Chapter 12
613 Words
CHAPTER TWELVE
CASSIAN POV
Steven Laurel didn’t look surprised when Cassian walked into his office.
No panic. No anger.
Just that calculating calm, like he’d been waiting for the storm to walk in.
The LaurelTech Manhattan headquarters had been swarming with PR executives, legal teams, and security since the leaks went live, but Steven hadn’t moved. He remained in his glass fortress at the top floor, untouched, untouchable — or so he thought.
Cassian didn’t knock. He didn’t need to.
“You’re here sooner than expected,” Steven said, not looking up from the portfolio on his desk.
Cassian closed the door behind him. Quietly. Like a man preparing for the kill.
“You suspended me,” he said flatly.
Steven finally glanced up, gray eyes sharp and unreadable. “You made yourself unsuspendable the moment you betrayed the company.”
“Betrayed you, you mean.”
Steven leaned back in his chair. “There’s no difference.”
Cassian’s jaw tightened. “That’s the problem.”
A pause stretched between them, taut as wire.
Steven rose from his seat, walking to the minibar with practiced ease. “Do you know what makes legacy so fragile, Cassian?”
He poured whiskey into two glasses — poured for two, but only took one in hand.
Cassian didn’t move.
Steven continued, “It’s not built on truth. It’s built on perception. Trust. Control. What you’ve done...” He turned slowly. “You’ve infected all three.”
“I exposed a deal that cost lives.”
“You exposed power for the sake of your own guilt.”
Cassian stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “I didn’t do it for guilt. I did it because I won’t become you.” Steven raised a brow. “And what exactly am I, Cassian?”
“You’re a man who confuses dominance for love. Control for legacy. You spent your life building a kingdom on other people’s silence, and now you’re angry that I used my voice.”
Steven’s expression darkened. “You think your voice matters without my name?”
“That’s the last thing I want,” Cassian said. “Your name.”
A beat.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was heavy. Final.
Steven took a slow sip of whiskey. “You were never weak, Cassian. But you always had a flaw. You believed in redemption.”
“No,” Cassian said quietly. “I believed in freedom.”
“Freedom is for people without empires.”
Cassian stared at him. “Then I’ll build something without chains.”
“You’re throwing away billions.”
“I’m not throwing it away,” Cassian said. “I’m burning it. Because fire is the only way to disinfect a legacy this dirty.”
Steven looked at him for a long moment.
Then, with a flicker of something colder than fury, he set the untouched second glass down on the table.
“You’re not my son anymore.”
Cassian smiled. Not because it didn’t hurt — but because he realized in that moment:
He didn’t want to be.
“I never was,” he said.
He left without another word.
As he stepped into the private elevator, Cassian exhaled — not with relief, but with finality.
There were no more strings left to cut.
No more shadows to run from.
And somewhere in the chaos of the city below, Luna Knight was doing the same thing — shedding the last pieces of the life someone else had written for her.
They were no longer enemies.
No longer heirs.
They were something new.
And if their fathers couldn’t stomach the revolution they started?
Then let them choke on the ashes.
- Writer
