Summary: Ivo advices Mara through Heliotrope etiquette and quietly blocks a guard’s attempt to search her private belongings.
Dorian sees the exchange and assigns Mara to sit beside him at the gala, where she will be under closer watch than ever.
Celeste’s whisper lingers between Mara’s ear and the rain.
“Tell me, does Dorian know what you did to Elias?”
Mara keeps her hand beside the coffee cup.
The white powder has vanished into the black surface, leaving only a pale crescent along the porcelain rim.
Across the table, Dorian watches Celeste.
His pale gray eyes move once to the cup.
Mara lifts it.
Celeste’s fingers tighten around her wineglass.
Mara brings the coffee close enough to smell burnt chicory and lemon oil.
No bitter almond.
No sharp chemical bite.
The powder could be a sedative, a toxin, or flour meant to make her react.
She sets the cup down untouched.
“I did many things for Elias,” Mara says.
“Most of them involved telling him not to be reckless.”
Celeste’s red mouth curves.
“That is not what I asked.”
“No. It is what you earned.”
Dorian’s chair shifts against the floor.
The server who delivered the coffee stands near the wall, expression empty.
Ivo is still at the corridor, one hand pressed to his earpiece.
Behind him, two guards watch the west entrance.
Celeste glances at the powder ring.
“You are not going to ask what was in it?”
“If you wanted me dead, you would not have put it in front of witnesses.”
“Perhaps I wanted to know whether you would drink when ordered.”
“Then you have learned something useful.”
Dorian rises.
The movement is quiet, but every guard in the room notices.
The server lowers his eyes.
Celeste does not.
“Move,” Dorian tells him.
The server obeys at once.
Ivo steps away from the corridor and intercepts him before he reaches the service door.
His broad shoulders block the narrow passage.
His brown hair is closely cropped, and the scarred, swollen knuckles on his right hand rest against his thigh, close enough to his weapon.
“Your tray,” Ivo says.
The server hands it over.
Ivo checks the sugar bowl, the cream, the empty spoon.
Then he looks at the server’s cuffs.
“Who gave you the cup?”
“Kitchen.”
“Which kitchen?”
The server swallows.
Dorian does not raise his voice.
“Answer him.”
“North service.”
“There is no north service entrance open today,” Ivo says.
The server’s face changes by less than a fraction.
Mara noticed it.
Dorian sees it too.
Ivo takes the man by the elbow.
The server reaches beneath his jacket.
Mara’s hand goes to the knife hidden along her thigh, but Dorian is faster.
He crosses the space between them and catches the server’s wrist before the weapon clears the fabric.
Bone cracks.
The man makes one surprised sound.
Dorian twists his arm behind him and removes a narrow injector from the inner pocket.
He holds it up between two fingers.
Celeste’s eyes remain on Mara.
“An unfortunate misunderstanding,” she says.
Mara looks at the injector.
“You have a generous definition of unfortunate.”
Dorian gives it to Ivo.
“Find out who supplied it.”
Ivo pushes the server toward the guards.
“Alive?”
Dorian’s fingers tighten once around the man’s wrist.
“For now.”
The guards drag him through the closed west corridor.
The door seals behind them.
No one mentions the weapon still hidden beneath the server’s jacket.
Celeste takes another sip of wine.
“You see why the gala matters.”
“I see why your staff needs better screening.”
“I see why you need better manners.”
Dorian turns toward Mara.
His black hair is kept close at the sides and longer on top, still neat despite the rain and the violence.
The thin white scar through his left eyebrow pales when his expression hardens.
“We are leaving.”
Celeste reaches for her napkin.
“The gala seating plan will be sent to you tonight.”
“Send it to me,” Dorian says.
“Of course.”
“She will sit where I can see her.”
“She will sit where I decide.”
The words sound like a claim.
Mara feels the room accept it.
She stands without waiting for him.
“Then I assume my chair comes with restraints.”
Dorian looks at her untouched coffee.
“You prefer those when no one can see them.”
The remark lands too close to the truth.
Ivo opens the door.
Rain has darkened the glass hallway beyond it.
Mara follows Dorian out, but the sensation of Celeste’s attention remains against the back of her neck.
The elevator descends in silence.
Mara keeps her arms loose at her sides.
Her right palm aches where the thin white scar crosses it.
Inside her watch strap, beneath the narrow metal clasp, the folded fragment from Elias presses against her skin.
Three gates.
One sealed line.
The geometry from his handwriting is not a code in the usual sense.
It is a route.
She has known that since the monitor displayed the same arrangement in Dorian’s compromised network.
The first gate opened to identify the user.
The second verified the access path.
The third locked the system against interruption.
The sealed line was not a fourth gate.
It was the part that stayed closed.
Unless someone used a different authority.
The elevator stops at the penthouse level.
Two guards wait outside.
One is young, with a square jaw and a silver pin at his collar.
The other carries a black case.
“Mrs.
Vale,” the younger guard says, “standard security search.”
Mara does not move.
“Of what?”
“Personal effects.”
“My personal effects are already in the suite.”
“Then the search will be brief.”
He reaches for the small leather case hanging from her shoulder.
It contains a spare shirt, a comb, two sealed pain tablets, and the watch Elias gave her six months before he died.
The fragment is inside the strap.
Ivo steps between them.
“Dorian did not authorize that.”
The guard glances past him.
“Celeste authorized all gala preparations.”
“Celeste does not command this floor.”
“She does when the wife is carrying an unknown transmitter.”
The words are too exact.
Someone has told him where to look.
Mara’s fingers close around the case strap.
Ivo’s right hand rises, not quite a threat.
“Search her after Vale gives the order.”
The guard’s mouth tightens.
“You are obstructing security.”
“I am correcting it.”
The guard shifts his weight toward Mara.
His left hand moves under his jacket.
Ivo catches his wrist.
The black case drops and cracks open against the floor.
Inside are a compact scanner, a disposable glove, and three adhesive tags marked with the Heliotrope flower.
Ivo bends close to the guard’s face.
“You were told to search belongings. Not plant labels.”
“I was told she had a device.”
“By whom?”
The guard says nothing.
Mara watches the scanner on the floor.
Its indicator is dark.
It has not been activated.
Dorian stands at the end of the corridor.
No one heard him leave the elevator.
His gaze moves from Ivo’s grip to the open case, then to Mara’s hand on her bag.
Finally, it settles on the young guard.
“Who authorized you?”
The guard’s throat works.
“Morant’s office.”
“Name.”
“Mr. Vale, I only received an instruction.”
“Name.”
The guard looks at Ivo.
It is the same look Mara saw on the attacker before the stairwell assault, a glance toward the man who might know which order is real.
Dorian takes one step closer.
The guard pulls free of Ivo and reaches for the scanner.
Ivo drives his scarred knuckles into the man’s stomach.
The guard folds.
Ivo catches him before his head strikes the wall.
Dorian looks at Ivo.
“You could have asked again.”
“He was about to transmit.”
A tiny red light has appeared beneath its casing.
Mara’s earpiece gives one pulse.
Then another.
She does not look toward the sound.
The third pulse never comes.
Dorian notices the pause in her breathing.
His eyes shift to the black case.
“Take it to the lab. Keep the guard alive.”
Ivo nods and signals the other guard.
Together they remove the unconscious man and the equipment.
Mara remains beside the scattered contents of the case.
The watch strap is safe, but only because Ivo stood in front of it.
She looks at him.
“Why did you stop the search?”
“I stopped an unauthorized search.”
“That was not my question.”
His gaze flicks toward Dorian.
“It is the answer you are getting.”
Dorian picks up the leather case himself.
He does not open it.
He holds it out to Mara.
She takes it.
His fingers do not touch hers.
The restraint feels deliberate, not gentle.
“You will carry nothing into the gala that I have not inspected,” he says.
“You just watched your guard try to plant a transmitter.”
“I watched a guard follow an order from someone who expected me to ignore it.”
“Celeste?”
“Perhaps.”
“You do not know?”
“I know enough.”
The three-pulse signal remains unfinished in Mara’s ear.
Tomas has never stopped at two.
Dorian turns toward the suite.
“You will be seated beside me at the gala.”
Mara follows him inside.
“Celeste wanted me visible.”
“She wanted you isolated.”
“Beside you is closer surveillance.”
“Yes.”
He says it without apology.
The suite’s cameras adjust as they enter.
One pivots toward the leather case in Mara’s hand.
Another angles down toward her watch.
Dorian sees the movement.
“So does someone else,” Mara says.
He removes his charcoal jacket and lays it over the back of a chair.
His sleeves remain rolled to the elbows.
The burn scar across his right palm shows when he sets his hand on the table.
Mara’s gaze catches on it.
He notices.
“You keep watching my hands,” he says.
“I’m looking if you will give away something I could use.”
“And so, you keep looking for a key.”
She lets the case fall onto the table.
“If I find it?”
“You will discover why no one takes it without bleeding.”
The threat should make her step back.
Instead, the words pull her attention to the scar on his palm.
Not a simple burn.
The skin is ridged in a narrow pattern, three branching marks joined by one pale line.
Three gates.
One sealed line.
Mara’s pulse jumps.
Dorian’s hand closes.
“Was that what Elias drew?” he asks.
The room seems to contract around them.
Mara does not answer quickly enough.
His face changes, not with surprise.
With confirmation.
“You recognized it,” he says.
The earpiece clicks.
This time, a voice comes through, low and distorted beneath a wash of static.
“Ask the man with the burned hand.”
Dorian reaches for the black receiver on the table.
Mara reaches for her watch.
The receiver lights first.
A new message appears on its small screen.
ACCESS KEY COMPROMISED.
Then the penthouse locks slam shut.
Hello!
As I clicked publish for this latest chapter, I was left to contemplate if I should increase my workload from one to two daily.
Yes, I have tools to help me.
And I’m taking writing webnovels a serious thought and I also want to be consistent for my readers.
It’s GMT +8 my time, same as the editors so probably it’s safe to say that I’ll make a decision to update (or not) both Midnight and Pandora by tonight.
Thank you so much and hope we cross paths on WebNovel again.