Marceline returned to her office, locked the door with a quiet click, and leaned her back against the smooth wood.
The midday light washed over her desk, highlighting the faint dust motes dancing in the quiet room.
She walked over, pulled out her armchair, and flipped open her laptop.
She stared at the bright, white background.
Nothing.
Her mind stubbornly refused to focus on supply chains or profit margins.
Instead, it dragged her right back to the Auclair building—to the deep, smooth timbre of Claude’s voice, the steady press of his warm hand against hers, and that infuriatingly unbothered expression.
The utter ease with which he had discussed retail logistics, as though Saturday night had been nothing more than a shared cab ride.
She slammed the laptop shut, the sharp sound echoing off the glass walls.
“Arrogant bastard.”
A cautious knock broke the silence.
Nora pushed the door open, holding a fresh notepad.
“You called for me, Celine?”
Marceline looked up, her pulse still racing with residual frustration.
A brief, heavy hesitation hung in the air between them.
“I need you to retrieve something for me,” Marceline said, her voice dropping to a low, quiet register.
Nora paused, sensing the sudden shift in atmosphere.
“Of course.
What is it?”
“The Paget files.”
Nora’s polished, professional facade flickered for a fraction of a second.
“Elliot Paget?”
Marceline gave a tight, single nod.
“The police reports on the shooting.”
The official verdict five years ago had concluded that Elliot’s death was a accident—a misfire on private estate grounds.
But the story had always been full of jagged edges and strange, conveniently brushed-aside inconsistencies.
Marceline hadn’t opened the full dossier in years.
Not because the memory had faded, but because she knew the dark, venomous places it dragged her into.
She ran a hand through her dark hair, exhaling sharply.
“Pull everything.
The original police reports, his employment history, and every record connecting him to the Auclair subsidiary.”
Nora hesitated, her fingers hovering over her pad.
“Do you want these uploaded to your secure private drive?”
“Yes.”
“Should I notify legal that you’re pulling legacy compliance records?”
Marceline’s head snapped up, her dark eyes flashing cold.
“No.”
A long beat of silence filled the office.
“This is entirely personal.”
Nora inclined her head quietly.
“Understood.
Give me ten minutes.”
When the door clicked shut, Marceline sank back into her leather chair.
For a fleeting second, a wave of cold shame washed over her chest.
She knew precisely what she was doing.
She wasn’t mounting a sudden quest for justice.
Not today.
She was desperately hunting for a weapon.
She needed a reminder—something sharp, dark, and indisputable—that would make Claude Auclair monstrous again.
She needed a shield against her own traitorous memory every time her mind drifted back to his hands, his mouth, or the quiet, suffocating intimacy of his hotel room.
If she stared at Elliot’s file and saw the Auclair logo stamped across the tragedy, the walls would go right back up.
Then I’ll stop remembering his voice, she thought fiercely, her jaw clenching.
I’ll stop wondering why he was so cold today.
I’ll stop remembering how it felt when he kissed me.
A sharp, digital chime broke the quiet.
A new, encrypted folder had just landed in her inbox.
Marceline pulled the laptop back toward her and opened the primary document.
PAGET, ELLIOT — INCIDENT REPORT: FILE #4092
She stared at the bold black lettering, her throat constricting until it felt raw.
With numb fingers, she clicked open the secondary file attached below it.
EMPLOYMENT RECORD: AUCLAIR HOLDINGS — SUBSIDIARY
There it was, embedded in the upper corner of the yellowed digital page, the sharp, gilded crest of the Auclair family.
Marceline’s eyes narrowed, a bitter, vicious satisfaction settling deep into her ribs.
“There you are.”
She began to read, line by line, letting the dry, clinical legal text wash over her.
And for the first time since Saturday night, the confusing, terrifying warmth in her chest finally withered away.
In its place, the familiar poison flared back to life—cold, sharp, and intensely protective.
Hatred was simple.
She understood hatred.
It kept her safe.
What she couldn’t bear—what terrified her to her very core—was the growing, desperate realization that Claude Auclair was no longer fitting into the villainous mold she had built for him.
The dry black ink of the digital report blurred slightly before Marceline’s eyes.
She blinked, the sharp white glow of the laptop screen fading into a hazy, golden warmth.
For a breathless moment, she wasn’t sitting in her sleek glass corner office on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré anymore.
She was thirteen years old again.
The cramped, worn kitchen of the Paget cottage was thick with the rich, comforting scent of simmering garlic and roasting chicken.
Outside, a gentle autumn rain tapped softly against the small glass windowpanes.
“Liline, don’t touch that!”
Marceline’s younger self froze, her small hand hovering inches over the hot saucepan on the stove.
Elliot stood right behind her, his deep laugh echoing off the low ceiling.
“She’s going to burn it, Ma.
She’s going to ruin dinner.”
Louise Paget turned from the counter, a wooden spoon in hand, her face soft with exasperated warmth.
“She is not going to burn anything, Elliot.”
“Maman, she nearly set the toaster on fire yesterday!”
“That was one time!” young Marceline protested fiercely, rounding on him.
“The bread was stuck!”
“It was literally smoking, Liline.”
Young Marceline scowled, her chin tilting up defensively.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
Elliot grinned down at her, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners with affectionate mischief.
“Of course it wasn’t, Liline.” He reached over, casually ruffling her dark hair until it stuck up in every direction.
She immediately shoved his arm away.
“Stop it!
You’re annoying.”
“You’re getting old.”
“I’m thirteen!”
“Exactly.
Practically ancient.”
Louise laughed softly, shaking her head as she set three mismatched ceramic plates down on the formica table.
“Both of you, sit down and behave.”
Elliot dropped into his chair, pulling his napkin into his lap.
Marceline followed, sliding onto the bench beside him.
For a moment, it was completely, undeniably ordinary.
Warm.
Safe.
Nothing like the suffocating, grand silence of the Laurent mansion.
Nothing like the cold, transactional prestige she would eventually be forced to adopt when her biological family reclaimed her.
Here, in this modest kitchen with its mismatched chairs and peeling wallpaper, she wasn’t a stolen heiress or a chess piece in a high-stakes corporate dynasty.
Here, she was simply Liline.
Louise’s daughter.
Elliot’s little sister.
She remembered Louise spooning roasted vegetables onto her plate.
“Eat properly, Liline.
You’re growing.”
“I’m not that hungry, Maman.”
“You said that yesterday,” Louise gently chided.
Elliot leaned sideways, whispering out of the corner of his mouth, “Give me your cooked carrots.”
Marceline eyed him suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Because you hate them, and I’m a martyr.”
Marceline hid a tiny smile.
“I don’t hate them.”
Elliot raised an eyebrow, picking up his fork.
“You absolutely do.
You hid them under your napkin last Tuesday.”
She kicked him sharply under the table.
He burst into laughter, nearly dropping his fork.
The scene dissolved, shifting into another memory like smoke drifting across glass.
Another afternoon, months later.
Elliot was standing by the creaky front door, zipping up his worn leather jacket against the damp chill.
Marceline sat on the bottom step of the wooden staircase, her chin resting in her hands.
“Where are you going?”
“Work, Liline,” he said softly, checking his watch.
“Again?
You worked all weekend.”
“I know.”
“You promised you’d take me to the cinema today.
The new film opened.”
Elliot paused, his thumb tracing the brass latch of the door.
He looked at her with a quiet, apologetic smile.
“Tomorrow.
I swear it.”
“You always say tomorrow, El.”
He stepped back toward the stairs, reaching out to gently pinch her nose.
“I’ll make it up to you.
I’ll buy the huge popcorn.
The silly oversized one.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to stay angry.
“Promise?”
He held up his right hand, his expression softening into absolute sincerity.
“Promise, Liline.
On my life.”
She finally offered him a small, reluctant smile.
That was the last ordinary promise Elliot Paget ever made her.
The memory fractured and vanished, swallowed by the cold silence of the present.
Marceline opened her eyes.
She was back in her office.
The ambient hum of the air conditioning filled the room, and the digital incident report remained motionless on her screen.
Her knuckles were white, her fingers clenched so violently around the wooden edge of her desk that her nails dug into the finish.
For several seconds, her chest restricted, refusing to draw in a proper breath.
Then, a quiet, broken whisper escaped her lips: “I miss you.”
Not Elliot Paget, the abstract name stamped on a police file.
Not the victim of an unresolved corporate scandal.
Just Elliot.
Her brother.
The boy who had protected her and given her a family when she had no idea another world even existed.
She slowly dragged her eyes back to the Auclair documents glowing on the monitor.
The raw, suffocating grief inside her hardened, solidifying back into a shield of icy rage.
“You shouldn’t have died,” she murmured to the empty room.
Her eyes trailed down to the lower half of the employment records—to the financial logs detailing Elliot’s last weeks working for the Auclair subsidiary, and the fatal night on their private estate.
Her jaw tightened into a rigid line, the lingering warmth in her chest entirely extinguished.
“And I’m going to find out what they did to you.”
In that moment, her mind was entirely set.
She believed with absolute, unshakeable conviction that the paper trail of betrayal would lead directly back to the Auclair family name—and to Claude.