Celeste Monroe stepped into the corridor outside Logan's penthouse, the heavy door whispering shut behind her with a finality that echoed through the marble hall.
The skyline blazed through the floor-to-ceiling windows like a sea of diamonds—but her eyes didn't wander. Not tonight.
She stood still for a moment, letting the silence press against her like velvet. In her world—of political shadows, sealed dossiers, and men who killed with pens instead of bullets—peace was never permanent. It was only the breath before another firestorm.
But tonight, something was different.
There was a gravity in her chest she couldn't ignore. A pull.
She reached into her tailored coat and pulled out a sleek black phone, dialed a secure line, and waited.
It rang once.
"Mrs. Monroe," a clipped male voice answered—her Zurich contact.
"Update me," she said.
"Funds fully rerouted through five dummy corps. The offshore accounts are clean. No trail."
"Are the transactions tied back to Logan?"
A brief pause. "Only if someone breaks eight layers of encryption, kills three fixers, and finds the last server buried in ice under a mountain in Kamchatka. So… no."
She exhaled, not in relief—but in focus. "Good. Initiate passive lock protocols. Kill-switch if any trace flags pop up."
There was a longer pause this time.
"…You still protecting him?"
Her eyes narrowed, voice sharp. "No. I'm standing with him."
The line went dead.
She slid the phone back into her coat and turned toward the window, leaning against the cool steel frame. Arms crossed. Eyes distant.
She had more reach than most intelligence agencies. Networks in Prague, Lagos, and Macau. A leverage vault that could ruin a dozen global banks. She could start wars—or stop them—with a whisper.
But none of it mattered if Logan Hamilton went down.
She remembered the first time she saw him—not at a gala or boardroom, but in a backroom fight behind an illegal casino in Budapest, fists bloodied, shielding a man who had sold him out.
He hadn't been trying to win.
He was surviving. And more importantly—refusing to break.
That had been the moment she saw it: not just ambition or anger.
But resolve.
A kind of damaged nobility. The kind that wouldn't ask for help because it didn't know how.
Her phone buzzed again—encrypted thread.
Andre Vega: "Car ready. You're late."
She smiled faintly.
Downstairs, Tribeca—Outside Her Armored Car
Andre Vega leaned on the matte-black hood of her custom vehicle, arms crossed. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing faded MI6 tattoos that had long since been struck from official records.
"You're late," he said without looking at her.
"I stayed longer than I meant to," she replied, slipping into her seat beside him.
He glanced at her. "With Logan?"
She said nothing for a moment. Then, quietly, "Yes."
Andre's gaze was unreadable. "You're in deep."
Celeste didn't flinch. "It's not weakness to care about the outcome."
"You sure it's just about the mission?"
She turned to him. "He's the only one who ever saw me as more than a weapon."
Andre scoffed lightly. "He still doesn't know what you've done for him."
"I don't need him to," she said. "That's what loyalty means. You protect them in the dark so they can walk in the light."
He gave her a long look. "Is it loyalty… or something else?"
She looked out the tinted window, voice lower. "He doesn't use me. Doesn't manipulate me. He trusts me—in his own broken way."
Andre smirked. "Which for him probably means not pulling a gun on you during a crisis."
Celeste gave a dry chuckle. "Exactly."
Later — Her Tribeca Townhouse
In the silence of her private office, Celeste unlocked the hidden cabinet behind a shelf of rare Russian literature. A control panel slid out. Screens flickered on, each one encrypted, each feed pulled from private satellites or embedded operatives.
One monitor showed Reginald in a luxury lounge, murmuring to his advisor.
The lip-readers had flagged the words: "contingency," "Miriam," "gala."
Another showed the gala blueprint—security shifts, access tunnels, thermal overlays.
And the last one: Logan.
He was alone on the balcony of his penthouse, the wind ruffling his shirt. Calm, on the surface. But she knew that stillness. Knew how rage and fear lived just under his skin.
This wasn't surveillance.
It was protection.
She watched him for a long time.
Then, she opened a secure folder titled:
"Fallback Protocol: Hamilton."
Inside: forged passports. Exit routes. Contingency withdrawals. Psychological profiles of every board member.
Even an asset in the Cayman Islands ready to erase Logan's identity in thirty seconds.
She had an escape route for herself.
But she'd never take it.
Not unless he told her to.
And maybe not even then.
Just as she shut the file, her phone buzzed again.
Logan: Still with me?
She stared at it for a second, lips curling slightly.
Not a command. Not a test.
Just… a reach.
She typed back:
Celeste: Always.
Then she turned off the monitors, shut the cabinet, and whispered:
"Let the city burn if it must. I'm not leaving his side."