I didn’t watch Cassian meet Isabella.
Seth told me about it afterward.
The second Isabella saw him, she threw herself toward him.
“Cassian, you came to save me? Did your father send you?”
“No.”
His voice was flat.
“I want to ask you something. If my father falls, if the Wolfe family is gone, if I have no shipping routes left—will you still marry me?”
Isabella froze.
Three seconds.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
She didn’t answer.
Cassian suddenly laughed.
“I get it. You don’t have to say anything.”
He turned and walked away.
Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t wipe them away.
He didn’t make a sound.
Seth said he had never seen a man cry like that in his life.
So completely broken.
And so quiet.
After hearing it, I stayed silent for a long time.
“Put him in the room
