The ghost's revenge

Chapter 2Untitled Episode

Chapter 2: Collision in the Dark

POV: Seraphina

The mansion settled into silence at midnight. I waited in my assigned room until all the lights went dark, and the security guards completed their rounds. Adrian ran a tight operation, but every system had patterns and I had spent the week learning his.

I dressed in black and moved through the servant corridors like water flowing through cracks. Years of training had taught me how to walk without sound and how to blend with shadows. My gifts helped too. A subtle push of emotion toward drowsiness ensured the hallway guard did not look up as I passed.

Vincent's study remained locked, but Marcus had provided me with a copy of the key. My hands remained steady as I unlocked the door and slipped inside. The room smelled of cigars and old leather. Moonlight streamed through the windows and illuminated the massive desk where my father made decisions that ruined lives.

I moved to the filing cabinets and picked up the lock with practiced ease. Financial records filled the drawers and I photographed page after page with my phone. Money transfers to offshore accounts and payments to officials whose names I recognized from news reports. Evidence of corruption stretches back decades.

A sound in the hallway made me freeze. Footsteps approached, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I had thirty seconds before someone entered the room. The window was too far and the desk offered no real cover. My eyes landed on the bookshelf where I knew a hidden passage existed because Isabella used to spy on Father's meetings when we were children.

I found the trigger and the shelf swung open. I slipped inside just as the study door opened. Through a crack in the passage, I watched someone enter the study. Not a guard making rounds.

Adrian Blackwell moved through the darkness with purpose. He went straight to the filing cabinets I had just closed and began searching through the same documents I had photographed. My breath caught. The head of security was searching his employer's private files in the middle of the night.

He was not what he appeared to be and neither was I. We were both wolves in sheep's clothing.

I should have stayed hidden, but my foot shifted and the old floorboard creaked. Adrian's head snapped toward the bookshelf and his body coiled like a spring. He crossed the room in seconds and yanked the shelf open.

We collided in the narrow space. His hand caught my wrist and I twisted free and drove my elbow toward his ribs. He blocked and grabbed my shoulder. We grappled in the confined passage and neither of us could gain advantage. He was stronger, but I was faster and we both fought with skill that came from serious training.

Voices echoed in the hallway outside. We both froze, and our faces were inches apart in the darkness. His breath came quickly against my cheek and I felt his heart racing as fast as mine. My empathic sense flooded with his emotions and beneath the adrenaline, I felt something unexpected. Recognition and curiosity and an attraction that mirrored what I felt.

"Move back," he whispered, and his voice was rough. "Slowly."

We retreated deeper into the passage and the hidden door swung shut behind us. Total darkness surrounded us and the space was barely wide enough for one person and certainly not two. Our bodies pressed together, and I could feel every breath he took.

The voices in the study grew clearer. Guards checking the rooms. They would search for several minutes before moving on.

"Who are you?" Adrian's whisper was barely audible, and his lips were close to my ear.

"I could ask you the same question," I whispered back. "Security chiefs don't usually break into their employer's files."

"And bodyguards don't usually break into studies at midnight."

We stood in tense silence and waited for the guards to leave. His hand still gripped my arm and I could feel his pulse through his fingertips. My gift told me he was weighing options and calculating risks and, beneath it all, there was something softer that he was trying to suppress.

The voices faded and the study door closed. We waited another full minute before either of us moved. Adrian released my arm and created as much distance as the narrow space allowed.

"We need to talk," he said.

"About how we're both here doing things we shouldn't be?"

"About why you're really working for this family."

I smiled in the darkness and knew he could not see it. "Maybe I'm about to ask you the same thing."

"Tomorrow night," he said. "There's a maintenance shed behind the east garden. Midnight."

"And if I don't come?"

"Then I'll have to assume you're a threat that needs to be eliminated."

The words should have frightened me but instead, they sent a thrill down my spine. This man was dangerous in ways I had not anticipated. He was not just physically capable. He was smart, and he had his own agenda, and he had just seen me doing something that could blow my cover.

"I'll be there," I said.

He moved first and triggered the mechanism that opened the passage back into the study. He checked that the hallway was clear before stepping out. I followed, and we stood facing each other in the moonlit room.

Up close, I could see his features more clearly. Strong jaw and dark eyes that missed nothing and a mouth set in a hard line. He looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"What's your real name?" he asked.

"The one on my employment file."

"That's not what I asked."

I moved toward the door and my shoulder brushed his as I passed. "Tomorrow night, you can tell me yours first."

I felt his eyes on me as I left the study. My hands shook as I walked back to my room and I pressed them against my stomach. The encounter had been too close, and I had revealed too much. Adrian knew I was not just a bodyguard and I knew he was not just head of security.

We were two predators hunting in the same territory and tomorrow night, we would have to decide whether to work together or tear each other apart. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the way his heartbeat had synchronized with mine in the darkness.

The plan was already getting complicated, and I had a feeling Adrian Blackwell was about to make it much worse.