacked them on a plate, and poured myself a thick mug of hot chocolate. Real chocolate—none of that powdered mess.

  I sat on the counter, bare feet swinging lightly, inhaling the scent of cocoa and toasted batter, and took the first bite.

  Sweet. Warm. Home.

  And I felt it, deep in my chest—this quiet satisfaction. Not from the crepes or the code.

  From being back. From being me again.

  And maybe, from knowing that soon... things were only going to get more complicated.