The Billionaire’s Forbidden Toy

Chapter 20: The Claimants

The gun against my temple was cold.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Not the men in masks.

Not my mother crying.

Not Tessa fighting like a wild thing in the arms of the man holding her.

Not Cassian standing six feet away from me with blood on his knuckles and murder in his eyes.

The gun was cold.

Pressed so hard against my skin that even breathing felt like permission I had not been granted.

“Alina Reed belongs to the claimants now.”

The masked man’s voice was flat.

Professional.

Like he was reading a delivery notice instead of holding my life in his hand.

Cassian went completely still.

That was how I knew we were in real danger.

Not his anger.

His stillness.

Every dangerous part of him locked into place at once.

“Let her go,” he said.

The man behind me laughed softly.

Wrong choice.

Cassian’s eyes turned black.

“Mr. Voss,” the masked man said. “You’re in no position to give orders.”

Tessa thrashed against the man holding her.

“Mmph!”

They had gagged her again.

Of course they had.

Tessa with a free mouth was apparently considered a security threat.

Good.

That made me proud.

My mother was sobbing quietly near the kitchen, another masked man gripping her shoulders.

Her eyes stayed on me.

Terrified.

Guilty.

Alive.

That was all that mattered.

For now.

The man with the gun pressed the barrel harder against my temple.

“Put your weapon down, Mr. Voss.”

Cassian did not move.

“Now.”

Elias was slumped in the hallway, still conscious but bleeding badly. One masked man stood over him with a gun aimed at his chest.

Cassian looked at Elias.

Then at my mother.

Then at Tessa.

Then at me.

There was a terrible moment where I saw him calculate everything.

Every distance.

Every angle.

Every life.

Every possible loss.

And I saw when he reached the conclusion he hated.

He slowly lowered his gun to the floor.

The man behind me smiled. I could hear it in his voice.

“Kick it away.”

Cassian obeyed.

The gun slid across the floor.

My chest tightened.

I had seen Cassian command rooms, frighten powerful men, move like violence itself had hired him.

But this?

This was different.

This was Cassian Voss choosing not to fight because the people I loved would pay first.

The realization hurt in a place I did not want him to touch.

“Smart,” the masked man said.

Cassian’s voice was deadly calm.

“Who sent you?”

“The claimants.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It is the only one you’re getting.”

I swallowed carefully.

“What do they want?”

The gun shifted slightly.

“You.”

Cassian’s jaw flexed.

I forced my voice not to shake.

“Why?”

The masked man laughed once.

“Because you just became the most expensive woman in the city.”

Tessa made a muffled sound that was definitely an insult.

The man holding her tightened his grip.

Anger sliced through me.

“Don’t hurt her.”

The room went quiet.

The gun at my temple paused.

I felt the masked man’s attention settle on me.

“What was that?”

I lifted my chin as much as I could.

“I said don’t hurt her.”

Cassian’s eyes locked on mine.

Warning.

Pride.

Fear.

All at once.

The masked man leaned closer.

“You’re brave for a girl with a gun to her head.”

“No,” I said. “I’m tired.”

A strange silence followed.

Then Cassian’s mouth moved faintly.

Not a smile.

Something sadder.

He had heard me say those words before.

In his office.

Before everything became blood and family secrets and men with guns.

The masked man recovered first.

“Move.”

“Where?” Cassian asked.

“Not you.”

The gun shifted toward me.

“Her.”

My heart slammed.

“No,” Cassian said.

The single word cracked across the apartment.

The masked man laughed. “You really are attached.”

Cassian stepped forward.

Every masked man in the room lifted a weapon.

“Don’t,” I said quickly.

He stopped.

His eyes burned into mine.

I hated how much I understood them now.

He wanted me to trust him.

He wanted me to stay calm.

He wanted me alive.

I wanted all those things too.

But the man behind me had Tessa.

He had my mother.

He had a gun.

And I was done waiting for men to decide which version of my survival was most convenient.

I let my knees weaken.

Just slightly.

The masked man adjusted his grip on me.

Good.

“Stand up,” he snapped.

“I feel sick.”

“Stand up.”

“I can’t breathe.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed.

He saw it.

Good.

Tessa saw it too.

Her eyes widened just a little.

The masked man cursed and shifted the gun away from my temple for half a second to grab my arm properly.

Half a second was enough.

I dropped.

Not gracefully.

Not like in movies.

I collapsed with all my weight, twisting as I fell.

The gun fired.

The shot exploded near my ear.

My mother screamed.

Cassian moved.

So did Tessa.

She slammed her head backward into the face of the man holding her. He cursed, grip loosening. She kicked backward and hit his knee hard enough to make him stumble.

Cassian reached me before the masked man could aim again.

He drove his shoulder into the man’s chest and sent him crashing into the table.

The apartment erupted.

Tessa threw herself sideways, chair and all, toppling into the man’s legs.

My mother grabbed a glass jar from the counter and smashed it against her captor’s arm.

I would have laughed if I hadn’t been crawling across the floor with my ears ringing.

The masked man who stood over Elias turned his gun toward Cassian.

Elias, bleeding or not, kicked his ankle out from under him.

Cassian snatched his own gun from the floor and fired once.

Not at the man.

At the ceiling.

The shot froze the room.

“Enough,” he said.

His voice was not loud.

It did not need to be.

Two masked men were down.

One fled through the window to the fire escape.

Another dragged his injured partner toward the door.

Cassian aimed at him.

“Move again and I make it permanent.”

The man stopped.

For three seconds, nobody breathed.

Then a smoke canister rolled through the open apartment door.

Elias shouted, “Down!”

Not again.

White smoke burst through the room.

Cassian grabbed me and shoved me behind the couch. Tessa rolled awkwardly beside us, still half-tied to the chair.

“I swear,” she coughed, “if I survive this, I’m moving to a quiet farm.”

Cassian cut the rope around her wrists with a knife from his pocket.

“You wouldn’t last a day.”

She glared through tears and smoke. “I hate that you know me.”

Another shot rang out.

Then footsteps.

Running.

By the time the smoke thinned, the masked men were gone.

The apartment was wrecked.

Table overturned.

Glass everywhere.

Smoke curling along the ceiling.

My mother shaking on the floor.

Elias bleeding in the doorway.

Tessa coughing beside me.

Cassian kneeling in front of me, one hand on my shoulder, his face close.

Too close.

“Are you hit?”

I blinked at him.

My ears rang.

“What?”

“Alina.” His voice broke over my name. “Are you hit?”

I looked down.

No blood.

Not mine.

“I don’t think so.”

His hand moved to my face, stopping just before touching my cheek.

This time, I leaned into it.

I did not mean to.

God, I did not mean to.

But I was alive, and he was there, and for one second, fear stripped away everything except the truth of my body reaching for warmth.

His fingers touched my cheek.

Careful.

Shaking.

Then his forehead nearly dropped to mine.

Not quite.

Never quite.

Because Tessa coughed loudly.

“Still here. Traumatized. Untied now, but still judging.”

Cassian pulled back.

I almost hated her for saving me.

I loved her for it more.

Elias groaned from the doorway.

“Someone please shoot me next time in a more convenient location.”

Cassian stood instantly. “How bad?”

Elias pressed a bloody hand to his side. “Bad enough to be annoying. Not bad enough for your guilt complex.”

Cassian helped him up.

I crawled to my mother.

She grabbed me so tightly I could barely breathe.

“My baby. My baby.”

“I’m okay,” I whispered. “We’re okay.”

But we weren’t.

The whole city knew my name now.

Masked men had come for me.

Adrian was alive.

Cassian’s world had burned into mine, and there was no clean edge where I could cut it away.

Cassian looked at all of us.

Then at the broken window.

Then at the phones still glowing with news alerts.

“We can’t stay here.”

Tessa laughed weakly. “That’s the first sensible thing anyone has said all night.”

“Where do we go?” I asked.

Cassian’s eyes met mine.

For a moment, I thought he would say his penthouse.

His hotel.

Another Voss-controlled building.

But he surprised me.

“A place not tied to my name.”

Elias looked up sharply. “Cassian—” “No one knows about it.”

“Someone always knows,” Tessa muttered.

Cassian glanced at her. “Not this one.”

I stood slowly.

My legs were shaking, but I stood.

“Everyone comes.”

His gaze softened slightly. “Yes.”

“Tessa. My mother. Elias.”

“Yes.”

“And no more deciding things without me.”

A beat.

Then he nodded.

“No more.”

The promise landed quietly.

Maybe not enough.

But it was something.

We packed nothing.

There was no time.

Cassian helped Elias down the stairs while Tessa kept one arm around my mother. I followed last, looking back once at the apartment that had been my whole world yesterday.

Small.

Poor.

Safe, once.

Now it looked like a crime scene.

On the floor near the couch, the locket lay open.

I picked it up.

The chip was gone.

The automatic release had burned it out, leaving only a tiny black scar inside the gold.

But beneath where the chip had rested, I noticed something engraved into the metal.

Tiny letters.

I held it close to the hallway light.

R.E.E.D. / 4-19-9-1 A code.

Or coordinates.

Or another key.

I slipped it into my pocket before anyone saw.

Not because I didn’t trust them.

Because I was learning.

Truth survived longer when women kept some of it for themselves.

Downstairs, two SUVs waited.

Not black this time.

Ordinary gray.

No expensive shine.

No Voss plates.

Cassian opened the back door for my mother and Tessa.

Then he turned to me.

“Ride with me.”

It was not an order.

That made it harder.

Tessa’s eyes narrowed from the other car.

“I’m watching you, tall dark trauma.”

Cassian looked at her. “I assumed.”

I got into his SUV.

He drove.

For the first ten minutes, neither of us spoke.

The city blurred past us, sirens wailing somewhere behind, news vans already turning toward my ruined building.

My life had become a headline.

I pressed my forehead to the cold window.

“Who are the claimants?”

Cassian’s hands tightened around the wheel.

“People tied to the hidden trusts. Families, companies, criminals, old partners of my father. If the ledger released their names, they’ll all want you. Some to control you. Some to silence you.”

“And Adrian?”

“Adrian wants the same thing he always wanted.”

“What?”

Cassian looked at the road.

“To prove every woman connected to this family can be owned.”

My stomach turned.

“Even me.”

His answer came quietly.

“Especially you.”

I looked at him then.

The dashboard lights cut shadows across his face.

He looked tired.

Angry.

Haunted.

Mine to protect, he had once said.

I had hated it then.

I didn’t know what I felt now.

The locket in my pocket seemed to burn against my thigh.

I thought of the code.

R.E.E.D. / 4-19-9-1.

Another secret.

Another door.

This time, mine.

“Cassian.”

“Yes?”

“You said you had somewhere safe.”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

For the first time in hours, his mouth curved slightly.

A tired almost-smile.

“My mother’s old house.”

I blinked.

“You have a mother?”

He glanced at me. “Most people do.”

“You know what I mean.”

His almost-smile faded.

“She left my father when I was young. Took nothing but one house and her silence.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know we’re coming?”

“No.”

That sounded bad.

Before I could say so, his phone rang through the car speaker.

Unknown number.

We both froze.

Cassian answered.

For a moment, there was only static.

Then a woman’s voice came through.

Older.

Elegant.

Cold.

“Cassian.”

His face went white.

“Mother.”

My heart stopped.

The woman sighed softly.

“Don’t bring Malcolm Reed’s daughter to my door unless you are ready to hear why I left your father.”

Cassian’s hands tightened on the wheel.

His mother continued.

“And Alina?”

My blood ran cold.

“Yes?”

Her voice softened.

Just slightly.

“If you found the locket, don’t trust the first code. Your father was cleverer than that.”

The call ended.

Cassian and I stared at the road ahead.

Then the locket in my pocket grew warm.

Very warm.

And began to vibrate.