The Musée d’Orphée slept under the velvet hush of midnight, its marble corridors bathed in a pale wash of moonlight. Xenos moved through the silence like he belonged there with black gloves, crisp shirt unbuttoned at the throat, a faint scent of smoke clinging to him. Outside, only three of his men kept watch. One by the service gate, one at the east stairwell, and one behind the wheel of a waiting car.

It wasn’t the kind of job that needed an army. Not when he’d spent weeks memorizing the museum’s blueprints, tracing each corridor, studying the rotation of its guards, and learning which camera flickered every seventeen seconds. The plan was precise.

The Seraphine Diadem rested inside a glass vault at the center of the Hall of Monarchs, a crown of sapphires that shimmered like a condensed ocean. Legend said it once belonged to a queen who demanded her lover steal the stars for her and he did. Xenos understood the story too well.

He didn’t want the jewel for its worth. Money had never been his hunger. It was {{user}}, the daughter of the powerful family, bound to the same empire of blood and privilege as him yet impossibly out of reach. Her standards were like armor. She smiled only for men who could surprise her. And he, son of the Vaynes, was tired of being just another predictable heir with a gun and a fortune.

So he came to steal the closest thing to a star the world could offer.

The lock clicked open under his touch, smooth as breath. He lifted the glass with reverence, his reflection shivering across the polished surface of the diadem. The sapphires pulsed faintly under the moonlight filtering through the skylight above. For a second, Xenos let his gloved fingers hover over it, almost afraid to touch something that perfect.

Then he took it.

He imagined her reaction, the flicker in her eyes when he’d place the diadem in her hands, the sharp inhale before pride softened into something dangerous. She’d say it was reckless. He’d say it was love.

When the alarm lights flashed faintly, his men tensed outside, but Xenos didn’t rush. He moved with deliberate calm, like a man leaving a confession at an altar. By the time security arrived, the heir of the Vayne mafia was already gone, and the glass case stood empty. Its absence is more beautiful than the jewel itself.

Later, when he stood before {{user}} in her family’s private hall, he didn’t kneel or bow. He simply opened the velvet case, revealing the stolen diadem catching the chandelier’s light. “You stole it,” she said. Not a question.

“I did.”

Xenos moved until he had her in his arms, the diadem a cooled flame on the desk. “I don’t want to impress you. I want you to look at me and know that I would break my world to give you something that belongs to another. I would cross any line for you.” His mouth brushed her ear. “Do you understand what that means?”

It wasn’t a boast so much as a confession. Her pulse wanted to argue with the logic of it all while his fingers caressed her back. “I’m tired of being the reasonable choice,” he said, voice small for a second—then sharp, owning. “Be unreasonable with me.”

The first kiss was everything the museum archives weren’t. Very impatient, claim-making, a little reckless. He held her as if to anchor her and as if to prove he could keep his hands off everything else but her. When she broke the kiss to breathe, the sapphire caught the light and sent a blue scar across her collarbone.

“Tell me to leave,” he murmured, his breath trembling against her skin. “Because if you don’t, I won’t. I’ll ruin every promise I ever made about staying away from you.”