Chapter 23 MIDNIGHT HEIST OF HEARTS
POV SYLVIE
The rain was a cold, relentless drizzle that turned the city of Astoria into a blurred painting of neon and shadows. It was 11:45 PM. According to the "Pragmatic Sylvie Belrose Handbook," I should have been asleep, resting for my morning exam on Administrative Law.
Instead, I was crouched in a dark alleyway behind the Cavill city townhouse, dressed in all black, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"You are officially insane," I whispered to myself, my breath fogging in the chill air.
I looked at the crumpled paper Silas had given me. The code for the service entrance. If I was caught, it wouldn't just be a "breakup." It would be a breaking of the law. Arthur Cavill would have me arrested for trespassing before I could even say "habeas corpus." He would strip my scholarship, blackball me from every law school in the country, and ensure my mother never worked again.
The stakes weren't just high; they were terminal.
And yet, as I watched the clock on my phone tick toward midnight, I didn't feel like running away. I felt a cold, sharp clarity. Arthur had tried to buy my future, but he’d forgotten one thing: you can’t buy someone who has already lived through having nothing. I’d been poor before. I’d been a nobody before. But I couldn't be a hollow shell.
12:00 AM.
The security SUV that usually sat at the end of the alley pulled away—the shift change Silas had mentioned. I moved.
I reached the heavy steel service door. My fingers were trembling as I punched in the code. 6-2-1-0-4. The lock disengaged with a heavy, metallic thunk that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet alley. I pushed the door open and slipped inside, the smell of industrial detergent and expensive floor wax hitting me instantly. I was in the bowels of the Cavill empire—the laundry and service corridor.
I followed the map in my head. Three doors down, the service elevator, fourth floor.
The elevator ride felt like it took a lifetime. Every floor it passed made a soft ding that made me jump. When the doors finally slid open on the fourth floor, the hallway was silent and dimly lit. This was the "holding cell."
I reached Room 402. Nathaniel’s door.
I didn't knock. I didn't want a guard to hear. I just tried the handle. It was unlocked. Silas had truly kept his word.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me, leaning my back against the wood. The room was dark, the only light coming from the city skyline through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Silas, I told you I'm not eating the damn soup," a voice rasped from the darkness.
It was Nathaniel. But it wasn't the arrogant, polished prince I knew. His voice was thin, dry, and filled with a bitterness that made my chest ache.
"It's not Silas," I whispered.
The silence that followed was absolute. I heard the sound of a bed creaking, then a slow, hesitant movement. Nathaniel stepped into a shaft of moonlight.
He looked terrible. He was wearing the same white shirt from the cafeteria, now wrinkled and hanging loose on his frame. His stubble was thick, his eyes were sunken, and he looked like he’d aged five years in five days.
"Sylvie?" he breathed, his voice cracking. "I... I must be hallucinating. The hunger is finally making me see ghosts."
"I'm not a ghost, Nathaniel." I stepped forward, my boots clicking softly on the hardwood. "And I'm not a robot either. I'm just a very, very stupid girl who realized that ninety-eight percent on a Torts exam doesn't mean anything if I don't have anyone to argue the questions with."
He stared at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and a hope so fragile it looked like it might shatter. "How did you get in here? The guards... my grandfather..."
"Silas helped me. And I broke about five university policies and potentially three state laws to be here." I stopped a few feet away from him, my hands shaking. "I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I’m so sorry for what I said in the cafeteria. I thought I was protecting you. I thought if I made you hate me, you’d be safe from Arthur. I thought I could go back to being the girl with twelve dollars and a dream."
"I didn't care about the money, Sylvie," he said, taking a shaky step toward me. "I didn't care about the legacy. I only cared that you looked at me like I was just a girl's bank account. That hurt more than anything my grandfather has ever done to me."
"I know. And it was the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I don't want your money, Nathaniel. I don't even want your name." I reached out, my fingers grazing his arm. He was burning up, but his skin felt like home. "But I want you. Even if it means I’m a dropout. Even if it means we’re both staring at a twelve-dollar bank account tomorrow morning."
Nathaniel let out a ragged, choked sob and pulled me into his arms. He didn't have his usual strength—he was weak from days of not eating—but his grip was desperate. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, and I felt the dampness of his tears against my skin.
"Don't leave me again," he whispered into my hair. "Please. I’ll give it all up. I’ll sign the papers. I’ll walk away tonight. Just don't go back to hating me."
"I never hated you," I murmured, holding him as tight as I could. "I was just terrified of how much I loved you. It’s a lot harder to study for law when your heart is constantly interfering with your brain."
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His hands cupped my face, his thumbs brushing away the rain and the tears. "You're here. You're really here."
"I'm here. And I’m not leaving until we figure this out."
He kissed me then. It wasn't the slow, romantic kiss from the loft. It was a desperate, starving kiss—the kiss of a man who had been dying of thirst and had finally found an oasis. It tasted like salt, like rain, and like the absolute, undeniable truth.
For a few minutes, the world outside that room didn't exist. Arthur Cavill was a ghost. The scholarship was a piece of paper. The "Virginity Vortex" was a joke from a different lifetime. There was only the sound of our breathing and the way our souls seemed to click back together like two pieces of a broken locket.
Nathaniel pulled back, his forehead resting against mine. "We can't stay here. My grandfather... he checks the logs. He’ll find out."
"I know," I said, my voice hardening with a new resolve. "That’s why we’re leaving. Silas said the service entrance is open for another twenty minutes. We take your car. We go to the loft. Or we go to my mom’s. We go anywhere that isn't under his shadow."
"He’ll come after us, Sylvie. He’ll ruin you."
"Let him try," I said, a sharp, familiar spark returning to my eyes. "I’m a law student, remember? I’ve been reading up on the legality of his scholarship addendums. He’s committing extortion and harassment. If he wants a fight, I’ll give him one that will make the Elena Vane scandal look like a tea party."
Nathaniel looked at me, and for the first time in days, he smiled. It was a small, weak smile, but it was real. "There she is. The Academic Weapon."
"She’s back," I promised. "And she’s hungry. Now, let’s get you some food before you collapse, and then let’s go start a revolution."
We moved quickly. Nathaniel grabbed a jacket and a small bag of essentials. I led him through the quiet hallway, down the service elevator, and back out into the rainy alleyway. The air felt like freedom.
As we climbed into my beat-up car—the one Nathaniel had once mocked for its "lack of horsepower"—I looked at the townhouse. It looked smaller now. Less like a fortress and more like a tomb for a lonely old man.
Nathaniel reached over and took my hand, interlacing our fingers. "Where to, Belrose?"
"To the future," I said, shifting the car into gear. "The one we write ourselves."
As we drove away from the Cavill estate, the lights of Astoria blurring in the rearview mirror, I realized that the "unwritten rules" were officially dead. We were no longer rivals. We were no longer a contract.
We were a problem. And as the girl with a twelve-dollar bank account and the boy who was willing to lose a billion for her, I knew that we were the most dangerous problem Arthur Cavill had ever encountered.
The storm was just beginning, but for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the lightning. I was the one holding the bolt.