Chapter 6
775 Words
CHAPTER SIX
CASSIAN's POV
Cassian always knew there would be a day when he’d have to choose between the man who made him… and the woman who was unmaking him piece by piece.
He just didn’t think it would be today.
The LaurelTech executive wing was a vault of steel and silence. No windows. No warmth. Just legacy polished into stone. His father’s office sat at the very top, designed like a throne room — overlooking everything, including him.
Cassian didn’t knock.
He stepped inside.
Steven Laurel didn’t look up from the tablet in his hand. “You’re late.”
“I was at the Saint Roman meeting.”
“I know. I watched the whole thing. You played your part well.”
Steven’s voice was always calm — like a man who never worried about consequences, only results.
Cassian stepped closer, jaw tight. “You planted the embezzlement file.”
Steven finally looked up, eyes cool and unreadable. “I exposed a vulnerability. It’s not my fault if the knights don’t know how to guard their assets.”
“She’s not a vulnerability,” Cassian said coldly.
“She’s a liability,” Steven countered. “She’s blinded you.”
“No—”
“Yes,” Steven snapped, rising from his chair. “You’ve forgotten who you are. You’ve compromised Laurel Tech with that girl—”
“Her name is Luna.”
Steven narrowed his eyes. “And that right there? That tone? That’s why you’re not ready to lead this empire.”
Cassian took a step forward, the heat rising under his skin. “If being ready means becoming you, I don’t want the title.”
Silence. Heavy. Final.
Steven set down the tablet and walked slowly around the desk. “You think this is about love? That your feelings matter in a world built on domination and fear? Let me teach you something, son—”
“I’m not your student anymore.”
“No, you’re not,” Steven agreed. “But you’re still my heir. And if you want Laurel Tech when I’m gone, you’ll end this pathetic charade with Luna Knight before it burns both of our legacies to the ground.”
Cassian clenched his fists.
His father had done a lot of cruel things over the years. Blackmail. Hostile takeovers. Breaking people just to prove a point. But using Luna — framing her — that crossed a line.
“I won’t betray her,” he said.
Steven laughed. Cold. Pitying. “You already have. You let her walk into that meeting blind.”
“I tried to warn her.”
“You didn’t try hard enough.”
Cassian exhaled, pacing the edge of the desk. His mind raced through options. Scenarios. Moves. But nothing came without cost. If he protected Luna openly, Laurel Tech would turn on him. The board would call him compromised. His father would freeze him out.
But if he stayed silent, he’d lose her.
And she was the only thing that had ever made all of this — the blood, the pressure, the empire — feel like it meant something.
Cassian looked his father dead in the eye.
“I’m done being your shadow.”
Stetstudied him, quiet. Then he reached into a drawer and pulled out a file — slim, black, unmarked.
He dropped it onto the desk between them.
Cassian stared at it.
“What is that?”
“Your future. And hers.”
Cassian didn’t move.
Steven leaned in. “Walk away now, and I’ll pull the embezzlement story before the media gets it. I’ll make it disappear. She’ll never know it even existed. But if you keep this up? If you stay with her? I’ll bury her. Slowly. Publicly. You know I will.”
Cassian felt something crack behind his ribs.
This was the test.
This was the moment.
Legacy or love.
Empire or her.
He picked up the file slowly. Cold. Heavy.
And then—he dropped it back on the desk.
“I’ll build my own future,” he said. “Even if I have to do it from the ashes of yours.”
Steven’s expression didn’t change.
He just nodded once, like he’d been expecting this outcome all along.
“Then I suggest you start preparing for war.”
Cassian left the room without looking back.
The moment the door shut behind him, he pulled out his phone and called only one person.
Luna didn’t answer.
But she would.
Because it was time they stopped hiding.
If they were going to burn, they’d do it together — and light the whole world on fire while they fell.
- Writer
