A D R I A N

The lanterns rise before the sun even sets. Thousands of them. Gold drifting up from the water like the whole damn island is exhaling light, and everyone around me gasps like it’s magic, but all I feel is this pressure in my ribs, like someone’s wedged a fist between them and won’t let go.

Lantern Tide. The night everyone waits for. The night Seraphine is supposed to shine. And all I can think is: something’s off. Off in a way I can’t name. Off in a way my body feels before my brain does.

People keep looking at me. Not directly—just quick little glances, half-turned whispers, the kind of sideways attention that feels like someone smearing fingerprints across my skin. Marina’s been pacing behind me like a rattled cat. Investors hovering. Cameras everywhere.

I should be at ease. I should be performing, smiling, reassuring, the heir of Seraphine doing what he does best. Instead, my pulse won’t settle. Elara’s somewhere in this crowd. I’ve been scanning for her for twenty damn minutes. I caught her silhouette once, dark hair, shoulders tight then she vanished into the flow of bodies like she was avoiding me. Another lantern rises. The whole shoreline glows. And still, it feels like the ground is tilting under me, like a storm is coming, and I’m the only idiot who can smell the lightning.

I spot her by accident, half-hidden behind a row of festival banners, talking to Isabella. Not talking, actually. Listening. Isabella has a hand on her arm, the way she does when she’s trying to steady one of us, and Elara… God, she looks like she’s been gutted.

My gut lurches. I move before I can think, cutting through clusters of guests, ignoring the champagne flutes and the “Mr. Valcrosse—just a quick moment?” hands brushing at my sleeve. I don’t care. I just want her eyes on mine long enough to understand what the hell is happening. But when she finally notices me coming, she steps back. Barely, maybe an inch, maybe less but it feels like a door slamming shut in my face.

“Elara.” My voice comes out rougher than I meant. She blinks like she didn’t expect me to sound… whatever this is. Too human maybe. Too concerned. Isabella gives me one of those tight motherly nods, the kind that says Later, and glides off before I can catch her sleeve. My mother never flees. Tonight she does.

“Elara,” I say again, lower this time. She folds her arms over her chest. Defensive. Guarded. Like she’s trying to hold something in or hide something from me. “You should be onstage,” she says. “They’re waiting for you.”

“So are you,” I shoot back before I can stop myself. Her jaw clenches. Just a flicker, a tiny break in the mask, but I see it. Something’s wrong. Not the ordinary wrong we’ve been juggling for months. Something colder, deeper. Something that makes her glance over her shoulder like she’s afraid someone’s watching.

“Elara.” I step closer. “Talk to me.” She shakes her head once, small and sharp. “Not here.” But she doesn’t say later. She doesn’t say I will. And that terrifies me more than anything else tonight.

I don’t get a chance to press her because the crowd shifts, like a tide pulling hard in one direction and suddenly Marina is at my elbow, hissing into my ear like I’m a damn delinquent instead of the man paying her salary.

“Adrian, we have a problem,” she says, smiling stretched tight for the cameras, voice a thin thread of panic. Of course we do. Tonight wouldn’t be complete without one.

“What now?” I mutter. She tilts her tablet toward me, the screen brightness slicing through the dusk. It’s a forum thread, no, a rumor cluster. Words highlighted in red. Tier 1 authorization. Irregular transfer. Quiet internal investigation. Adrian Valcrosse.

My stomach drops so fast I feel it in my knees. I look up, instinct, reflex and there it is: the same half-turning whispers I noticed earlier, sharper now, pointed. People stepping out of my path like I might explode. Guests pretending they’re not watching. The staff were suddenly interested in the ground. Someone snaps a photo with the flash on.

“What the hell is this?” I grind out.

“Noise,” Marina says too quickly. “Internet trash. But it’s spreading fast, and if you don’t address the crowd soon..”

“I didn’t authorize anything.” My voice comes out like stone hitting concrete.

Marina gives a thin smile. “Which is exactly why you need to look calm and in control, not..” Not what?  Not the man who suddenly feels the ground cracking under him? Not the heir who’s fought for this island since he was old enough to understand legacy, now painted as a criminal?

I force air into my lungs. All around us, lanterns float up like tiny accusations. When I glance back toward Elara, she’s gone. Again. And for the first time in a long, long while, I feel truly alone on my own damn island.

I shove Marina’s tablet back into her hands before I snap it in half. I can’t think with her fluttering beside me like a wound-up bird. I need air. Space. Something. Instead I get Kai.

He cuts through the crowd like a knife, jaw tight, hair damp from the surf because of course he was surfing on festival night. “You seeing this shit?” he mutters, low enough that only I hear it.

“Working on it,” I bite out.

“You look like hell.”

“Feel like it.”

He studies me, and for once there’s no rivalry in his face. Just concern. Real, heavy, inconvenient concern. “Talk to me, Adrian.”

“I didn’t authorize anything,” I whisper, and hearing it aloud makes something inside me fracture a little. “But someone wants the world to think I did.”

Kai’s eyes harden. “Then you say something. Now. Before Marina spins it. Before Dad hears it from a stranger. Before the board decides you’re a liability and not a son.”

I look past him, at the board members gathered near the lantern ramp, their chins low as they whisper. At Marina pacing circles like she can smell blood in the water. At guests stealing glances. At someone filming from behind a tiki torch.

Then I look for Elara. Because she’s the only one I want to see when everything else feels like it’s turning to sand. She’s the one person whose eyes would tell me the truth. The one person who’d call bullshit on a rumor this dangerous. But she isn’t here. The lanterns rise higher, the sky turning molten gold.

“Adrian,” Kai says, quieter now. “You’re bleeding out in front of everyone. Do something.” I swallow hard. Yeah. I know. Tonight, silence isn’t safety, it’s suicide.

I walk toward the stage before I give myself time to think better of it. The platform overlooks the lagoon, lanterns drifting like drifting souls. The crowd parts as I climb the steps, murmurs rolling under my feet like undertow. Cameras flash. Phones lift. Marina signals wildly at someone backstage, to do what, I don’t even care anymore. I grip the microphone. I don’t wait for approval. I don’t wait for it to be quiet.

“Some of you have heard things tonight,” I begin, voice carrying farther than I expect. It echoes off the water, off the cliffs, off the lantern-lit glass like the island itself is listening. “About me. About this place. About trust.” A hush ripples out.

“My name is tied to every stone, every railing, every dock on this island. I know what that means. I know the weight of it. I also know when someone’s trying to use that weight to crush me.”

People gasp. Someone whispers, “He’s admitting it?”

“No,” I say sharply. “I’m not admitting to anything except this: I didn’t authorize a damn thing.” More murmurs. Uncertain. Curious. Hungry.

“And if someone is trying to frame me, they’re doing more than coming after my reputation. They’re coming after my family. My staff. My guests. My island.” I scan the crowd again, desperate, stupid, hopeful. Where is she?

My voice softens without my permission. “And they’re coming after someone I..”  I stop. My pulse kicks so hard I have to steady myself on the podium.  I can’t give them everything. Not yet.  But I can give them the truth.

“Someone I refuse to let be collateral damage.” I swear the lanterns flicker.

I drag in a breath. “So here it is. I’m not stepping aside. I’m not hiding. Whoever’s doing this, come harder. Come out into the damn light. Because I’m done playing defense.”

The crowd erupts, some cheering, some shocked, some whispering into their screens like they’ve just watched a man tear himself open. But none of it hits me. Because she isn’t here. And that lands heavier than the rumors ever could.

I step off the stage to a wall of sound, voices rising, overlapping, eating at me like waves hitting rock. Cameras blind me. Marina’s frantic voice hisses somewhere to my right. Kai’s hand tries to catch my shoulder. Someone from the board calls my name. I push past all of them. I don’t know where I’m going until I see her.

Elara. Standing near the back of the crowd, half-hidden behind a lantern arch, her face lit gold and trembling. Our eyes lock, and the world snaps into one brutal, inevitable line. She turns away first. No. I can’t let her walk out of this night thinking I’m the man those rumors paint me as. I can’t let her pull back into whatever shell she retreats to when her past ghosts come clawing.

I caught her wrist, not hard, just enough. She freezes.

“Elara,” I breathe. “Look at me.” She does. Slowly. And fuck, there’s fear there. Not me. Of something around me. Something closing in.

“You shouldn’t have gone up there,” she whispers.

“I had to.”

“You don’t even know..”

“Then tell me.” My voice cracks. Actually cracks. “Whatever you found, whatever you’re carrying, don’t do it alone. Not tonight.”

She shakes her head. “This is bigger than you think.”

“Then stand with me,” I say, stepping closer, lantern light burning the edges of us. “Right now.”

Her breath stutters. I feel the whole island holding its breath. I lean in, voice barely sound.

“Stand with me—now—or we both fall.” Her lips part, an answer, a warning, a beginning— And then someone shouts her name.

“Elara!”