The Chessboard Shatters

You were never in control—you were just another piece on my board.

Celeste...

My pulse thundered in my ears. The weight of Adrian's words still clung to the air between us, thick and suffocating.

He had known.

All this time.

I stood there, staring at him, feeling like the floor beneath me had collapsed. Every move I had made, every carefully constructed lie—I had thought I was the one playing him.

I was wrong.

Adrian leaned back against the desk, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. But his eyes—they were alive with something. A challenge. A dare.

"Say something, Ogonëk." His voice was a low drawl, but there was steel beneath it.

I forced my breath to steady. "How long?"

His smirk didn't reach his eyes. "How long have I known?" He tilted his head. "Let's just say, long enough to let you dig your own grave."

A flicker of something sharp sliced through me. "You let me think I was in control."

He chuckled, slow and deep. "You never were, Celeste."

I hated the way his voice curled around my name. Hated the way my body reacted even now, even after everything.

But more than anything, I hated that he was right. I was never in control. All this long I felt i'm the one controoling but I was the one being controlled.

I inhaled sharply. "If you knew, why didn't you turn me in?"

His gaze darkened, something shifting in the air between us. "Because I wanted to see what you would do. And honestly I couldn't undersatnd you. You acted nothing like an enemy."

He pushed off the desk, closing the space between us with slow, deliberate steps. My breath hitched, but I stood my ground, refusing to be the first to break.

"You were never just an infiltrator," he murmured, eyes locked on mine. "You were a test. A puzzle I wanted to solve."

A chill ran down my spine. "And did you?"

His lips quirked up at the corner, but there was something dangerous in his gaze. "Not yet."

Adrian – Flashback

The first time I suspected Celeste, it wasn't because she slipped up.

It was because she was too perfect.

Most people, when they lie, focus too much on their words, on keeping their story straight. Celeste? She moved like someone who belonged. Too effortlessly. Too seamlessly. It was unnatural. And that? That was the first crack in her illusion.

The moment that sealed it, though, was far more unexpected.

It was a late night, just after a business deal had gone south. She had been patching up a minor wound on my arm, her touch precise and impersonal.

"You should be more careful,wounds like this can be harmful. Especially gunshots"she had murmured, her fingers brushing over my skin in a way that made something shift in my chest.

I had watched her carefully then, testing her without words. "The way talk makes me wonder how do you know about gunshot wounds and all."

"If I have not been in your world doesn't mean I'm stupid." She replies with meeting my gaze.

"Still you fight and treat gun wounds like you have been trained do that." I reply looking for a reaction.She is so calculated and exremly good at masking expression. People could easily miss the shift in her gaze if the are not has observant has me. But unfortunetly for her and fortunetly for me I don't miss any details.

"Yes, I was trained while I was 15. It's a dangerous world you. And I like to be prepared for everything."

"Hmm.. That's smart. But I wonder, are you always this concerned about criminals?"

Her hand had stilled for half a second—so quick that most people wouldn't have noticed.

But I did.

I had smirked then, tilting my head slightly. "Or is it just me?"

She had rolled her eyes, but something in her posture had been too controlled, too calculated.

That was when I knew for sure. That Celeste Carter is no ordinary woman. So I looked into her myself. No Dante or Lorenzo. I will find what your hiding Ogonëk.

Present – Adrian

Celeste was still staring at me, trying to put the pieces together.

"Why tell me now?" she asked, voice sharp, but underneath it—hesitation.

I leaned in, my hands resting on either side of the desk, caging her in without touching her. "Because I want to know what you're going to do now, Ogonëk."

Her throat bobbed, and I could see it—the war waging behind her eyes.

I smirked. "You have two choices. Walk away, and everything we've built burns. Stay, and we take them down together."

Her breathing was uneven now, her gaze darting to my lips before she caught herself.

Ah.

She was fighting it.

But I was done pretending.

I reached out, tracing my fingers along the line of her jaw. She sucked in a sharp breath but didn't pull away.

"You still don't get it, do you?" I murmured. "This was never just a game to me." I say. She still hasn't replied my question from earlier. What I said now was truth and a confirmation for. She was never a game. She stoped being that the moment I relised I can take gunshots for her. I can happily and easily die just to protect her.

Her eyes burned with something raw, something dangerously close to surrender. "And what was it, then?"

My lips curled, my thumb brushing just under her chin, forcing her to hold my gaze. "A slow burn."

Then I kissed her.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. It was fire, consuming, tangled in the weight of everything unsaid. She gasped against my mouth, her fingers digging into my shirt like she wanted to push me away and pull me closer at the same time.

I pressed her against the desk, deepening the kiss, taking everything she wouldn't say out loud.

She tasted like defiance and hesitation, like war and surrender.

Then, just as suddenly, she tore herself away, breathing hard, eyes wild.

"I can't," she whispered, her voice breaking.

I exhaled sharply, watching the way she trembled, the way her lips were still parted like she was tasting the ghost of me.

I wiped my thumb across my lower lip, watching her carefully. "You already have."

The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy.

Then she turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the wreckage we had created.

But she'd be back.

She had to be.

Because whether she admitted it or not, we were already on the same side.

And she knew it.