A mechanic with charm – or so she thinks.
There was something about the way he hadn't lingered.
No name, no number. Just fixed her car and vanished.
Arianna Skye Lopez had met charm before—polished, eager, too-perfect charm. The kind that came in three-piece suits and industry secrets. The kind that made promises it never planned to keep.
But this man… "this supposed mechanic… he had none of that.
And somehow, that made him more dangerous.
It was the third morning since the canyon breakdown, and Arianna still caught herself thinking about it—in the shower, between takes, mid-mascara swipe.
She hadn't even told Emily about it.
That, in itself, was odd. She told Emily everything. Or… almost everything.
"Mechanic," she murmured to herself, curling her lip slightly as she looked out the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of her penthouse. "He didn't look like a mechanic."
What mechanic wears steel-toed boots but a watch like that?
What kind of guy doesn't blink at a celebrity—and doesn't care to know if the engine he's fixing belongs to someone on Vogue's Top Ten Faces of the Year?
Still, she had decided: he was charming.
Quiet. Disarming. And frustratingly unbothered by her status.
Maybe that was what intrigued her most.
He had seen her without needing anything from her.
He didn't want my autograph. Didn't even ask for a picture.
Didn't gawk. Didn't flinch.
So what did he want?
Across the city, the man in question wasn't fixing engines.
Raven Steele—or rather Mikhail Aleksei Petrov as his file read—sat inside a discreet surveillance van, disguised as a city electrical repair truck, parked across from a boutique hotel.
A case had brought him back to Los Angeles. A smuggling trail with international roots. Ties to diplomats. Money laundering through art.
He was supposed to be watching someone else.
But then her name had crossed his screen—unrelated.
Uninvolved. It's just a blip in public footage.
An "accidental" appearance.
Arianna Lopez.
He hadn't expected to recognize her. Let alone remember the way her voice dipped slightly when she said thank you, or how she watched him fix her engine like she was studying a rare animal.
And now?
Now, he couldn't stop checking the live feeds when her name popped up.
It was reckless.
Sloppy.
Personal.
He couldn't afford personal.
But even spies have blind spots.
Hers had cat-grey eyes and a silence that made men stumble.
Back at the studio, Arianna slipped into the green room between changes.
Her phone buzzed. Emily had just confirmed an exclusive shoot with Vanity West, plus an invite to a masked ball event later that month.
But all Arianna could think of was the man who had fixed her car.
"Raven," she said aloud this time, as if tasting an old Italian wine she had never been given.
He didn't fit anywhere.
Which, in Hollywood, was the most dangerous kind of charm.
Arianna had always trusted her instincts.
On the runway. In a room full of snakes. Even in silence.
But this time… something felt off.
She didn't know how to explain it, neither did she know what to name it—just a pulse of intuition under her skin. Like something was moving underneath the surface, waiting to take make a strike.
And it all started with him.
Later in the cool hours of the evening, she found herself back in her private dressing room, half undressed, scrolling her fingers through the shoot previews with a glass of white wine in hand. Her skin glowed under the studio lights like she owned them, her eyes haunted just enough to be marketable. But the usual thrill was missing.
Instead, she opened her phone's browser.
Searched:
"Black matte car, LA Canyon."
"Mechanic LA late night Canyon Road."
"Man toolset Canyon car help…"
Nothing. Like he didn't exist.
"Maybe I imagined him," she muttered.
Then, suddenly, a ping.
An anonymous message. No name. No sender.
"Disconnecting the battery was the safest option."
Arianna blinked.
What?
Another message followed.
"Your fuel relay wire had been tampered with. That wasn't a coincidence."
She glared at the screen like it was a whirlwind, heart thudding.
Who are you? she typed back.
How did you get this number?
No reply.
Then… her phone shut off completely.
Dead. Black screen. As if the life had been drained from it.
She sat frozen. With a rush of adrenaline down her spine.
Somewhere in the beautiful rich city of LA, Raven Steele stood in an abandoned parking lot, tossing the SIM card from his burner phone into a gutter.
His face was unreadable, but his eyes… sharp. Focused.
"Someone's already watching her," he murmured.
He had traced the car's sabotage—not just a coincidence, not just bad luck. Someone had deliberately rerouted Arianna Lopez's ignition relay. If she'd kept driving another mile, the engine might've overheated, locked up… or worse.
Someone had wanted her vulnerable.
But who?
And why would anyone target a fashion model?
He pulled up her name in his classified database again. Nothing suspicious. Nothing dangerous. It's just a flawless face and a dazzling résumé.
But Raven had learned the hard way: beauty didn't mean safety.
And fame made the perfect cover for more than one kind of war.
Meanwhile, Arianna sat in her couch, phone still black, glass of wine untouched.
Her thoughts raced.
Why would someone sabotage my car?
Why did he say "safest option"?
Who was that man?
She suddenly stood and moved to her massive closet, sliding a velvet panel aside to reveal a narrow drawer behind her shoes.
Inside, it was a locked metal case—something she hadn't touched in years.
She opened it slowly.
A passport. A Spanish one. Under her birth name: Arianna María Lopez De La Vega.
A silver USB stick. A note—handwritten, now wrinkled.
If anything ever feels wrong—go to Madrid. Don't tell anyone. Trust no one.
It was her mother's handwriting.
Her real mother.
Not Alessia—the woman the media knew as her mother—but her biological one.
A woman who had vanished when Arianna was twelve.
A woman who once whispered before disappearing:
"You're not just a face, Ari. You're a key. And they'll come for you."
Arianna clutched the note, blood rushing in her ears.
She'd spent so many years burying that truth. Running from it. Building a life of fabric and fame and curated perfection.
But now… someone was digging.
And the only man who had felt safe—the mechanic with green eyes and calm hands—had known. Had seen through it.
Maybe he wasn't a mechanic, after all.
Back at a covert agency headquarters, deep beneath a nightclub in Koreatown, Raven entered the secure archive room.
The lights flickered on.
He inserted a black keycard and opened a hidden drawer.
Inside: an old, sealed file.
Operation SIRENA
Status: Dormant.
Location of Subject: Confirmed – Arianna María Lopez De La Vega.
Level 7: Unauthorized clearance breach will result in lethal protocol.
He opened the folder, just enough to see the first page.
"María"! "I knew Skye was a runway name,"
There was a photo—an old one. A girl with dark hair and Spanish-grey eyes. Her birth certificate. A list of names.
And a single chilling line, stamped in red:
Her memory was altered. The girl must never know who she is.
Raven exhaled slowly.
So that was why someone had tampered with her car.
Why someone wanted her off the grid.
Why was her world starting to bend at the edges.
Arianna Skye Lopez wasn't just a model.
She wasn't just a cover girl.
She was the daughter of something buried.
And if Raven didn't protect her…
They'd erase her before she ever found out.