THEODORE'S POV
Beatrice has feelings for Adrien.
Those five words have been circling my mind for hours. Maybe longer. Time stopped mattering somewhere between the rain and now.
Central Park. 8:34 PM. My clothes are soaked through, cold against my skin. The storm has passed but the sky remains heavy with clouds, like it hasn't decided whether it's finished yet. I dropped Beatrice at her apartment. Watched her walk inside with her shoulders hunched and her eyes hollow — like something behind them had cracked.
I did nothing. Because there was nothing I could do.
"Oh, what is the infamous Ice King of the Alps doing in Central Park?"
I don't need to turn my head. That smug, entitled voice is unmistakable.
"When will you stop tracking me, Lucie?"
Lucian sits beside me on the bench, crossing one ankle over his knee. "When I'm reasonably certain you'll remain alive long enough for me to achieve my goal. Can't afford to lose my one and only salvation, can I?"
I glance at him. City light catches those soft deep blue eyes. Blonde hair tousled — by wind or intention, it doesn't matter. The effect is the same.
Lucian Rothenburg. The Bastard of Rothenburg. The notorious rake who can charm any woman into his bed with three sentences and a lazy smile.
Everyone sees him as Benedict's replacement at worst — the most unthreatening figure in British high society. What nobody knows is that everything about Lucian, from the messy hair to the unbuttoned shirt, is meticulously curated for survival.
Behind those flirtatious eyes lives a tech prodigy who tracked me down two decades ago and sold his loyalty to me in exchange for a single oath. One promise. Still unkept.
"You sent me to that steakhouse knowing those people would corner Betty, didn't you?" The playful expression he wears for everyone else is gone. Stripped clean.
I narrow my eyes. "It's Beatrice to you."
He waves a dismissive hand. "Oh, do calm down. I have absolutely zero interest in a woman you're besotted with."
My finger twitches in my lap.
Besotted. Is that what this is?
I look away slowly. The city hums in the distance, skyscrapers peeking above the treeline like monuments to ambition.
First Lucas. Now Lucian. I haven't even tried to hide what I feel — and yet the woman I feel it for has already given her heart to someone else.
Lucian studies me sideways, hands tucked in his pockets. "You look sad, Theo."
I blink. My gaze has drifted to a couple on the meadow a short distance away. The man has his arms wrapped around his lover. She keeps pressing small, scattered kisses all over his face — like he is the most precious thing in her world.
Something in my chest tightens. Not jealousy. Something quieter. Like mourning for something I've never had.
"What do you think about the situation between Adrien and Beatrice?"
Lucian gives me a genuinely thoughtful look — a rare commodity from him. I wait. My breathing is too steady, too controlled for a man who feels everything slipping through his fingers. Who is fighting every instinct screaming at him to retreat behind the ice walls he's lived inside for decades. To fly back to Zurich where nobody can reach him.
"At the lunch, Aurélien barely spoke to Betty. But the moment I started conversing with her —" he nods slowly, "— he looked as though he wanted to tear me limb from limb and feed the pieces to those hunting dogs he keeps on the farmhouse."
My jaw tightens.
"He fired ten board members because of her. Originally planned to use their behaviour as leverage — weaken their influence, nothing more. But once they targeted Betty —" Lucian snaps his fingers. "All ten removed. House arrest. Money laundering charges filed within the hour. Then he personally confronted Olivia. Drove through a storm to Betty's apartment." He pauses. "I pulled the hallway CCTV footage from her building as you requested. They had a conversation outside her door. It didn't look like employer and employee, Theo. It looked like two people in a quarrel that only lovers have."
I hear every word. Clear. Detailed. Something cold and final settles in my chest.
I saw it myself. Adrien's hand around her wrist that night. The way she looked at him — furious but not cruel.
Anger means she cares. She cares enough to rage at him. To show her worst self. To cry because of him.
But what about me?
From day one, I've shown up with honesty. With patience. With flowers and persistence and every version of myself I could offer. And all I've received is distance. Politeness. The careful, measured kindness a woman gives a man she doesn't want to hurt but doesn't want to let in.
Politeness is worse than anger. At least anger means you matter.
I look down at my hands.
Large. Rough. Scarred in places most people never see.
These hands buried my mother when I was seven. Held a whip's marks by the time I could walk. Signed deals that funded wars and ended them. Killed more people than I can count — not because I wanted to, but because surviving in a world where more people want you dead than alive requires becoming the thing they're afraid of.
And at seventeen, these hands were drenched in blood — standing on the wrong side of a road, staring at the only person I'd ever called brother, begging him to believe me.
Adrien Aurélien Laurent.
He was the first warmth I ever knew. The boy who shared his world with a kid whose every night ended in his father's rage. I called him brother. I would have died for him.
Until he chose the world's version of events over mine. Until he looked at the blood on my hands and decided I was exactly what everyone said I was.
The truth remains. Adrien doesn't carry what I carry. His hands aren't stained like mine. His name doesn't come with whispered accusations of patricide. He walks into rooms and people see an heir. I walk into rooms and people see a monster.
Why would Beatrice feel something for me when Adrien exists?
Why would anyone?
The familiar numbness creeps in. The shadow in my chest — the one I've lived with since childhood — whispers what it always whispers: accept it. You were never meant for love. You were never meant for family. Go back behind the walls. Be the monster. It's safer there.
"Theo." Lucian's voice cuts through. Quiet. Steady. "Don't give up on the woman you've come to love. You aren't the villain everyone makes you out to be."
My eyes widen slightly. Like something just shook me out of a freefall.
Lucian's gaze rests on the couple across the meadow. The breeze ruffles his hair. His voice carries none of its usual performance.
"Even people like you and me are worthy of love."
A heavy breath leaves my chest. Almost a laugh. Almost not. "You mean the sort of people who don't even know what love looks like."
Lucian gasps, hand to his chest. "I beg your pardon — I am vastly more well-versed in romance than you could ever hope to be. I only said that because you looked like you were experiencing all seven stages of grief at once, and quite frankly it was becoming uncomfortable to witness."
The voice in my head retreats. Buried again — under logic and the absurd creature sitting next to me.
Lucian leans closer, smirking. "You know what the simplest way to win a woman is?"
I narrow my eyes. "What?"
"A proper shag and a decent meal."
I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek and glare at him. "Do you want me to enrol you in special forces training?"
His eyes widen. He clamps his hand over his mouth. "Ahaha — lovely weather we're having. The most effective way to win a woman is to court her properly, pursue her with consistency, and —" he pauses, eyes crinkling with mischief, "— deploy your assets with a degree of intention."
I elbow his stomach. Not hard. But hard enough.
He groans and doubles over. "That was entirely uncalled for. I was offering perfectly sound counsel, you hopeless bloody celibate."
A passerby stares at me. Heat crawls up my neck.
Lucian sits back and gives me a judgmental side-eye. "Don't tell me you haven't entertained a single improper thought about the woman."
"Why would I?"
"Because you are physically and digitally trailing her round the clock like some deranged, lovesick stalker with a surveillance budget!" He straightens his collar indignantly. "You have me hacking CCTV feeds and monitoring her schedule. That is, by any civilised definition, stalking."
I drag my palm down my face.
When he articulates it like that, it sounds appalling. Because it is appalling. But from the day I first saw her at that hotel, I've had eyes on her constantly — and not once have I lowered my gaze below her face.
I am a gentleman.
...
Am I?
I pull at my hair in frustration. Two minutes ago I was spiralling into the conviction that I'm the most unlovable creature on earth. Now I'm suddenly, painfully aware of how completely, obsessively, possessively I've fallen for this woman.
Lucian smirks, throwing his arm around my shoulder. "Tell me, Theo. You've never shown genuine interest in any woman before. Every date ended in polite conversation. Every former girlfriend described you as everything except passionate. But now you're finally taken with someone —" his voice drops, conspiratorial, "— don't you feel something rather more... primal?"
My hands curl into fists.
Very much aware of the part of me I'm struggling to control whenever I'm near her. Those small lips look dangerously inviting when they say my name. And it would be the greatest lie of my life to claim I haven't had thoroughly uncivilised thoughts about this woman.
"No," I lie.
"Really?" He leans closer, one eyebrow raised with aristocratic scepticism.
I shove him away and stand. "Enough. Tell me why you tracked me here instead of calling."
Lucian pouts — the expression of a schoolboy denied recess — but I've grown immune to these performances. He pulls out his phone and hands it to me.
I read through the documents Lucian extracted from Laurent Corporation's internal files.
My blood runs cold. And it has nothing to do with the soaked clothes clinging to my skin.
"The Chairman has been funding rivals of the Nochnye Kogti."
Nochnye Kogti — the Night Claws. One of the most powerful Russian bratva syndicates operating across Eastern Europe and the Americas. The kind of organisation that doesn't send warnings. They send bodies.
Lucian nods slowly. "Ludwig's been escalating things in the underworld for months. No wonder the Pakhan wants his entire family dead. The arson at the anniversary gala — that was the Night Claws' opening move."
Ludwig Dominik Laurent. Does he care about anyone beyond his wife and children? No. He never has. I would have ignored the situation between the bratva and the Laurents entirely — let them bleed each other dry.
But Beatrice is inside that building now. Inside that world. And even if the Pakhan wouldn't touch her because of my name standing behind her — I can't trust Ludwig. He will use anyone and anything to achieve what he wants. Including the woman I love.
"Does Adrien know?" My voice drops.
Lucian shakes his head. "Not a whisper. I can leak it to his team if you'd like."
I look up at the dark, clouded sky.
Telling Adrien means the Laurent family gains an edge against the bratva's next move. It protects them. It protects her.
Not telling him means Beatrice could be caught in the crossfire between Ludwig's ambition and the Pakhan's vengeance.
A scoff of disbelief escapes my throat. The things a man does for love.
"Let him know." I pause. "And I need you to do something else."
Lucian raises an eyebrow.
I look at him. My eyes carry something I've been holding back for days — possessiveness, desperation, and a darkness that has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with the fact that I am not strong enough to watch her choose him.
"I want you to manipulate Ludwig into arranging an engagement between Adrien and Olivia."
Lucian's eyes blow wide. "I'm sorry — what?"
Because I don't think I'm noble enough to let go of the only woman I have ever loved. The only woman I will ever love.
Even if I'm cursed.
Even if I have every reason not to drag her into my world.
Even if the safe and right thing would be to step aside and let Adrien and Beatrice find their way to each other.
I was never the man who does the right thing.
Never the man who sacrifices himself so someone else gets the happy ending.
"I want Beatrice to hate Adrien.. He will never say no to his father and I won't ever let go of her even if she never loves me."