Adrian's car rolled to a stop in front of the Stark mansion, the engine's purr fading into the evening air. They had just gotten married—actually, legally, certifiably married—and somewhere along the road back, Adrian had decided the sky-blue suit he was wearing was suddenly far too special for a simple gala.
He needed to change. And he'd ordered a new dress for Star en route, because apparently, marriage came with an immediate impulse to wardrobe-upgrade your wife.
"You're really cute when you're stupid," Star chuckled, listening to Adrian's entirely ridiculous reason for why they absolutely had to change clothes before the yacht.
"I mean it," Adrian said, a helpless smile spreading across his face as he looked down at the marriage certificate in his hands. "This is the best surprise you've ever given me. I didn't expect it."
But something cold crawled up his spine every time his eyes brushed the contract they'd just signed. He hated that this marriage came with a tag. An expiration date.
For a split, treacherous second, he caught himself wishing the mole investigation would just… delay. Forever. He tucked the thought away before it could grow legs.
"Hey," Star said as he helped her down from the car, her hand warm in his. "What did your mother say when you showed her your father's video?"
"I didn't show it to her."
Star frowned. "Why?"
"My office was bugged. And I'm not sure who else in that house is compromised and who isn't. The only devices I trust are my own—and Lazarus. So I haven't told anyone inside these walls about it. I love my mother, but my business has to remain exactly that: my business." Adrian's voice was calm, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable.
They walked into the house, where Paul materialized like a well-trained ghost and immediately handed over the fresh garments Adrian had ordered during the drive home.
"Don't you think we're a little late?" Star asked, glancing at the time.
"I'm never late," Adrian replied, with the breezy arrogance of a man who believed time itself would wait for him. The private elevator chimed open to his floor, and they stepped into his room.
Adrian disappeared into the shower first. They might be married now, but it was a business arrangement—a signed and sealed situationship. Nothing more. He repeated this silently to himself, and absolutely did not believe a word of it.
When he emerged with a towel slung low around his waist, toothbrush dangling from his mouth, he stopped dead.
Star stood by his art collection of renderings, her back half-turned to him, scrolling idly through her phone. The liquid-gold masterpiece of a dress he'd bought her this morning—the dress neither of them had known she'd end up getting married in—hung on her frame as though it had been stitched by divine hands. It was one hell of a sight. He wanted to take a photograph with his brain and keep it forever.
"What?" Star frowned, looking up and catching him in the middle of a full-blown dreamy stare.
"You're really beautiful," Adrian said simply, then turned and walked back into the bathroom as if he hadn't just detonated a small bomb.
Star shook her head, still smiling, and returned to her phone.
She was chatting with Safe—updating him on everything: the fight with Lucian, everything that had occurred.
It felt cozily, impossibly natural, like talking to her very best friend. Except Safe was a mute man in his fifties whom she'd found in the woods two years ago. A complete stranger. The thought sent goosebumps racing down her arms.
Her phone buzzed again with his reply, and Star smiled at the screen, warmth flickering in her chest.
***
The yacht was now a full-blown constellation of flashbulbs and champagne flutes, the marina humming with the constant click of cameras and the low roar of admiration as more celebrities poured in. If the evening had started as a business gala, it was quickly shape-shifting into something closer to a couture coronation, and nobody seemed particularly upset about it.
On the main salon's enormous screen, the well-dressed polls were updating in real time. Among the women, Tiffany still held the top spot, her crimson gown having done exactly what she'd intended. Bonita sat just beneath her, a newcomer to the rankings who'd climbed fast on the strength of that midnight-blue gown and the natural Stark magnetism. Senator Lydia rounded out the top three. On the men's side, Cassian Stark was leading, his showstopper energy apparently contagious, with Mr. Smith trailing in second and Doctor Alex Cross in third.
"Honestly, it's starting to feel less like a business dinner and more like a fashion event," Alex remarked, taking a slow sip of his drink.
"That's exactly what it is right now," Doctor replied. "Peter isn't even here yet."
They were seated at a table that, had any of the other guests known what its occupants had done, would have been cordoned off with crime scene tape. Maria, Kefas, Doctor, and Alex—a table of four people who each carried enough secrets to sink the yacht. They sat in a fragile, unspoken truce, sipping their drinks as if blood didn't dry under their fingernails.
Then Peter arrived, and the crowd lost its collective mind.
Reporters surged forward like a tide, shouting questions over one another. "Are you sure you're not the actual CEO of Throne Enterprise?" "What's it like being the face of a company whose boss nobody has ever seen?" "Are you married—asking for a friend?"
Peter moved through the chaos with surprising ease. He was meticulously outfitted in a dark-blue tuxedo, and although Bonita had once sworn the man could melt steel with his stare, tonight he looked almost approachable, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he shook hands with fellow businesspeople.
"Where's Mr. Throne? I thought he was coming with you," Mr. Smith asked, intercepting him.
"He is here," Peter replied. "He's just taking care of something quickly."
Tiffany materialized at Peter's elbow before anyone else could claim the spot, her expression radiating hope and opportunity. "Hello, Peter. I'm Tiffany."
"Hello, Tiffany."
"What does Mr. Throne have in mind for the best dressed?" she asked, wasting no time.
Peter glanced at the polls, then back at her. "Honestly, he inserted that into the agenda at the last minute. Even I don't know what he's planning for the winner. But you don't need to worry—you're topping the list."
"I seriously didn't think you'd be this friendly," Bonita said, arriving just in time to catch the exchange.
Peter let out a low chuckle. "There's a place to be friendly, and a business environment isn't usually one of them. But tonight, I'm making exceptions."
Outside the yacht, a Lamborghini pulled up and triggered a near-riot among the paparazzi. They recognized the car immediately and swarmed it before the door had even cracked open, their cameras shattering the quiet with a barrage of light.
Inside the car, Adrian was still looking at Star as if the rest of the world had been switched off. She was breathtaking in a metallic silver gown, and he hadn't been able to tear his eyes away for the entire drive. He'd been looking forward to walking that red carpet with her, arm in arm, the kind of entrance that answered every question before it was asked.
Star, however, was staring at the wall of photographers pressed against the window and gripping her purse like it contained the emergency brake.
"Are you nervous?" Adrian asked, noticing the tension in her fingers. "Don't worry. My security team has this under control."
His men moved in, parting the paparazzi and carving a clear path to the carpet.
"Can I have a minute?" Star's voice was quiet but firm.
Adrian's brow creased. "What is it? You've been quiet the whole ride. Is everything okay? We can leave right now if you want."
"No, no. It's fine. I just need a minute," she insisted, her eyes soft but unreadable. "I'll follow you."
Adrian swallowed his disappointment and buried it behind a practiced, neutral expression. He'd spent the entire drive imagining her on his arm, and now he didn't understand why she needed space.
But she was pregnant, her hormones were probably crashing through the roof, and this kind of event—which he was certain was her first—could easily be overwhelming. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, signaled his men, and stepped out of the car alone.
The flashbulbs hit him like a white tsunami.
For a split second, the world went blind, and if not for the dark glasses he was wearing, he wasn't entirely sure his vision would have recovered.
His composure, however, held at one hundred percent. He was clad in a perfectly fitted black three-piece suit with a black tie, and he looked every inch the billionaire the world expected him to be.
Tiffany, watching from inside, felt her spirits inflate like a child's on Christmas morning. He was alone.
All her careful narrative management—the whispers about the unstable woman clinging to him—had just been validated in front of everyone. Murmurs rippled through the crowd as people noted the absence of the rumored companion.
Adrian paused to pose before beginning his walk down the red carpet, and that was when he felt a hand slip into his. His heart jumped, hoping for one foolish second that it was Star. Instead, he turned to find Tiffany beaming at the cameras with every tooth in her head on display.
"What are you doing?" he asked, barely managing to keep the irritation out of his voice while maintaining a photo-ready smile. His jaw tightened to the point of pain.
"I'm so happy you're here alone," Tiffany said, still smiling, still waving.
Adrian didn't answer that.
On the polls, Cassian's lead among the men vanished before Adrian had even stepped onto the yacht proper.
He slipped down the rankings without a fight, surrendering with a shrug and a charming grin. "I knew it," he said, lounging on a couch and already surrounded by a small audience of giggling women. "But I'm still the handsomest Stark. That's an uncontested title."
Back in the Lamborghini, Star's grip on her phone tightened as the screen lit with another message. "Good Girl," it read, complete with a smiley face and a heart emoji.
During the drive to the gala, right in the middle of laughing at something Adrian had said, her phone had buzzed with a message from an unknown number. The text was explicit: if she walked the red carpet with Adrian tonight, he would die in her arms. She'd thought it was a sick joke until the number followed up with a photograph of a sniper rifle. Her blood had gone cold. She'd kept the conversation with Adrian going, smiling through it, while the messages grew darker and more specific. That was when the decision had solidified: staying out of the gala, keeping her distance, was the safest thing she could do for him. In a family riddled with secrets, she knew better than anyone that anything was possible.
But this last message, with its emoji and its self-satisfied smirk of a tone, changed everything. It reeked of Tiffany.
Star's jaw tightened with a fresh, clarifying anger—not at the threat itself, but at herself for believing, even for a moment, that Adrian was genuinely in danger. If Tiffany was the source, then the only danger was to her dignity.
She signaled the security team to open the door.
But before she could step out, a Rolls-Royce Boat Tail screamed into the marina and parked directly in front of the Lamborghini, blocking her exit.
Star frowned. The driver was none other than Lucian.
"What is he doing here?" she muttered as the security men helped her out of the car.
Lucian stepped onto the carpet like a man who had just set it on fire and was perfectly comfortable watching it burn.
The oxygen around him seemed to thin; the photographers, for a long, strange moment, fell almost silent, their cameras the only sound.
He was a face most of the crowd didn't recognize—only the Starks, and a handful of others, knew who he was—but his presence demanded attention anyway. He was, objectively, smoking hot, and the red carpet didn't quite know what to do with him.
His silver metallic three-piece suit caught every flash of light and threw it back with interest, the tie knotted with careless precision. The rose tattoo on his neck was just barely visible above his collar, and his hand was still wrapped in the bandage Star had applied herself. His short brown hair was combed back, silky and deliberate, with a few rebellious strands falling onto his forehead. He looked like a crime lord who'd accidentally wandered into a business gala and decided he liked the hors d'oeuvres.
Adrian saw him and his lips pressed into a hard, thin line.
"I know you hate the guy, but he's smoking hot," Bonita commented, appearing at her brother's side.
"You came too? Why—for the men?" Adrian asked, his brow creased with suspicion.
"For business," she corrected.
"You can have any man you want here, but not him."
Bonita sighed. "Yeah, I'm scratching that one off. It looks like he already has someone."
Adrian's gaze shot back to the carpet entrance, and there she was: Star, stepping out of the Lamborghini and into the light.
Lucian was standing just at the carpet's edge, his confidence suddenly replaced by a very un-crime-lord-like nervousness. He'd never attended an event like this in his life, and he was acutely aware that he had probably overdressed. The stunned faces and the camera-only chatter weren't helping.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned to find her standing right behind him.
Then he saw the dress. Silver. Fully embellished. Was he hallucinating, or had they just accidentally matched?
His heart performed a complete acrobatic routine, and for a moment he forgot how to breathe.
Star's gown was a masterpiece of structure and light. The corset-style bodice sculpted her shape while the draping softened it, especially around her midsection, so that the effect was intentional elegance rather than concealment. A sheer, beaded cape detail fell from her shoulders, and with every step the fabric moved before she did, scattering chandelier light across the room like fragments of something untouchable. Her hair was swept up, exposing her neck and shoulders, making her hazel eyes more striking under the lights.
"You look amazing," Lucian said, the words leaving his mouth before his brain could approve them.
"I'm still angry with you," Star replied, trying to step around him.
He caught her wrist, and before she could pull away, the motion made her swirl back toward him, her free hand landing against his chest for balance. It was an unguarded, involuntary gesture, and the cameras ate it alive—the two of them frozen there, looking for all the world like a couple caught a breath before a kiss.
"I know you're angry and you want to slap the hell out of me," Lucian said, his voice low. "But you see those cameras? They take everything public. So let's walk down this red carpet like a couple and keep up appearances."
Star gave him a smile made entirely of plastic and obliged.
Down the carpet they went, side by side, as if they'd been designed to fit together in exactly this way.
The media didn't know who they were, but it didn't matter—their combined aura had just lapped the competition and was now racing itself.
Star's gown moved like liquid starlight, her presence so overwhelming that the rest of the room seemed to dim in deference.
Lucian looked at her differently now, and for the first time, it wasn't the protective gaze of a brother. He was in love with her. Star, for her part, still looked at Lucian the way she always had—like a brother. The math didn't add up, but everyone on that carpet could feel the imbalance.
Adrian stood inside the yacht and felt rage pumping through him in a full, hot flood.
While everyone else had their breath stolen by the pair on the carpet, he was calculating exactly how satisfying it would be to rip the smug expression off Lucian's face with his bare hands. What was a criminal even doing at an event meant for legitimate business billionaires?
"I see your girl is back with the criminal?" Alaric's voice emerged from somewhere just behind him, and Adrian had no memory of his uncle approaching.
"Yeah," Adrian said flatly. "I guess so."
He walked away before Alaric could add anything further.
And Tiffany—poor, scheming Tiffany—took one look at Star gliding onto the yacht and felt her own crimson gown suddenly shrink.
Every man at the event was now staring at Star, his gaze magnetized, his attention fully stolen. The silver girl had arrived, and on the screen above, a new name had just nudged Tiffany out of the top spot. Star's poll ranking shot upward like a firework.
Tiffany stood perfectly still, controlling her rage with the iron discipline of a woman who knew the night was young and revenge was a dish best served in couture. She kept her smile pinned in place and started revising her strategy.