AI The third deadbolt had barely clicked back when Aurora yanked the door open and found Lucien Moreau standing on the landing like he had every right to be there.
He held no bouquet, no apologetic grin, no polite excuse. Just that immaculate charcoal suit, his ivory-handled cane tucked against one polished shoe, and that stare, one amber eye, one black, pinning her in place as if he had stepped out of a different kind of life and brought it to her threshold.
Her fingers tightened on the brass handle.
“Of course it’s you.”
“Enchanting greeting.”
“Get out.”
He did not move. The narrow landing of Eva’s flat felt too small for his height, too expensive for his coat, too fragile for the old curry smell rising from downstairs and the pencil-thin slice of light from the hall. Rory’s pulse kicked once, hard, then settled into a slower, uglier rhythm she knew from bad decisions and worse men.
Lucien’s gaze dropped, not to her face, but to the small crescent scar on her left wrist where her sleeve had slipped. Something sharpened in his expression, gone as quickly as a blink.
“I need five minutes.”
“You had months.”
“I had obstacles.”
“You had a mouth and a number.” She hooked a thumb back into the flat. “You used neither.”
A sound came from inside, a box thumping onto the floor, then a muttered curse. Ptolemy yowled. Rory spared one glance over her shoulder and found Eva in the living room doorway, hair shoved into a messy knot, surrounded by stacked books and rolled-up parchment, a pen tucked behind one ear. The cat wound around her ankles like a furry parasite with opinions.
Eva took one look at Lucien and went still.
“Oh, brilliant.”
Lucien inclined his head. “Miss Chen .”
“Don’t ‘Miss Chen ’ me in my own flat.”
He turned back to Rory. “May I come in?”
“No.”
“You already know I shall anyway.”
She stared at him. He stared back, calm as a blade laid flat on silk .
Rory let the door swing wider with two fingers and stepped aside with all the grace of someone opening a trap.
“Three deadbolts, and you still learned to knock.”
He entered without a smile, taking in the cramped one-bedroom as if he catalogued weapons in a room before a deal. Books covered nearly every surface. Scrolls leaned against the skirting boards. A circle of herbs dried on a string above the sink. A laptop balanced on a crate. A chipped mug with black coffee stains. Ptolemy sniffed at Lucien’s trouser hem, then recoiled as though insulted by his existence.
Lucien rested the cane against the wall. “Your security has improved.”
“You’re not my security advisor.”
“No. I am, regrettably, the man who found the weakness in your front door before your own landlord did.”
Eva folded her arms. “You found it because you looked like you expected to be robbed.”
“I expected better company than your neighbour with the rottweiler and the tattooed knuckles.”
Rory shut the door with a hard crack. “Why are you here?”
Lucien’s good eye moved over her face again, lingering on the bruise-yellow shadow beneath one cheekbone, the dried rain on her trainers, the tension in the tendons of her neck. He noticed everything. That had always been the problem.
“Someone asked after you.”
“Then tell them I’m dead.”
“This person would not have accepted the answer.”
“And you decided I’d love to hear this from you.”
His mouth barely shifted. “You usually did.”
The words landed in her gut like a sucker punch. Eva’s brows rose a fraction. Rory ignored her and crossed the room, stopping at the kitchen counter so there was something solid between them. A packet of instant noodles lay beside a stack of annotated papers, one of her notebooks open to a page filled with names and arrows and dates in her sharp, cramped hand.
“Spit it out.”
“A figure from your past has resurfaced.”
Eva made a noise that sounded like disgust . “That sounds ominous in a way that almost deserves applause.”
Lucien’s gaze flicked briefly to her. “Your friend retains a gift for accuracy.”
Rory’s nails dug into the counter. “Who?”
Lucien did not answer straight away. He removed one glove finger by finger, slow and deliberate, as if he meant to make her suffer for asking.
“Evan Carter.”
The room changed shape.
Ptolemy hissed from somewhere near the sofa. Eva swore under her breath. Rory’s heart did one hard, ugly roll and then began pounding so viciously she tasted metal.
“That’s impossible.”
“Not impossible. Inconvenient.”
“He’s not here.”
“London is a city built on inconvenient things. He arrived three nights ago.”
Rory’s hand went to the counter edge. The chipped laminate bit into her skin.
“No.”
Lucien’s expression did not waver. “Yes.”
“No, because I saw the last message. I blocked the number. I told him to rot.”
“He used a different number.”
“He’s in Cardiff.”
“He was.” Lucien’s voice stayed mild, which made it far worse. “He left Cardiff.”
Eva moved first, sweeping from the doorway to the table and snatching up Rory’s notebook as if she needed to look busy to keep from saying something reckless. “How did you get this?”
“Information has a price.”
“You love a dramatic entrance, don’t you?” Eva flipped a page, scanned it, and clicked her tongue. “Rory, you kept notes on your ex like a criminal dossier.”
“Give that back.”
Eva lifted one shoulder. “I’m impressed, actually.”
Lucien watched the exchange with a hint of amusement that never warmed his face. Rory hated him for noticing how badly her hands shook. Hated him for the quiet way he made space for it without calling it out. Hated that he had once been the only person who could read her silence like a confession.
“What does he want?” she asked.
Lucien’s black eye fixed on hers. “You.”
The word hit with such force that she almost laughed.
“That’s rich.”
“I find it lacks charm too.”
“He wants money. Or trouble. That’s all Evan ever wanted.”
“He wants both,” Lucien said. “And he now has associates willing to assist him.”
Rory frowned. “Associates how?”
“Supernatural ones.”
Eva’s face tightened. “Of course he does.”
Rory pushed off the counter. “No. No, if this is a stunt, if you have brought this here to get back into my flat and under my skin, you can save it.”
Lucien’s hand moved, not reaching for her, just lifting, palm outward. “I did not come for my own pleasure.”
“That’s a shame. I’d hate to think you were underwhelmed.”
For the first time, something cold flashed behind his expression. Not anger. Worse. Injury, hidden under polished control.
Eva looked between them and set Rory’s notebook down with surgical care. “I’m going to say this once. You two can continue your tragic little opera after he explains why your ex has gone from deadbeat to dangerous.”
Rory dragged a breath in through her nose. The room smelled of old paper, incense, damp wool from her coat, and the faint iron tang that always followed Lucien like a warning.
“Explain.”
Lucien reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. Rory’s body reacted before her mind did, shoulders tightening, weight shifting, ready to fight or run. He produced a folded sheet of thick cream paper and held it out.
She did not take it.
He set it on the counter instead and unfolded it with two precise fingers.
A photograph stared up at her. Evan, older, leaner, dressed in a dark coat she had seen somewhere else, his mouth curved in a smile that had once fooled her for exactly eleven months and seventeen days. Beside him stood a woman Rory did not know, pale-haired and severe, with a silver ring through one brow.
Below the image sat three names in Lucien’s clean hand.
Rory read them once, then again.
“Where did you get this?”
“A contact in Whitechapel.”
“You have contacts everywhere.”
“It keeps me alive.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.” He tapped the bottom line with one gloved finger. “You asked where I got the photograph. You should ask why your ex is meeting with a broker who sells binding contracts to things that should remain nameless.”
Eva let out a low whistle. “That is ugly.”
“Understatement,” Lucien said.
Rory reached for the photo, but Lucien’s fingers closed over it first, not quite touching hers, close enough to send a crackle up her arm . She snatched her hand back before she could show him anything else.
“Don’t.”
“Then don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you are not frightened.”
The room went razor quiet.
Eva shifted, suddenly interested in the bookshelf. Ptolemy jumped onto a chair and curled his tail around himself, watching with surgical contempt.
Rory laughed once, sharp and humourless. “Frightened of Evan? Please.”
“Not of him.” Lucien’s gaze held hers with brutal steadiness. “Of what he can reach.”
Her stomach went tight.
That was the worst part of Lucien. He never wasted words. He cut to the tendon.
“You don’t know what he reached before,” she said.
“I know enough.”
“No, you know your own version. The tidy version. The one that fits in a file and looks useful at a table.”
Lucien’s jaw moved once. “You are right. I did not witness every bruise he gave you.”
Eva looked up, alarm flashing. “Lucien.”
He did not break eye contact with Rory. “I did witness the rest.”
The flat seemed to shrink with the silence that followed. Rory could feel her own pulse in the old scar at her wrist, where one of Evan’s rings had once caught her skin when he grabbed her too hard. Lucien’s attention dropped there again and stayed a heartbeat too long.
“You followed me,” she said.
“I watched.”
“That is not better.”
“It is, actually.”
Rory stared at him, incredulous and furious in equal measure. “You sat on the edge of a roof and watched me with him.”
“I kept you alive.”
“You decided what keeping me alive meant.”
Eva made a small, exasperated sound. “This is fascinating and deeply unwell, but if I don’t say it, one of you will choke on it. Lucien, did you come to warn her, or did you come because you know he’ll hit her where it hurts and you can’t stand the competition?”
Lucien’s gaze slid to Eva, cool and amused again. “Both.”
Eva barked a laugh. “There it is.”
Rory wanted to throw the photograph at his face. She wanted to step into him and shove him backwards into the hall. She wanted, with humiliating force, to notice the sharp line of his throat above the collar of his shirt, the careful knot of his tie, the way his left hand rested near the cane like he trusted the blade hidden inside more than the room around him.
“You turned up here for this,” she said. “After everything.”
“Yes.”
“And you expected me to what, Lucien? Thank you? Kiss your hand? Invite you in for tea while you ruin my evening?”
His mouth curved faintly, but not enough to count as a smile.
“You never did like tea.”
The old ache in his voice reached under her ribs before she could brace. Not soft. Not kind. Just familiar in a way that made her furious.
“You left,” she said.
Lucien’s expression changed, just a little. Enough.
“So did you.”
That landed harder than the rest.
Eva’s head lifted. “Hang on.”
Rory did not look away from Lucien. “I left because I had no choice.”
“No?” His voice turned silk over steel. “You had many choices. You selected the one that did not include me.”
Her breath caught, rage sparking bright and fast. “That is what you came here for?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
His hand pressed flat over the photograph on the counter. The leather of his glove squeaked once. When he spoke again, his voice lost a fraction of its polish.
“He knows where you live.”
Rory went cold.
Lucien continued, every word neat and lethal. “He knows about the flat. About the woman upstairs. About the delivery work. About Silas’s bar. He knows your habits, your route home, the market stall where you buy oranges, the address of your father’s office in Cardiff, and he knows enough to think you still care.”
The room tilted. Eva’s face hardened into something dangerous. Ptolemy launched from the chair and disappeared beneath the sofa.
“That’s impossible,” Rory said, but the words sounded thin .
Lucien took one step closer, not enough to crowd her, only enough that she caught the scent of cold spice and expensive soap and something darker underneath, a heat she remembered against her throat in stolen moments she had spent months pretending not to miss.
“It is not impossible. It is merely sloppy.”
“Why would he care about me now?”
“Because you survived him,” Lucien said. “And men like him despise unfinished work.”
Rory’s throat tightened around a name she would not say. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. She had spent months building walls out of work shifts, bad coffee, and other people’s problems. One appearance from Lucien and the old cracks started to split open, letting in everything she had locked away.
Eva moved then, crossing to the window and looking down into the street through a gap in the curtain. Her mouth flattened.
“Lucien.”
He turned.
“Do not tell me you came here alone.”
A pause.
Rory saw it before he admitted it. The tiny shift in his stance. The faint glance towards the door.
“Who’s outside?” she asked.
Lucien’s amber eye flicked back to her. “Two men.”
Eva swore. “Are they yours?”
“They were mine a minute ago.”
Rory lunged for the deadbolt as a hard bang shook the front door from the landing side. The frame rattled in its old wood. Ptolemy shot out from under the sofa, back arched, fur puffed to twice his size.
Lucien reached for his cane.
Another blow hit the door, louder this time, the chain inside clinking sharply .
Then a voice came through the wood, low and impatient, with the ugly familiarity of someone who had already decided he belonged on the other side.
“Rory. Open up. We need to talk.”