11:47 PM | Aveline's Office
Aveline sat at her desk, laptop open, fingers flying across the keyboard in a rhythm that sounded like rain on glass.
Russian text filled the screen. Paragraphs. Pages. Dense philosophical analysis that would make most people's eyes cross until they went permanently sideways. The kind of writing that suggested someone had decided to think really hard about something and refused to stop.
Her cats lay curled on the desk beside her. Bruno's head resting on her arm, heavy and warm, the weight of him anchoring her to the physical world. Meowly purring against her side, a continuous rumble that vibrated through the wood and up through her bones. The purring was louder than it should've been in the quiet office — it filled the space, filled everything, became the heartbeat of the room.
She paused. Glanced at them. Her fingers, still for the first time all night, moved to scratch behind Bruno's ears.
He purred louder. The sound somewhere between motorcycle and satisfied dragon. Prehistoric. Impossibly alive.
Her lips curved. Just slightly. Just enough to be something.
Then back to work.
Always work.
12:47 AM | Yuki's Bedroom
Yuki woke to pain.
Sharp. Cramping. The kind that made your body feel like it was turning on itself, like every cell had decided to protest existence simultaneously.
Oh no.
She sat up, heart sinking with the particular despair of realizing you've started your period in someone else's extremely expensive bed. In someone's mansion. In a bed that probably cost more than her car.
Of course. Of fucking course.
She checked. Leaked through her underwear, onto her pajama pants, but — thank God, thank whatever deity watched over menstruating women trapped in billionaires' mansions — not onto the sheets yet. Not yet.
She needed pads. Tampons. Something. Anything. Any biological solution to a problem that had a very specific timeline and absolutely no patience.
She checked the bathroom. Opened every cabinet, every drawer, increasingly frantic. Her hands were shaking. Everything was too bright under the bathroom lights, too exposed, too real.
Nothing.
Shit.
Okay. Options.
She could wait till morning? No. She'd bleed everywhere and probably die of embarrassment before any other option materialized. The shame would be astronomical.
Ask the staff? It was almost 1 AM. There was no staff. They'd all gone home before midnight, disappeared into the night like they were optional extras in her life.
Ask Aveline?
Yuki's stomach dropped.
"Don't disturb me during sleep."
Aveline had said that. Specifically. With that cold, flat tone that suggested she had contingency plans for people who didn't listen. Contingency plans that involved violence and absolute certainty.
So.
Adrian.
12:52 AM | East Wing
Yuki crept through the mansion like a burglar in her own panic. Down the hallway, down the grand staircase, every step feeling too loud, too obvious, her heart hammering because what if Aveline heard somehow, what if she had motion sensors installed or infrared or—
Room seven.
She knocked. Soft. Hesitant. Like she was afraid the door might shatter from the impact. "Adrian?"
Silence. The kind of silence that felt permanent.
She knocked again. Harder. Desperation creeping in. "Adrian, please, I—"
The door opened.
Adrian stood there looking like something the universe had forgotten to finish. Bleary-eyed, hair doing things hair had no business doing, wearing sweatpants and a faded NPU academy T-shirt that had seen better decades. He was half-asleep and wholly confused, which was somehow worse than if he'd been fully alert.
"Yuki?" His voice was rough, textured with sleep. "What—"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I need help and I didn't know who else to—"
"Whoa, hey, slow down." He rubbed his face, trying to drag himself back to consciousness. His movements were slow, underwater. "What's wrong?"
She took a breath. The words came out in a rush. "I'm on my period. I don't have any pads or tampons or anything. And I leaked, and I don't want to stain Aveline's thousand-dollar sheets or whatever they cost, and the staff is gone, and I don't know where anything is, and—"
"Okay. Okay, it's fine." Adrian rubbed his face harder, like he could scrub away the sleep and find clarity underneath. "Uh. Aveline probably has... stuff. Somewhere. Rich people always have everything. We can just... go ask her?"
"She said not to disturb her."
"She'll understand. It's an emergency."
"Are you sure?"
Adrian hesitated. The pause stretched. "...Sixty percent sure."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's the best I've got at one in the morning. Come on."
12:53 AM | Second Floor Hallway
They climbed the stairs together. Quiet. Tense. Each step feeling like walking toward their execution, like they were moving deeper into something that couldn't be taken back. The darkness was complete up here — the kind of darkness that felt solid, felt like it had weight.
Reached the second floor. Hallway dark except for faint moonlight filtering through windows, making everything look like it existed in some gray space between real and dream. Shadows pooled in corners. The portraits on the walls looked down at them with eyes that didn't blink.
Room four.
Aveline's door.
Adrian knocked. The sound was too loud. "Aveline? Hey, uh, sorry to bother you, but—"
Nothing. Not even the sound of movement.
He knocked again. Louder. More insistent. "Aveline?"
Silence. Complete. Absolute.
Yuki whispered, "Maybe she's a deep sleeper?"
"Maybe." Though Adrian doubted it. Aveline probably slept like something that had learned to survive, which meant eyes that opened fast and hands that reached for weapons before consciousness fully arrived.
He tried the door handle.
Unlocked.
Why is it unlocked?
He pushed it open slowly. The hinges were silent oiled, maintained, expensive. "Aveline? We're coming in, don't—don't freak out, okay?"
The room was dark. Curtains drawn tight. Faint outline of a bed. A figure lying still beneath the covers, too still, like a corpse. Like something that had stopped being alive.
Adrian stepped inside. The carpet absorbed his footsteps. Yuki followed, staying close, radiating nervous energy like heat.
"Aveline," Adrian said softly, moving toward the bed. His voice sounded small in this space. "Hey. Wake up. Yuki needs—"
He reached out.
Touched her shoulder.
Gently. Carefully.
Like he was touching something that might explode.
And noticed.
Her hand. Under the pillow.
Oh shit.
Aveline moved.
Fast.
In one fluid motion she sat up, hand emerging from beneath the pillow, gun, arm extending with mechanical precision, and:
CRACK.
The gunshot was deafening.
It wasn't loud — it was deafening. It was the sound of the world deciding to stop. Muzzle flash lit the room for a split second, blinding, white-hot, and Adrian felt—
Pain.
Sharp. Burning. His right cheek. Like someone had pressed a hot iron against his face and forgotten to remove it.
He stumbled backward, hand flying to his face, feeling wetness, heat, blood running down his jaw. Warm. Too warm. Too there.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Yuki screamed, a high, broken sound that didn't sound human.
Aveline sat perfectly still. Gun raised. Eyes open and sharp and cold and utterly, terrifyingly calm. Like she hadn't just shot her partner in the face. Like this was just another Tuesday.
She didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
Just... assessed.
Then her eyes closed. Just for a second. The universal gesture of a disappointed mother rethinking every decision that had led to this exact moment. The gesture of someone who had made a thousand mistakes in her life but never the same one twice.
These fucking people.
She lowered the gun with mechanical precision. Set it on the nightstand with a soft click that somehow sounded louder than the gunshot.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm sleeping."
That was it. That was the whole explanation. Her voice was flat, empty as a closed door. Not angry. Not explaining. Just stating fact the way you'd state that water is wet.
She folded her hands in her lap. Perfectly controlled. Like she'd already moved on.
Adrian's mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out. Blood dripped onto Aveline's probably-obscenely-expensive hardwood floor. Drip. Drip. A tiny bell tolling.
"You just—" he started.
"Shot you? Grazed you." She glanced at his cheek with the detached interest of someone looking at weather. At a cloud passing. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. You wouldn't even register it happened."
A pause. Long enough to feel like a sentence.
"Your bathroom has a first aid kit. Second drawer. Use it."
Yuki stepped forward, voice shaking with anger and residual terror. "Wait. Don't you even want to know why we came here?"
Aveline blinked once. Her brain recalculating. Recalibrating.
"Tell me."
"I'm on my period," Yuki said flatly. "And I don't have any supplies."
Silence.
The silence was worse than the gunshot.
Aveline's expression didn't change. "Why didn't you check your bathroom closet? Southwest corner. Behind the extra towels. Everything you need is there."
Yuki stared at her. "I—I looked in the bathroom—"
"Did you look behind the towels?" Aveline's tone wasn't mean. It was just honest in a way that felt like a knife. "Or did you panic and come ask for help like a child?"
Yuki's face flushed. Hot. Shame burning through her like wildfire.
"Go back. Look. It's all there." Aveline settled back into her pillows like they'd just discussed the weather. Like she hadn't just shot anyone. "And next time? Check thoroughly before disturbing people who sleep with guns."
Yuki turned and left. Door closing hard, not quite a slam, but close enough to be a statement.
Adrian stood there, hand pressed against his bleeding cheek, staring at this woman who'd just shot him and was now giving household organization tips like they were on a talk show.
"Why the fuckdo you sleep with a gun under your pillow?" he asked quietly.
Aveline met his gaze. No apology. No guilt. Just cold, calculated truth. The kind of truth that didn't apologize for existing.
"People want me dead. A lot of them." She said it like she was commenting on the weather. Like it was just fact, just data. "Gun under the pillow means I wake up armed. Means I don't die in my sleep. The math is simple."
Adrian stared at her. Waited for more. Waited for her to explain the impossible logic, to make sense of the senseless.
There wasn't any more.
She just looked at him, waiting for him to process this, the way you might wait for a particularly slow dog to understand a command.
"And the... calculated trajectory?" he tried. "The whole thing about you wanting to graze me, not kill me?"
"Would I waste effort on something I didn't mean?" She closed her eyes. "You're still alive. That means I didn't want you dead. Everything else is just noise."
There was a kind of logic to it. The brutal, unsentimental logic of someone who didn't waste energy on justifications or explanations. The logic of someone who lived in a world where most things weren't meant to be complicated.
Adrian exhaled. "I need the first aid kit."
"Second drawer. Bathroom. You'll figure it out."
He turned and walked out.
Closed the door.
Because what was the point?
It was always like this with Aveline.
Cold. Efficient. Terrifying.
And somehow, despite shooting him in the face, still probably right about everything.Ugh