He leaves me standing in the gray wash of morning light, the door clicking shut behind him. The silence is thick, clogged with the smell of stale coffee and the bitter hit of Cassian’s lie.
A thief.
Studying the blueprints spread across the mahogany table, the Red Xs stare back at me—the acoustic vent, the hollow column. I trace the lines with a trembling fingertip.
He claims Elias was a thief trying to steal blackmail files. That the marks were for infiltration. It makes sense on the surface. It’s logical. It explains why a man would break into a museum in the middle of the night.
But it doesn’t explain the look in Cassian’s eyes when I mentioned the vents.
For a split second, the mask slipped. The cold, tactical “Ghost” vanished, and I saw shock. And then... rage.
He looked like a man who’d realized the weapon he was holding was pointed at his own chest.
I killed a man I thought was a terrorist. Turns out, I was misinformed.
I wrap my arms around my waist, shivering despite the fabric of the black button-down shirt I’m wearing. It hangs to the middle of my thighs, smelling of gun oil and expensive detergent.
Owns.
The word echoes in my head, dragging up the memory of last night. The wall. The tearing of the silk. The way he filled me, possessed me, broke me.
I close my eyes, and my body betrays me instantly. My core clenches, my nipples hardening against the cotton as a flush of heat travels up my neck.
I’m alive. And he made me feel alive. When he pinned me against that wall, I wasn’t powerless. I was furious and wrecked, and I demanded it anyway. That’s the part that scares me. I hate that I wanted it.
Get dressed,he had said.Real clothes.
I open my eyes.
I need to focus. I can’t let the lust—or whatever this sick, chemical tether is between us—distract me from the reality.
I don’t have the hard proof yet, but I grew up around men who turned guesses into certainty with a robe and a gavel. I know what a pattern looks like, and every thread points back to the men who want to destroy my father.
Leaving the dining room, I take the elevator back up to the Tower. The sprawling, open-concept fortress feels empty without Cassian filling the space.
Finding a door that’s ajar down the hall, I push it open.
It’s a vast walk-in closet, larger than my entire apartment in the city, filled with rows of black suits, tactical gear, and pristine white shirts.
On a center island sits an unzipped duffel bag.
Inside, I find women’s clothes. Jeans. Sweaters. Boots. Underwear still in the packaging.
Did he buy these? When? He hasn’t left the estate.
I check the tag on the jeans. My size. Exactly. I check the sweater. Cashmere, dove gray—my color.
It wasn’t a rush job. His men didn’t need to leave the estate to shop; they just needed a phone and a runner. Money moves faster than gates, I guess. He had my dossier. My measurements, my habits, my life—reduced to a shopping list. It feels curated, like I was an inevitability.
I reach in and pull out the dark wash jeans and a gray cashmere sweater—cheaper than the one Cassian cut off me, but soft.
I strip off Cassian’s shirt and catch my reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall. The sight freezes me. My body is a map of violence.
There are dark bruises on my hips where his hands gripped me, and a dark, purple mark on my neck from his chokehold.
I touch the mark on my neck. It throbs under my fingers.
I dress quickly, pulling on the tight, stiff jeans and dragging the sweater over my head to hide the marks. After pulling on thick wool socks, I step into the leather boots sitting next to the bag, lacing them tight to make up for them being a little big.
