Chapter 8
1085 Words
The car ride felt like holding her breath underwater.
Celeste sat silently in the back seat of the sleek black SUV, the city lights bleeding gold and red across the tinted windows. Her dress clung to her like a second skin—deep crimson silk, daringly low in the back and slit high enough to show power, not desperation. Ash had picked it out. Of course he had. Every line, every curve was weaponized.
Across from her, Ash studied her like a tactician—not a lover. His gaze moved over her legs, her neckline, her barely-there smile. Calculating.
“You look dangerous,” he said finally, voice low and calm.
“That was the assignment, wasn’t it?” she replied without turning.
“Dangerous is good. Just don’t kill him. Yet.”
She gave a breathy laugh, eyes fixed on the city blurring by. “You think I’d break character?”
Ash leaned in slightly, just enough for his breath to brush her cheek. “I think you’re starting to enjoy it.”
She didn’t answer, but the truth shimmered between them like heat off asphalt. She did enjoy it. She hated that she did—but the power, the leverage, the way men twice her age leaned in like moths to a flame—it thrilled her in a way that law books never had.
They were headed to La Reina, a velvet-cloaked lounge buried beneath the bones of Old Manila. The place reeked of money, influence, and too many whispered secrets. And their target? Councilman Gregorio Larrazabal—a smug, slick bastard with a taste for whiskey, women, and selling intel to the highest bidder.
Ash wouldn’t be with her inside. That was the point.
“You know what to do,” he said as the car pulled up to the curb.
Celeste gave a slight nod, heart thudding with slow adrenaline. She didn’t need his voice in her ear. She knew the plan. Flirt. Lure. Extract. Destroy.
She stepped out of the car, and immediately the night swallowed her whole.
La Reina was everything she'd been told it would be—dark velvet walls, dim crimson chandeliers, jazz melting into trap beats, and too many men in tailored suits pretending they ruled the city. No one noticed her enter, not at first.
But they would.
Her heels clicked across the tile floor like a countdown. She spotted Gregorio at a private booth in the back, half-hidden behind frosted glass and laughing too loudly at something unfunny. The men around him were disposable. He was not.
Celeste slipped into his booth like smoke.
“Gregorio,” she said, her voice rich, casual, dangerous. “Fancy seeing you here.”
His eyes widened briefly, then narrowed. Recognition was immediate. She had cross-examined one of his shell companies in court three months ago. But this wasn’t a courtroom. And tonight, she wore red.
“Miss Navarro,” he said, tone oily. “Didn’t expect to see you out of a courtroom—and in that.”
She smiled, teeth sharp beneath her lipstick. “Sometimes truth needs a change of wardrobe.”
In the surveillance van across the street, Ash watched her on the screen, her image crystal-clear through the hidden camera embedded in her necklace. Nico sat beside him, feet on the console, popping gum with a grin.
“Damn,” Nico muttered. “She’s got this guy twisted already.”
Ash didn’t reply. He was watching her too closely for that.
Back inside, Celeste trailed her fingers along the rim of Gregorio’s glass. “You know, I always wondered how someone like you ended up in office.”
“Oh?” he chuckled, puffing up slightly. “Charm, charisma—”
“No,” she interrupted sweetly. “Secrets.”
His smile faltered.
Celeste leaned in, her breath brushing his jaw. “And voters? They don’t care about morals. They care about illusions. You, councilman, are very good at illusions.”
He shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m not here to expose you,” she said, pulling a slim flash drive from her clutch and placing it in front of him. “Not yet. That’s your choice.”
“What’s this?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“Proof,” she replied. “Of your off-shore accounts. Your connections to rival families. Your tie to the accountant found dead in Pasig last month.”
His face drained of color. “Where did you—?”
She smiled. “Let’s just say I have friends in both low and high places.”
In the van, Nico let out a low whistle. “Girl’s playing chess.”
Ash’s expression remained unreadable. He knew this wasn’t a bluff. The files were real. And she was executing the drop flawlessly.
Gregorio stared at the flash drive. “So what do you want?”
“I want you to do what you do best,” she said, rising to her feet. “Lie. Say you support the De Luca family. Say tradition matters. Say you trust their leadership. Do it on camera. At next week’s vote.”
“And if I don’t?”
She leaned close, her voice suddenly lethal. “Then your wife, your donors, and the public get to see everything you thought you buried. Including the video of you last Thursday... with that intern.”
She didn’t wait for his reply.
As she walked away, the power surged through her. Not fear. Not guilt. Just control. She’d done what Ash would’ve done—but she’d done it her way. With lipstick, with poise, with brilliance and venom.
Outside, the SUV was already waiting. Ash stood beside it, suit jacket unbuttoned, sleeves rolled back, leaning on the door as if he hadn’t just listened to every word.
She didn’t speak as she climbed into the car. Neither did he.
Not until they were two blocks away.
“You’re not the same girl who wore beige cardigans and carried color-coded highlighters.”
She stared ahead. “No. She’s gone.”
Ash reached out slowly, letting his fingers brush her thigh. “I liked her.”
Celeste turned to him then. “But?”
He met her gaze. “But I love this version of you.”
For a moment, she didn’t say anything. And then she smiled—soft, sad, dangerous.
“I don’t know if I can ever go back.”
Ash’s voice dropped. “You don’t have to.”
And maybe she didn’t want to.
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- Writer
