A D R I A N

The cop keeps asking the same damn question and I keep giving the same damn answer.

“No. I didn’t authorize that transfer. No, I didn’t send the photo. No, I didn’t access the shell account.”

It feels like talking underwater, slow, muffled, pointless. I’m staring at my own hands on the table like they belong to someone else. They keep trembling. I keep curling them into fists to hide it.

The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. I can hear the ocean through the window. I can hear a pen scratching on a clipboard. Everything feels too loud and too far away at the same time. But what really guts me is that I can’t hear her.

Elara.

She was supposed to be in the clinic this morning. Safe. Predictable. Within reach if this building fell apart. And now.. there’s shouting outside. A voice I know. My father’s. Low, furious. Then another voice, sharper, breathless..

Elara. I sit up so fast the chair screeches backward. The officer flinches.

“Mr. Valcrosse..”

“I’m done.” I’m already on my feet. “Either arrest me or move.” He tries to block the door. I look him dead in the eye and something in my face must tell him I am seconds.. no, atoms, from snapping, because he steps aside without another word.

The hallway is chaotic. Security. Staff. Voices rising in a way that feels like an earthquake winding up under the floorboards. And somewhere down that corridor Elara is speaking.  And I know, deep in the place where instinct lives, that whatever’s happening isn’t just about me anymore.

 I don’t make it three steps before Chief Rivas cuts me off. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Maybe none of us have.

“We got the first trace back,” he tells me. No preamble. No softening. “The system breach you were accused of? The routing logs came from a separate dock.” I blink at him. My pulse hammers so hard it makes my vision pulse with it.

“Docked where?”

“Lower marina office. Shared workstation.” A breath punches out of me. Not relief, something closer to fury cracking its knuckles.

“Whose badge accessed it?” He hesitates. That’s how I know I’m about to kill someone.

“Callum Valcrosse,” he says quietly. “And his aide, Rowan Levens.” My cousin.  Of course it’s my cousin. The golden boy with the smile that never reaches his eyes. The one who’s been circling my throne like a shark since we were twelve.

“And the photo leak?” I ask, voice scraping out of my throat.

Rivas glances down at the tablet in his hand. “Same workstation. Same timestamps. Same two users.”

My muscles go loose for a moment, like relief is trying to flood in, but it can’t. Not yet. The damage is already done. My reputation’s already bleeding out across this island like a gut wound.

“They tried to frame you,” he continues, softer. “To make it look like you were misusing funds and..”

“And what?” My voice is a blade.

“And sabotaging your own succession.”

I laugh. Short. Sharp. Humorless. “Callum never had the spine to challenge me head-on.”

“It wasn’t just him,” Rivas says. “Someone else spoofed Marina’s system shadow file. But we don’t know who.”

Marina. For one split second, one stupid, painful second, my chest tightens in a way that feels like betrayal with a pulse. But I push past it. Because I hear another voice down the hall now, one I know better than my own heartbeat— Elara. Talking. Arguing. Fighting. And everything inside me shifts.

Kai is the first one I see rounding the corner. He looks like he ran here. Sweat on his temples, jaw clenched so tight it’s a miracle his teeth haven’t cracked.

“Adrian.” His voice hits like a hand slamming on a brake. “What the hell is going on?”

“Callum,” I say. “He and Rowan tried to set me up.” Kai doesn’t even blink. He just nods once, sharp, like he expected it.

“Where is he?” he asks, already rolling his sleeves like he’s ready to beat someone to death with his bare hands. Before I can answer, Lucien appears behind him, quieter, colder, winter dressed in charcoal.

“He’s been escorted to Holding A,” Lucien says. “They found irregularities in his travel logs. And someone tipped security that he tried to leave the building.”

I exhale. It’s not calm. It’s not a relief. It’s the sound a man makes when he’s been holding up a collapsing roof alone and suddenly someone else wedges their shoulder under it.

“I’m sorry,” Kai blurts. The words seem too big in his mouth. “I should’ve believed you from the start.” Lucien doesn’t say sorry. He never has. But he steps closer, meets my eyes, and nods once, slow and steady.

“We have your back,” he says. “All of us.” And for the first time today, my lungs actually fill. But then, another voice cuts down the hallway. Not yelling. Not angry. Tight. Controlled. Terrified. Elara. My body moves before my mind does.

Miguel intercepts me right as I’m about to sprint into the boardroom like a lunatic.

“Adrian.. wait.” His face is flushed. He looks like he’s aged ten years in one morning.

“What happened?” I demand.

He swallows hard. “She walked into the boardroom alone.” My stomach drops so fast I swear the floor tilts.

“Elara?” My voice cracks, actually cracks. “Alone?”

Miguel nods. “She had papers. Printouts. She slammed them on the table in front of Godfrey and.. Adrian, she’s defending Isabella. She’s… she’s fighting them.” The hallway blurs for a second. Like my brain can’t decide whether to freeze me in place or shove me forward.

“She shouldn’t be in there,” I whisper. It comes out hoarse, strangled. “That room will eat her alive.”

“She didn’t look eaten,” Miguel says quietly. “She looked like someone who’d set herself on fire if it meant keeping you standing.” My heart stutters. Actually fucking stutters. I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember breathing. I only remember the moment my palm hits the boardroom door. And I hear her voice on the other side.

Strong. Steady. Defiant. Elara is fighting a war meant for me. And I swear to God, if they hurt her. I’ll burn this whole damn island down. The boardroom feels like walking straight into a pit of knives. 

Half the executives are standing. A few are pale. Papers are scattered like someone threw a deck of cards into a storm. And in the middle of all of it— Elara.

She’s standing at the head of the table like she belongs there, shoulders squared, chin lifted, eyes sharp enough to cut through bone. For a second, I forget how to breathe. She turns when the door slams behind me. Her breath catches. Just barely. But I see it. I feel it in my damn ribs.

“Adrian,” she whispers. Everyone freezes. Godfrey looks like he just swallowed a lemon whole. Marina’s expression shutters into something flat and unreadable.

I move to Elara without thinking, instinct, gravity, whatever force drags planets toward the sun. She’s shaking. Just slightly. No one else would notice, but I do. I feel it when my fingers close around her elbow.

“What the hell are you doing?” I murmur, low enough only she hears.

“Saving your family,” she murmurs back. “Someone had to.”

“You shouldn’t be in here alone.”

Her eyes flash. “You weren’t here.” It hits like she slapped me. And she must see it because her expression softens for half a heartbeat, just enough to kill me.

“Adrian,” she says, voice breaking under the weight of everything she’s just done, “they were going to bury Isabella. And you. And the staff she protected. I couldn’t..” Her breath shakes. “I couldn’t just stand there.”

My forehead drops to hers. I don’t even think about who’s watching. I don’t care. She exhales sharply when our skin touches, like she’s been holding her breath this entire war.

“I was scared,” I whisper. “For you.”

She presses her fingers to my wrist, right over my pulse. “Good. Now you know what it felt like watching them tear into you.”

I almost kiss her right then, God, I’m close, too close but Miguel coughs loudly behind us, and the spell fractures into sharp glittering pieces.

“Adrian,” he says. “You need to hear this.” I force myself to step back. But I don’t let go of her hand.  Chief Rivas steps into the room, radio still crackling on his shoulder.

“We have Callum and Rowan in holding,” he announces. “Both attempted to leave the property after the board meeting began. Their devices contain partial scripts for the payroll breach and for routing the photo leak.” Godfrey curses under his breath. Good.

“And just to be clear,” Rivas continues, eyes swinging toward me, “none of the flagged transactions originated from Adrian Valcrosse’s account or workstation.” For the first time today, it feels like a rope loosens around my throat.

There’s a ripple through the board, shock, embarrassment, guilt, whatever poison was feeding their coup beginning to choke them instead. I squeeze Elara’s hand once, grounding myself, grounding her. She squeezes back. I didn’t know how much I needed that.

Rivas clears his throat. “There is one unresolved issue.” Everyone turns.

“The breach used Marina Thorne’s shadow file.” A ripple runs through the room like a cold tide. My gaze snaps to Marina. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just inhales slowly, eyes fixed on the table like the truth is carved into it.

“That file,” she says quietly, “shouldn’t exist anymore.” Something in her tone chills the room.

Lucien steps forward. “Explain.” Marina finally lifts her head. And the look in her eyes makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.

“There’s something you all need to see,” she says. “But not here.” A beat of silence. Then.. 

“I know who they were really targeting.” The room stops breathing.