“I don’t mean Hailey,” she continued, still staring out the window. “She’s everything. But I mean…a real family. Parents. A name that meant something. Roots.”
I pulled her closer, wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and let her lean into me. Her head rested against my chest, her body fitting against mine like it was made for this.
“You have me,” I said quietly, my lips brushing the top of her head. “You know that, right?”
She didn’t answer. Just pressed closer, her fingers curling into my shirt like she was holding on for dear life.
And I held her back, even though every instinct I had was screaming at me that this was a mistake. That getting attached to her would destroy me. That she was hiding something dangerous, something that could blow up in both our faces.
But I couldn’t let go.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
The sun had fully set now, the city lights glowing beyond the window, casting long shadows across the room. We sat there in silence, tangled together, neither of us willing to break the moment.
Chapter 14 – Cassandra
I was sitting in my office, laptop screen glowing, a document half-read, a ledger file open but untouched. My eyes weren’t on any of it. They were somewhere else entirely—miles away, drowning in thoughts that felt more like quicksand than clarity.
The arms deal. Chicago. Hidden behind three shell corporations and a fake tech export front that would’ve fooled anyone who wasn’t looking hard enough.
I’d been looking hard enough.
And now the information sat in my head like a loaded gun, and I was weighing whether to pull the trigger.
Whether to give it to Vance.
My conversation with him in Seattle still echoed in my skull, looping like a broken record I couldn’t shut off. The way he’d leaned forward in that booth, his dark green eyes cold and hungry.
He wasn’t after justice. Not for me. Not for my father.
I’d been stupid enough to believe that once. When he first approached me two years ago in Ohio, showed me those photos, told me the Bratva had murdered my father and buried the truth, I’d believed him. Believed he was the good guy. The one fighting against the criminal empire that had stolen my life.
But things were unraveling now. Thread by thread. Lie by lie.
Vance wasn’t fighting for justice. He was on a revenge spree. Personal. Vicious. And I had no fucking idea what the Bratva had done to him to make him this way.
I should’ve asked. Should’ve demanded answers before I became his weapon.
But I didn’t have the courage.
Because asking meant admitting I’d been used. Manipulated. Played like a goddamn fiddle for two years.
And I still hadn’t found anything concrete connecting the Bratva to my father’s murder. Nothing but Vance’s word. His photographs. His promises that the truth would come if I just kept digging, kept feeding him intel, kept betraying the people who’d given me everything.
My stomach churned again. That same nausea that had been plaguing me for days now, turning my body into a battlefield I couldn’t escape.
I pressed my palm against my abdomen, willing it to settle.
My phone buzzed on the desk. I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
I picked it up anyway.
“Tell me you have something.” Vance’s voice was clipped, impatient. No pleasantries. No pretense.
“I’m working on it,” I said, keeping my voice low even though my office door was closed.
