THEODORE'S POV
A fabricated breach in the security architecture triggered a full-scale panic response at SH Securities headquarters.
I know it was Adrien — the surveillance network I've embedded inside the Laurent estate isn't decorative.
I heard the deployment order before his helicopter lifted off.
I left Lucas behind deliberately.
That man alone can neutralise a hundred tactical operatives when properly motivated, and of all the human beings on this planet, Adrien Aurélien Laurent has the unique capacity to motivate Lucas simply by existing within a five-mile radius.
I told Lucas one thing: protect Beatrice. And if she wants to leave with Adrien — let her go.
I would have let her go.
And then I would have spent the next six months dismantling every reason she had to stay with him. Not just Adrien — the entire Laurent dynasty. Piece by piece. Until the only direction left for her to turn was toward me.
Because a part of me never believed she would choose me willingly.
A part of me — the part that buried his mother at seven, that stood across from Adrien at seventeen with blood on his hands begging to be believed, that has spent a decade building walls so high even devil couldn't see over them — that part has never believed someone like her would choose a monster like me.
Bright. Fierce. Pure in a way that has nothing to do with innocence and everything to do with integrity.
Why would she choose the man the world calls a killer when the golden heir is standing right there, offering her everything that looks like a love story?
So I sit in the control room. Headphones in. Strawberry ice cream in hand — Lucian's standard offering when I'm spiraling. Eyes fixed on the feed from the villa's interior cameras.
Telling myself it doesn't matter if she leaves with Adrien. She'll be mine eventually. I'll make sure of it.
Yet a stupid, childish, irrational part of me — the part I thought I'd killed years ago — clings to a silver of hope. That she might stay. That she might choose me without manipulation. That last night meant something real to her.
"You're going to fracture your jaw if you keep clenching like that." Lucian slides into the chair beside me, passing the ice cream cup.
I take it without looking at him. "I'm older than you."
"You look younger. Baby face."
Normally I'd elbow him. Today I just hold the cold cup and watch the screen.
The front door of my villa explodes inward.
Lucian pulls one headphone from my ear and shares the feed. We watch in silence.
My heart beats slowly. Too slowly for the tension coiled inside my chest. Each thud feels deliberate — like my body is rationing beats, conserving for whatever comes next.
Lucas confronts Adrien exactly as I expected. My Sonnenschein stands at the top of the stairs in my shirt — the braid I wove while she drifted off is slightly undone now, messy strands falling across her shoulder. She looks soft and fierce simultaneously. Small in my oversized cotton. Enormous in the way she holds her ground.
I want to wrap myself around her and never let another human being within arm's reach of her again.
They argue. The pain in her voice is physical — I feel it in my sternum, a sharp pressure that makes my grip tighten around the ice cream cup until the cardboard bends.
When Adrien says "please" — that desperate, cracked, barely-human please — my chest stops moving. The ice cream melts against my palm. My fingers go cold.
She'll go with him.
I know she will.
Adrien is desperate and desperate men are dangerous because they make you believe the desperation is love.
I have ten logical arguments prepared for why she'll choose him. Ten reasons why brightness always gravitates toward brightness and leaves the dark behind.
"I'M HERE TO SAVE YOU."
My grip crushes the cup. Ice cream spills over my knuckles. I don't feel it.
She's going to leave. She's going to walk out with him and I'll watch it happen through a camera I planted in my own home, alone in a control room, holding a ruined cup of strawberry ice cream like the pathetic, obsessive, lovesick —
"Too late. I don't need to be saved from him."
Everything stops.
The cup slips from my hand. Lucian catches it — effortlessly, instinctively — before it hits the keyboard. A low whistle escapes his mouth.
I sit motionless. Blinking at the screen like the pixels will rearrange themselves into something that makes sense. Like I misheard. Like the surveillance audio glitched and fed me what I wanted
instead of what she said.
"She trusts you, Theo." Lucian nudges my arm.
I stare at the monitor. Adrien withdraws his team. Lucas says something that makes Beatrice's shoulders drop in visible relief.
She tends to the cut on his jaw while they talk — and even through a camera feed with no audio enhancement, I can tell from their body language they're discussing what a spectacular disaster Adrien Aurélien Laurent is.
The back of my eyes stings. The warmth spreading through my chest makes everything feel impossible — too bright, too much, too real for a man who has spent his life in the cold.
"I'm going to marry her."
Lucian glances at me. "Of course you are."
"Today."
His eyes blow wide. I'm already on my feet, moving for the door. Lucian lunges — wrapping both arms around my shoulders from behind like a human anchor.
"THEO. YOU CANNOT. YOU HAVE TO MAKE HER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU FIRST."
"LET GO."
"YOU ARE BEING EMOTIONAL."
I pause mid-stride. "Excuse me?"
Lucian has me pinned against the door — and despite the absurdity of two grown men wrestling in front of forty intelligence operatives who are all desperately pretending their screens are fascinating, he's not letting go.
"Theodore Schweitzer." He inhales sharply. Holds eye contact. The playfulness is gone.
"She chose me." I point at the laptop. And I can feel it — a grin breaking across my face so wide and so involuntary that every person in this control room is fighting the urge to look.
The Ice devil of the Alps is smiling. Genuinely smiling. Several of them will probably need therapy.
"I know she did. But that's not how this works."
I frown.
Lucian keeps me pinned. "Women want men who are devoted but patient. Obsessive but gentle. You can want to consume her entirely — but you have to let her come to you at her own pace."
"I am patient. I am gentle. I didn't touch her last night even though I wanted to —" I pause. No shame. No filter. "— have her. Completely. In every way a man can have a woman."
Lucian narrows his eyes. "Two days ago you told me you had zero improper thoughts about her."
"I didn't. Until she kissed me." I pause, " No I did kiss her and she kissed back."
I touch my lips without meaning to. The ghost of her taste — coffee, something sweet, the warmth of her breath — makes my pulse climb. Her lips against mine felt like something that was always supposed to exist and only just arrived.
"Did you follow my instructions?" Lucian's expression shifts to something insufferably curious.
I side-eye him. "Shut up."
"Yes or no?"
"None of your concern."
A mischievous grin splits his face. "So that's a yes."
I drive my elbow into his ribs. He doubles over, groaning. Heat crawls up my neck. My pulse is hammering and it has nothing to do with the altercation.
"Regardless — you cannot marry her before October."
I click my tongue. Mutter under my breath. "Perhaps I should take her to the Zurich estate and ensure no one else has access to her."
"NO. YOU WILL NOT."
I press my lips together. What's wrong with that? I just don't want to share her. Not when she's this fragile. Not when she carries this much weight on a frame that small. Not when every man in her orbit keeps hurting her and I am the only one who —
I stop myself. Barely.
I know what I sound like. I know the line between devotion and imprisonment is thinner than most people realize. I know that the urge to lock her inside my walls comes from the same place as the urge to protect her — and that the first will destroy everything the second is trying to build.
I know this.
I still want to do it.
"Theo." Lucian straightens, fixing his jacket. "This isn't how relationships work. You have to give her freedom."
"I do give her freedom."
He stares at me with the expression of a man watching someone claim the sky is green.
"You have cameras installed in every room she occupies except her apartment. That is — by every legal and moral definition — stalking."
"She said she wants an obsessive, possessive man."
"Who told you that was a good idea?" he frowns suspiciously...
"She told me. Directly. To my face."
"She was being provocative, Theo. Testing you. Not issuing a surveillance authorization."
I open my mouth. Close it. The logic is sound and I hate that it's sound.
"You have to wait," Lucian says. Firm. Serious. The voice of the one person in my life who can tell me I'm wrong and survive the conversation. "You're not any man. You're Theodore Schweitzer. And we have work to do before go around letting yourself taste the honey after being starved for so long."
The impulse screams at me — claim her, imprint her, cage her inside the safest walls I can build. But Lucian is right. He's always right about the things I'm worst at understanding.
I exhale.
"Fine."
"Did you contact the Siren unit deployed in China?"
Lucian relaxes visibly with the shift in topic. "Confirmed. They've completed the transit segment. The Pakhan's supply chain received the raw materials through the border corridor we established. Mediation commission clears by tomorrow. Squad leader Emily is awaiting orders for the next assignment."
The Siren unit.
One of several covert operations Schweitzer Bank has maintained for generations — women recruited and trained since adolescence, deployed across continents as intermediaries, intelligence operatives, and facilitators.
The outside world has various names for them. Foxes. Sirens. Ghosts. The elegant French label my grandfather preferred: dynastie des intermédiaires.
The middleman dynasty. Very Swiss. Very civilized language for a very uncivilized business.
The operational truth is simpler: women navigate spaces men cannot enter. They observe what men overlook. And they accomplish objectives that brute force consistently fails to achieve.
"Reassign Emily. She enters Laurent Corporation under a fabricated identity. Her sole priority is proximity to Sonnenschein."
Lucian frowns. "You mean Betty?"
"I mean the woman I'm going to marry."
He doesn't argue further. Keeping Beatrice safe means keeping me functional, and nobody in this organization benefits from me losing control again.
I turn and walk out. For now, I won't raise the subject of marriage. But that changes nothing about where this ends.
The drive home is quiet. The warmth in my chest hasn't faded — if anything, it's growing louder, spreading through my bloodstream like something alive. Like a part of me that's been dormant for twenty-five years just received its first heartbeat.
The villa is swarming with cleaners and restoration crews repairing the damage Adrien's team left behind. New door. New frame. The roses in the black vase have been replaced — red, fresh, exactly the same arrangement.
Lucas has left for a separate assignment. Beatrice is on the balcony.
I move through the villa toward the bedroom. Each step closer makes my heartbeat louder, more insistent, more traitorous. I push open the balcony door.
Soft wind carries the fragrance of red roses blooming in the garden below. She's sitting on the plush outdoor couch, hair tied up in a bun now, a few rebellious strands lifting with the breeze.
Still wearing my shirt. Too large for her frame. Looking like it was always hers.
Like I was always hers.
"Sonnenschein."
She turns her head.
And she smiles.
My eyes widen. The impact of it — the full, unguarded warmth of Beatrice Kenz smiling at me — hits my chest like a collision. Like weather changing. Like the first warmth after a winter that lasted a lifetime.
"Oh, you're back."
Every wall I've built. Every calculation I've made. Every strategic decision, every surveillance deployment, every sleepless night monitoring her safety from a screen — all of it dissolves in the face of three words spoken in a voice that sounds like she's glad to see me.
I walk toward her. And I kneel.
Because this is where I belong — at her level, at her feet, in the only posture that has ever felt honest.
My hand reaches for her face. I press my lips to her forehead. Gently. The way my mother used to press hers against mine before the world took her away.
Beatrice freezes. But she doesn't pull away. Doesn't push me back. She stays perfectly still — and that stillness feels like the first door anyone has ever left open for me.
"Yeah." I whisper against her skin. "I'm back."
Exactly where I belong.