The Billionaire’s Forbidden Toy

Chapter 16: Before Sunrise

The words bled down the wall in fresh red paint.

For a moment, I could not move.

Not because I was afraid.

Because some part of me understood the cruelty of it too well.

Whoever wrote it knew exactly where to cut.

Not my body.

Not my pride.

The secret place inside me I had been trying to bury since Cassian Voss first stepped out from behind that red door and looked at me like I was something forbidden enough to ruin him.

Cassian saw the message too.

His face turned unreadable.

That was worse than anger.

Anger would have given me something to fight.

This silence gave me nothing but the memory of his hand on my back, his jacket around my shoulders, his voice in the dark when he shouted my name like losing me would break something in him.

My mother made a soft, wounded sound beside me.

That sound saved me.

I turned away from the wall.

Away from Cassian.

Away from the awful heat of shame crawling up my throat.

“Mom,” I whispered.

She was trembling against Elias, one hand pressed to her chest, her eyes fixed on the red words like they had been written for her too.

Maybe they had.

Maybe this whole nightmare was not only about me.

Maybe it had started long before I was born, when my mother was young and poor and beautiful, serving drinks in rooms where Voss men chose women like prizes.

I took her hand.

“It’s okay.”

She looked at me like she wanted badly to believe that and knew better.

“No, baby,” she whispered. “It’s not.”

The truth of that settled between us.

Cassian’s phone buzzed.

Then Elias’s.

Then mine.

All at once.

Three sharp vibrations in the ambulance bay.

My blood went cold.

Cassian looked at his screen first.

His jaw tightened.

Elias muttered, “Damn it.”

I looked at mine.

Unknown number.

One message.

Sunrise is in four hours. Choose where your blood belongs.

Attached was a map pin.

I opened it with shaking fingers.

The location loaded.

Not the pier.

Not the estate.

Not the medical center.

A place outside the city.

Voss Family Mausoleum.

My laugh came out hollow.

“Of course your family has a mausoleum.”

Cassian’s eyes moved to me.

Not amused.

Not now.

“We’re not going there.”

I lifted my head. “Yes, we are.”

“No.”

The word cracked through the bay.

My mother flinched.

I did not.

I was too tired of being ordered around by men who knew pieces of my life before I did.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

Cassian stepped closer, his whole body rigid with restraint.

“You were almost taken twice tonight. Your mother was kidnapped. My brother may be alive, and someone has access to every building, every file, every system connected to my name.”

His voice dropped. “So yes, Alina. I get to decide we don’t walk into a graveyard because a psychopath sent directions.”

“A psychopath who has my life, my mother’s past, and maybe my father’s name in his hands.”

“And that is why we think.”

“No,” I said, stepping closer too. “That is why we stop being dragged behind his messages.”

Cassian’s eyes darkened.

The air between us changed.

Even here.

Even with my mother shaking, Elias bleeding from a cut near his temple, the ambulance bay alarms still flashing, and red paint drying on the wall.

The air changed because Cassian looked at me like he wanted to grab me and shake sense into me, and some reckless part of me wanted to dare him to touch me just so I could prove I would not melt.

But that was the problem.

I might.

And until the DNA test came back, that thought made me sick.

I stepped back first.

Good.

Distance was safer.

Ugly, but safer.

“We need the DNA test,” I said. “Now.”

Elias straightened. “We can do an emergency comparison.”

“With what?” I asked.

He looked at Cassian.

Cassian’s face hardened. “Adrian’s stored medical records.”

My stomach twisted.

“So you have his DNA?”

“Blood samples from before the fire,” Elias said. “If they haven’t been compromised.”

“Everything is compromised,” I said.

“No,” Cassian answered quietly. “Not everything.”

His eyes stayed on me when he said it.

I hated that I understood.

I hated more that I wanted him to be right.

Elias made three calls in less than two minutes. Real calls this time. Not through the hospital network. Not through Voss channels. Through people he called favors and Cassian called debts.

By the time two black SUVs arrived, my mother was wrapped in a blanket, and I had washed the chemical smell from my face in a staff bathroom with hands that would not stop shaking.

When I came back out, Cassian stood near the exit.

Alone.

His black suit was ruined now, dust on one sleeve, blood at his cuff, a tear near his shoulder from where he had thrown himself between me and the ambulance.

He looked human.

Dangerous still.

Beautiful still.

But human in a way that made him harder to hate.

I stopped a few feet away.

He heard me.

Of course he did.

“You should be with your mother,” he said.

“You should stop telling me where to be.”

A faint, tired movement touched his mouth.

Not a smile.

Not even close.

But almost.

“I’m trying.”

“That must be painful.”

“Very.”

The tiny almost-humor between us died quickly.

Too much stood in the way.

Adrian.

Celeste.

The red room.

My mother’s secrets.

That sentence on the wall.

And the question neither of us could look at for too long.

What if?

What if Adrian Voss was my father?

What if Cassian was my uncle?

What if every moment between us, every breath, every look, every almost-touch had been wrong from the beginning?

My throat tightened.

“Did you know?” I asked.

His eyes lifted to mine.

“No.”

The answer came fast.

Firm.

I believed him.

That was the problem.

I believed him, and belief was starting to feel like another danger.

“I would never have touched you if I had known this was possible,” he said.

“You barely touched me.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

Only for half a second.

But enough.

Enough to make my pulse betray me again.

His jaw clenched.

“Alina.”

“Don’t.”

My voice was quiet now.

Not angry.

Worse.

Afraid.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re already trying to say goodbye.”

Something moved across his face.

Pain.

Then control.

“I’m trying to do the right thing.”

I laughed softly.

“Is that new for you?”

He accepted the hit without flinching.

Maybe that made it worse.

“I have done many wrong things,” he said. “But not this. Not knowingly.”

I looked away first.

Because his eyes were too much.

Because the night had already taken too many truths from me.

Because my body still remembered the way his arms felt when he caught me, and I hated that memory now more than any threat.

Elias called from the SUV. “We need to move.”

Cassian stepped aside.

For once, he did not put his hand on my back.

I noticed the absence like a bruise.

We drove to a private laboratory hidden behind an ordinary clinic on the edge of the city. No sign. No front desk. No glossy rich-people lobby. Just a tired man in glasses who opened the back door at 2:47 a.m. like this was not the strangest thing he had done all week.

Maybe for people who knew Cassian, it wasn’t.

They took my blood first.

A quick needle.

A vial filling red.

My name printed on a label.

Then they took a swab from my mother and accessed Adrian’s stored sample through Elias’s encrypted drive.

I watched everything.

Every label.

Every seal.

Every handoff.

No one was allowed to move without me seeing.

Cassian watched too, from the opposite side of the room.

Silent.

Untouchable.

A man waiting for a sentence.

The lab technician said the rush comparison would take ninety minutes.

Ninety minutes.

Long enough for a life to split open.

Short enough to feel cruel.

They put us in a small waiting room with gray chairs, a coffee machine, and a fake plant in the corner.

My mother sat beside me, her fingers wrapped around mine.

Cassian stood near the door.

Elias stood outside, speaking quietly with guards.

For a while, no one said anything.

Then my mother whispered, “I wanted to protect you from this.”

I looked at her.

She looked older than she had yesterday.

Not because of age.

Because secrets had weight, and tonight they had finally stopped letting her carry them alone.

“I know,” I said.

“I should have told you.”

“Yes.”

She flinched.

I softened. “But I understand why you didn’t.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

“I was ashamed.”

“You were young.”

“I was fooled.”

“You survived.”

Her face crumpled.

I hugged her carefully, and for one second, I was not the girl in Cassian’s world. Not the name on the red wall. Not Adrian’s possible daughter.

Just my mother’s child.

Then the waiting room television turned on by itself.

Static filled the screen.

Cassian moved instantly.

“Get away from it.”

Too late.

The static cleared.

A video began playing.

A woman in a white dress stood in a candlelit room.

Celeste.

She looked directly at the camera.

Alive.

Terrified.

But alive.

My breath caught.

Cassian froze.

Celeste’s voice came through the speakers, soft and shaking.

“If you are watching this, then Adrian lied to everyone.”

Cassian stepped closer to the screen, his face stripped bare.

Celeste swallowed.

“Cassian, if this reaches you, I need you to know I tried to tell you. I tried to explain, but Adrian said if I spoke, he would burn everything and make you watch.”

My mother covered her mouth.

Celeste looked over her shoulder, then back at the camera.

“He is not working alone. Liora helped him. Mara helped me escape once, but I don’t know if I can trust her anymore. The red room is not the beginning. It is the map.”

Cassian whispered, “Celeste.”

My chest hurt watching him.

I hated that it hurt.

Celeste’s eyes filled with tears.

“And the girls? The ones on the wall? They were never his toys.”

A chill moved through me.

“They were heirs.”

The waiting room went silent.

Celeste continued.

“Daughters. Hidden daughters. Bloodlines tied to money Adrian and your father stole, covered up, or used. If Adrian finds them first, he controls the inheritance trails. If he can mark them, compromise them, ruin them, marry them, or make them disappear, the money stays buried.”

My mother made a small sound.

Cassian turned toward her.

She had gone white.

“Isabelle?” he said.

But Celeste was still speaking.

“There is one child Adrian never stopped looking for. Isabelle’s daughter. He believes she carries the Reed key.”

I looked at my mother.

“The what?”

She shook her head, crying.

“I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know.”

The screen flickered.

Celeste leaned closer.

“If Alina Moreau is found, protect her from Adrian. Protect her from the Voss name. And Cassian…” Her voice broke.

“Protect her from you if you start wanting her.”

The video cut to black.

No one moved.

No one breathed.

Then the lab door opened.

The technician stepped out holding a sealed envelope.

“The preliminary DNA result is ready.”

My whole body went numb.

Cassian did not move.

My mother began to pray under her breath.

The technician handed the envelope to me.

Not Cassian.

Me.

My fingers shook as I opened it.

The paper inside blurred for a second before I forced my eyes to focus.

I read the first line.

Then the second.

Then the result.

My knees weakened.

Cassian took one step forward, then stopped himself.

“What does it say?” he asked, voice barely audible.

I looked up at him.

My throat closed.

Then I said the words that changed everything.

“Adrian Voss is not my father.”

Cassian’s face went utterly still.

My mother sobbed.

I looked back at the paper.

“But Malcolm Reed is.”

The lights flickered once.

Then my phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

One message.

Good. Now she knows she owns what your family stole.