Chapter Six
1227 Words
CASSIAN'S POV
I keep holding my phone long after the call ends. My thumb rests on the screen, but I do not move an inch. I can barely breathe.
They found him. Alive.
The words keep ringing in my mind, putting every nerve in my body on high alert.
"Cassian." Dominic's voice pulls me back. "What happened?"
I didn't answer immediately. I stare through the dark window at the city lights, shining as if nothing has changed.
"Cassian." He calls my name a bit louder this time, while drawing nearer. "Talk to me.”
"It's nothing," I reply. My voice is calm and emotionless, the way it always is when I'm trying to hide what I'm feeling.
"That's not true." Dominic folds his arms. "You went pale. Your hand was shaking while you were on that call. Who called?"
I place the phone on my desk and take a slow breath, forcing myself to stay composed regardless of the thoughts running through my head.
"A contact," I say. "It's nothing you need to worry about."
"It is my business." His jaw tightens. "I've known you since we were kids, Cassian. I know when you're hiding something. And this... this is serious."
I meet his eyes. Dominic has never been afraid of my silence, not even when it terrifies everyone else around me. It is one of the only reasons I still trust him at all.
"Increase security around the estate," I say instead of answering. "Double the guards tonight. Watch every entrance. Check every camera and make sure there are no weak spots."
He frowns. "Why? What exactly are we supposed to be watching out for?"
"Just do it.”
"Cassian." His voice is firm. "I can't protect this place properly if I don't know what the danger is."
"You don't need to know all the details," I reply. "Just trust me."
Pain and frustration flash across his face. Dominic has given me fifteen years of loyalty without asking for much in return. I know this isn't fair to him. I know it, and I do it anyway, but some burdens are mine alone to bear.
"Fine," he says at last. "I'll take care of it. But this conversation isn't over, Cassian. You can't keep shutting me out."
"I'm not shutting you out.”
"Yes, you are." He heads to the door, then pauses. "That call... It has something to do with Elara, right? I saw your face the moment you hung up."
I do not respond because I don't trust myself to speak.
He watches me for another second before walking away, leaving the door open behind him, almost as if he's giving me one last chance to call him back. I don't.
The silence after he leaves me in a worse state than the phone call.
I move to my desk and sit down, my legs strangely weak. Not that it has anything to do with tiredness. Without thinking, I reach for the bottom drawer and unlock it with the small key hidden inside my watch.
The photograph is right where it always is, tucked beneath old files no one else is allowed to touch.
I lift it out carefully. The edges are worn out from fifteen years of doing the same thing: taking it out, staring at it, then putting it back before anyone sees me.
My mother smiles in the picture, her arm wrapped around a young boy who is currently nothing like the man I've become. His hair is messy. His smile is bright and carefree. My thumb brushes across my mother's face.
"You would've liked her," I whisper. "She argues with me. No one does that anymore."
The room is quiet except for the distant hum of the city. The memories return and allow me to dwell in them. The smell of rain. The scream of twisting metal. The small hands of the little girl that pulled me out while the adults were too frightened to save us.
I was ten, and she was seven.
I never learned her name that night. Everything had happened too fast…the fire, the police, the hospital lights, the people rolling me away into the ambulance before I could thank her or even see her face properly.
I was seventeen before enough memories came back, and I started searching. A school badge burned into my mind, and a gentle voice promising I'd be okay was the only memory I had of her. It took years to search through old records before I found her name.
Elara Wynn.
By the time I confirmed it was really her, I had already built an empire powerful enough to open any door I needed opened.
Marrying her had seemed like the only choice. Protecting her became my responsibility, and keeping my father's past away from her became my mission.
I never expected to fall for her the way I do now. That thought unsettles me more than the phone call.
I set the photograph down and lean back, searching for answers that refuse to come.
He's asking for Elara.
The words keep repeating in my head. Whoever this man is... whatever he knows... if he starts digging into the past, into the accident, into everything I've spent fifteen years burying, everything I've built could fall apart; the company, the money and the walls I've spent years building around myself. None of it will matter.
I walk to the window and place my hand on the cold glass. Elara is upstairs. She's probably still awake.
Maybe she's still angry about the study, the rules, and the life I forced on her without giving her a choice. She has no idea what's waiting beyond these walls. She doesn't know she saved my life that night. She doesn't know what it costs. She doesn't know there are still people willing to kill to keep that truth buried.
"You won't touch her," I mutter to the empty room. "Whoever you are... whatever you know... You will never get near her."
The promise feels strange leaving my mouth. I've never spoken like this about anyone… employees, business partners, not even Valentina, back when I believed I loved her.
Elara is different. She has been ever since she signed that contract without knowing the price she'd have to pay.
I rest my forehead on the cold glass, letting it calm me.
Whatever happens next… whoever this man is… whatever secrets he carries about the night my parents died… I'll deal with it the same way I deal with everything else, and I'll make sure the only person who ever showed me kindness without asking for anything in return stays safe.
I return the photograph to the drawer and lock it away. My hands are steady now. I walk to the study door and stop. At the end of the hallway, a thin line of light shines beneath Elara's bedroom door.
She's still awake. I almost go to her. I almost knock, almost tell her everything… the accident, the last fifteen years, and the man who could destroy it all.
But I don't. I remain standing in the hallway, torn between protecting her with silence... and losing her with the truth.
The choice feels impossible.
Because a man out there who should not exist is waiting to remind me that some secrets do not stay buried forever.
- Writer
