Vivienne Moreau lived for secrets.
She collected them like art—tucked them behind red lips and diamond cuffs, wore them like perfume. To the world, she was a diplomat's daughter, a former ballet prodigy, a patron of old French galleries.
But to those who knew better, Vivienne was a queenpin. Elegant. Cruel. Insatiably curious.
And tonight, her eyes were fixed on Dominic Cross.
From her private box at the opera house, she watched him through gold-rimmed binoculars—not on the stage, but in the third row, where he sat with a woman Vivienne didn't recognize.
Pretty thing, she mused. Too pretty to last.
Vivienne sipped champagne and smiled behind the glass.
Let the games begin.
Dominic didn't know she was watching. Not yet.
He was too focused on Amelia.
Vivienne saw the way he leaned into her during the performance, whispering something that made her laugh. The way his hand brushed her thigh. The kind of touch that lingered.
Vivienne hated it.
She hated the tenderness in his eyes.
Dominic had once looked at her like that.
And Vivienne, foolishly, had thought it would last.
That was before Prague. Before Dominic disappeared into the underworld and came back forged in fire. He'd come to her for help after that—but not for love. Just intel. Just maps and codes and contacts.
And now he gives this stranger his smile?
No. That wouldn't do.
She stood, crossed to her desk behind the curtains, and opened a black envelope sealed with wax. Inside was a photograph—Amelia, at a bar, laughing. The back read:
Target confirmed. Do not engage until the signal.
Vivienne took a lighter from her purse and set the photo aflame.
Then she picked up the phone.
"Send word to Zahir," she said, her voice silk and ash. "She's his now. But Dominic? Dominic is mine."
After the opera, Amelia barely had time to breathe before she was swept into the back of Dominic's car.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He didn't answer at first. Just stared out the window, his jaw ticking.
Finally: "We need to meet someone."
"Another secret contact?"
"No. An old flame."
Her stomach sank.
"Vivienne," he added.
Of course.
Even the name sounded expensive.
"You trust her?" Amelia asked.
"I trust her to want something," he replied. "She always does."
The penthouse suite at Hotel Vrai was gilded in silver and sin.
Amelia felt underdressed in her cocktail dress and trench coat. Vivienne opened the door herself, wearing silk the color of blood and heels that could kill.
"Dominic," she purred, kissing both his cheeks. "And this must be your newest obsession."
"Amelia," he said quickly. "Vivienne Moreau."
Vivienne didn't offer her hand.
She offered a smile that could slice bone.
"You're even lovelier in person," she said. "I see why he's ruined now."
Amelia smiled back. "And you must be the ghost he never buries."
Vivienne's eyes sparkled. "Sharp tongue. Dangerous in the wrong hands."
"I've survived worse," Amelia replied.
Vivienne leaned in, close enough that her perfume clouded the air. "Let's hope you survive me, darling."
Dominic cleared his throat. "We didn't come to trade insults."
"No," Vivienne said, strolling across the room to a cabinet. "You came for this."
She unlocked it with a hidden key and pulled out a flash drive. "Encrypted locations. Five. Zahir's safehouses."
Dominic took it, his eyes unreadable. "What's the price?"
Vivienne smiled. "Dinner. Just the two of us.
No weapons. No girl."
"No."
"Yes," she said softly. "Or I leak this to
Interpol. You'll be in custody before sunrise."
Dominic stiffened.
Amelia said nothing.
Vivienne turned to her. "He won't go through with it, of course. He never does. But he'll think about it. That's enough."
"Why are you doing this?" Amelia asked.
Vivienne's smile vanished.
"Because the world only remembers one queen at a time."
Later, back in the car, Dominic drove without speaking.
Amelia sat quietly for a while before asking:
"Did you love her?"
He sighed. "I don't know. She was dangerous. And thrilling. And broken in the same places I was. That felt like love."
"And now?"
"Now she's a fire I barely escaped."
Amelia watched his face in the glow of the dashboard. She didn't know whether to be jealous or terrified.
"I won't ask you to avoid her," she said. "But I won't compete either."
He didn't answer.
But his hand found hers in the dark, and she held on tightly.
Back in her apartment that night, Amelia found something slipped under her door.
A white card.
No message. No mark.
Just a single name, printed in red ink:
Zahir.
And suddenly, she couldn't breathe.