CHAPTER3
1037 Words
The mansion was unusually quiet for midday. Adrian was locked away in a high-level virtual conference with international CEOs, his presence only felt in the sterile stillness of his sprawling home office wing.
Upstairs, the third floor buzzed softly with organization: boxes of archived documents, confidential files, and two updated case folders awaiting Adrian’s signature. His assistant sat near the large window, typing swiftly with a laptop balanced on his knee, both folders open beside him.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not today. Not when Lynda was still trying to catch her breath from what she’d seen the night before.
The message on the mirror hadn’t faded. Not from the glass, and not from her mind. She’d scrubbed the surface clean, again and again, as if erasing the words could unwrite the past. But they were burned into her memory now, each stroke of red inked in guilt and terror.
She had crept back into the guest suite earlier, the one where the mirror had carried a message written in something too dark and too red to be lipstick.
“He died for what you’re about to find out.”
She hadn’t slept since. The night had passed in haunted flashes of her father’s face, the weight of that note etched into her chest.
The morning had crawled by. Every tick of the grandfather clock in the corridor echoed louder than it should have. She’d tried to distract herself with coffee, a bath, even a short call to her aunt but nothing quieted her nerves. Something was wrong.
Now, breathless and pale, she stepped into the hallway, her heels clicking on polished marble as she descended toward Adrian’s private office.
She heard something from inside. A creak. A thud.
No staff were allowed in Adrian’s office without explicit permission. And Adrian wasn’t there.
Her heart hammered. Her mind screamed caution. But she was too curious to turn back. Lynda had always been brave, the kind of girl who looked beneath the bed instead of running out of the room.
“Who’s there?” she asked, voice tight. “Hello?”
No answer. Just silence. The door was slightly ajar, letting in a wedge of soft afternoon light.
She took a breath, summoned every ounce of courage, and pushed it open.
There he was. Adrian’s assistant. Sitting calmly on the couch, laptop open, tie loosened. But the moment their eyes met, the entire energy of the room shifted.
His gaze drifted slowly, deliberately, as if committing her memory.
She wore a short brown skirt, hugging her curves like it had been stitched onto her skin. Her crop top was tight, clinging to her like a second skin, its neckline low enough to expose the subtle swell of her breasts and a delicate sliver of her stomach. Her skin glowed, smooth like silk, her collarbone catching the afternoon light.
There was something dangerously effortless about her sensuality, without trying.
He swallowed once, jaw tensing, eyes darkening.
“I didn’t realize you dressed like this… at home,” he said, voice low and rough.
She glanced down at herself, then back at him. “Neither did I.”
Something electric passed between them.
A pause. A beat too long.
He stood slowly, setting the laptop aside, his frame casting a long shadow across the desk.
“Did you need something?” he asked.
Her mouth opened, but the words didn’t come. She couldn’t tell him about the message. Not yet. Instead, she crossed the room, her arms folding over her chest, not quite to hide herself, but to contain the way her hands were beginning to tremble.
“I heard something,” she said. “Thought Adrian might be here.”
“I’ve just been working,” he said. “Didn’t hear anything strange.”
That didn’t settle her nerves. If anything, it made the hair on her arms rise. She inched closer to the window, pretending to look at the breeze through the trees, but she could feel his presence behind her. Watchful. Too close.
Her eyes flicked to the assistant’s open folders on the desk, half-covered in shadow, but one bore a familiar name. Her father’s. She blinked, unsure if she imagined it.
The weight of it nearly buckled her knees. What was her father’s file doing here? Why was Adrian’s assistant looking at it? She didn’t ask. Couldn’t.
“You okay?” he asked, softer now. “You’re… shaking.”
She turned to him, her expression cracking just enough for vulnerability to show.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“You’re not.”
The silence stretched. She didn’t move. Neither did he. The air between them grew warm, dense, almost magnetic. Her breathing slowed, though her heart didn’t.
He stepped forward. Her spine pressed gently against the wall.
His hand lifted slightly, as if to touch her cheek, but he stopped himself. Instead, he simply looked at her. As if looking was too much already.
He leaned in slowly. The space between them shrank until she could feel the heat of his breath brushing her mouth.
Her lips parted softly, unsure. Her chest lifted with a silent inhale.
Their mouths were just a heartbeat apart. Her breath caught.
The hallway window behind them shattered with a violent burst. The sound cut the air like a scream.
A deafening pop followed, sharp and brutal, like a firecracker tearing through steel. Then the glass exploded.
The assistant lunged.
Lynda’s scream pierced the silence as a bullet slammed into the wall inches from his head.
Her body hit the floor beneath his.
She couldn’t hear anything but her heartbeat, pounding like a war drum in her chest.
His chest pressed against hers, rising and falling in quick, shallow gasps.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Stay down.”
The air was thick with glass dust and tension. Then came the footsteps.
Fast. Heavy.
Getting closer.
Someone else was in the house.
Lynda clutched his shirt, her fingers trembling. He glanced toward the shattered window, then back at her.
“We need to move,” he murmured.
To where?” “Somewhere safe.”
“Is that even possible?”
Another footstep. Then silence.
They weren’t alone.
- Writer
