Three days after the phone call, the weather broke. The hard blue sky surrendered to a rolling siege of bruised clouds, and the sea transformed from a placid turquoise mirror to a churning, lead-grey beast. The wind howled through the colonnades, whipping the lavender into a frenzy and carrying the sharp, clean scent of ozone and impending rain.
The change was a relief. The perfect, static beauty had become oppressive. The storm felt honest.
Yasmine found herself in the library again, not pretending to read, but actually engrossed in a water-stained history of local shipwrecks. The tales of vessels dashed against the very rocks she could see from her window felt grimly appropriate.
Leo was there too, sketching in a corner, his brow furrowed in concentration. He'd been quieter since the storm rolled in, the manic energy dampened. He glanced up as she turned a page.
"The Aurora's Kiss, 1887," he said, not looking at his paper. "They say the captain's ghost still walks the cliff path on nights like this, looking for his lost bride."
"Do you believe in ghosts?" she asked, closing the book.
"I believe some people leave echoes," he said softly, his pencil still moving. "And some places are just… loud with the past."
The main door to the villa slammed shut downstairs, a heavy sound that echoed through the quiet. Voices rose in the entrance hall—not the usual measured tones of residents or staff, but a sharp, melodic alto cutting through the growl of the wind.
Yasmine and Leo exchanged a glance. He put his pencil down.
Footsteps, decisive and clicking, approached the library. Not the soft-soled practicality of the compound, but the sound of heels on tile.
Mireya Koss stood in the doorway.
If the compound was designed to soothe and erase, Mireya was a splash of indelible ink. She was elegance honed to a weapon's edge. Her hair, the colour of dark roasted coffee, was swept into a severe, flawless knot. She wore a tailored trousersuit of charcoal grey, somehow untouched by the storm, and her face was a masterpiece of subtle makeup that highlighted high cheekbones and a mouth that seemed permanently poised between a smile and a sneer. She was perhaps a few years older than Rafe, and she carried an aura of absolute, unassailable belonging.
Her eyes, a cool hazel, swept the room, dismissing Leo with a glance and landing on Yasmine with the force of a physical impact. It was an appraisal so thorough, so instantly comprehending, that Yasmine felt transparent. Mireya saw the borrowed dress, the nervous hands, the newness, the otherness.
"You must be the new arrival," Mireya said. Her voice was like the rest of her—polished, controlled, with a razor's edge just beneath the surface. "Yasmine, is it?"
"Yes," Yasmine said, her own voice sounding thin and young.
"I'm Mireya. An old… friend of the management." Her lips curved. It wasn't a friendly smile. "I was just looking for Rafe. Have you seen him?"
The casual use of his name, the implied intimacy, was a deliberate dart.
"I haven't," Yasmine managed.
"No matter. He'll turn up. He always does when I'm here." She took a step into the room, her gaze lingering on the shipwreck book in Yasmine's lap. "Studying the local hazards? Wise. This coast has a way of swallowing beautiful, fragile things."
She didn't wait for a response. She turned and left, her footsteps receding down the hall.
The library felt several degrees colder.
Leo let out a low whistle. "Well. That's a storm warning if I ever saw one."
"Who is she?" Yasmine asked, though she already knew. This was the shadow. The one from the photograph. The one who had bled with him.
"Covenant liaison, officially," Leo said, picking up his pencil again, his expression uncharacteristically grim. "Unofficially? She's the past that won't let go. She and Rafe… they go way back. Operatives together, is the rumour. She still does work for them. Audits, evaluations." He looked at Yasmine. "She doesn't visit often. But when she does, the air tastes like metal for a week."
The afternoon unfolded under the pall of Mireya's presence. She was everywhere and nowhere. Yasmine would catch a glimpse of her through a window, standing on the colonnade, phone to her ear, gesturing sharply. She would hear her laughter from Rafe's office—a sound like shattering crystal, bright and dangerous.
At dinner, Mireya was a guest of honour at the head of the table, seated next to Rafe. She held court, telling polished, humourless anecdotes about places with no names and people with no faces. She spoke of "asset extraction" and "outcome optimization" as casually as others discussed the weather. Gareth listened with rapt attention. Elise watched with clinical interest. Liana looked nervous.
Rafe was a statue beside her. He ate little, spoke less. His responses to her queries were monosyllabic. But Yasmine, seated halfway down the table, saw the subtle language of their history. The way Mireya's hand would "accidentally" brush his arm when reaching for the salt. The way her eyes would dart to him after a pointed comment, seeking a reaction. The way his jaw would tighten almost imperceptibly, a silent answer.
Mireya's gaze found Yasmine repeatedly throughout the meal. Each time, it was a calculated assessment, a silent tally of weaknesses.
"So, Yasmine," Mireya said during a lull, her voice slicing through the murmur of conversation. "Rafe tells me you're settling in. Finding your… bearings."
All eyes turned to her. Rafe's gaze lifted from his plate, a warning in the grey depths.
"It's a peaceful place," Yasmine said, the standard, safe answer.
"Peaceful," Mireya echoed, as if tasting the word and finding it bland. "Yes, I suppose it is. A good place to forget. Or to be forgotten." She smiled, all teeth. "Tell me, what did you do before? I do love hearing about… normal lives."
It was a trap. A test of her cover story.
Yasmine summoned the fictional persona. "Graphic design. Mostly corporate branding. Very dull."
"Dull can be a blessing," Mireya said, her eyes glittering. "Chaos is so… exhausting to clean up." She looked pointedly at Rafe. "Isn't it?"
Rafe set his fork down with a quiet, definitive click. "The weather's turning. We should finish up. Marta has prepared a dessert in the common room."
It was a dismissal, and everyone heard it. The meal ended in a hurried scrape of chairs.
Later, Yasmine fled to the one place that felt like hers—the small balcony outside her room. The storm was closer now, the wind whipping the sea into whitecaps. Lightning flickered on the far horizon, a silent pulse of violence.
She heard the door to the adjacent balcony open. Not hers. Rafe's.
He stepped out, bracing his hands on his railing, his head bowed against the wind. He was close enough that if she reached out, she could almost touch the tense line of his arm. He didn't look at her.
"She's not staying long," he said, his voice barely carrying over the gale.
"She knows who you are," Yasmine said. It wasn't a question.
"She knows who I was." He turned his head, his profile etched against the storm-lit sky. "It's not the same thing."
"It is to her."
He was silent for a long moment. "Mireya mistakes history for ownership. Control for loyalty."
"And what do you mistake?" The question was out, brave and stupid.
He finally looked at her. The storm was in his eyes. "Right now," he said, the words raw and stripped bare, "I'm mistaking proximity for possibility. And it's a catastrophic error."
Her breath caught. The admission hung between them, more intimate than a touch.
Then, from the doorway behind him, a silhouette appeared. Mireya, backlit by the hall light. She didn't speak. She just watched them, a smile playing on her lips—the smile of a chess player who has just seen her opponent's king left vulnerable.
Rafe saw her reflection in the glass of Yasmine's door. His entire body went rigid. The open man from a second ago vanished, replaced by the impenetrable Keeper.
"You should go inside," he said to Yasmine, his voice now cold and formal. "The storm is dangerous."
He turned and walked back into his room, where Mireya waited. He closed the doors behind him, but not before Yasmine saw Mireya's hand come to rest possessively on his chest, her head tilting up to say something lost to the wind.
Yasmine stood alone on her balcony, the first cold drops of rain beginning to fall. The woman who knew him had arrived. And she had made one thing perfectly clear.
Yasmine wasn't just a resident. She was a rival. And in Mireya's world, rivals were not tolerated. They were removed.