Chapter 6: In the Dark
1834 Words
The hand came over my mouth before I could scream.
Hard.
Gloved.
Cold.
My body froze for half a second.
Then panic tore through me.
I kicked back, catching someone’s shin. The grip around my waist tightened so brutally my breath smashed against the palm covering my lips.
The room had erupted.
Women screamed.
Glass shattered.
Men cursed in the darkness.
Somewhere ahead of me, Cassian shouted my name.
Not calmly.
Not with that cold, controlled voice he used when he wanted the world to obey.
This was different.
Raw.
Violent.
Terrified.
“Alina!”
The sound of it ripped something open in my chest.
I tried to answer, but the hand over my mouth pressed harder. My attacker dragged me backward, away from the main room, away from the chaos, toward the hallway where the shadows were thicker.
No.
No, no, no.
I bit down.
Hard.
The man hissed and loosened his grip for one second.
One blessed second.
I screamed.
“Cassian!”
The world answered with violence.
A body hit the floor somewhere nearby. Heavy. Fast. Someone grunted in pain. Then Cassian’s voice cut through the dark like a blade.
“Let her go.”
Everything stopped.
Even my attacker went still.
His arm was still locked around my waist. His breath was hot against my hair. My heart hammered so hard I thought I might pass out from the sound alone.
Then the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Emergency lamps glowed along the floor, washing the hallway in blood-red light.
Cassian stood ten feet away.
I had never seen a man look like that.
Not angry.
Not furious.
Something beyond it.
His suit was still perfect, but his face had changed completely. The polished billionaire was gone. The cold host was gone. What stood in that hallway now was darker. Older. A man stripped down to instinct and threat.
His eyes were fixed on the arm around my body.
“Cassian,” I tried to say.
The man holding me shifted, dragging me back another step.
Cassian moved forward.
The man pressed something sharp against my side.
A knife.
I stopped breathing.
Cassian stopped too.
His gaze dropped.
Then lifted slowly.
“Do you know what happens if she bleeds?” he asked.
The man behind me laughed, but it shook. “You don’t scare me.”
Cassian’s mouth curved.
A terrible almost-smile.
“Then you’re badly informed.”
A crash sounded from the main room. Security shouted. Footsteps pounded closer.
The man’s grip tightened. “Back off.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Final.
The man jerked me harder, and the knife nicked through the silk at my waist. Pain flashed hot and thin across my skin.
I gasped.
Cassian saw it.
Something in him snapped.
It was not dramatic.
It was worse.
One second he was still.
The next, he moved.
Fast enough that I barely understood what happened.
Cassian’s hand locked around the man’s wrist. He twisted. The knife clattered to the floor. The arm around my waist vanished as my attacker cried out, and Cassian pulled me behind him in the same movement.
I stumbled.
Someone caught me from the side.
Elias.
“Stay back,” he said sharply.
But my eyes were on Cassian.
He slammed the man against the wall hard enough to make a painting crash to the floor.
The attacker’s mask slipped.
Young.
Nervous.
Not one of the silver-haired man’s men.
A servant?
A hired hand?
A pawn.
Cassian held him by the throat.
“Who sent you?”
The man gasped, clawing at his hand.
Cassian loosened his grip just enough.
“Who?”
The man’s eyes flicked to me.
Then to the hallway behind Cassian.
Fear widened his face.
“Not her,” he rasped. “She wasn’t supposed to be here.”
Cassian went still.
“What did you say?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Cassian slammed him back again.
“Name.”
Before the man could answer, a sharp crack split the hallway.
A gunshot.
The attacker’s body jerked.
Blood bloomed across his chest.
I screamed.
Cassian spun, shielding me instantly, his body covering mine as another wave of screams exploded from the main room.
The shooter was gone before anyone could move.
The man slid down the wall, leaving a dark smear behind him.
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Then he whispered one word.
“Celeste.”
And went still.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
Cassian’s body remained in front of mine, solid and warm, one arm braced across me like he could keep the whole world away through force alone.
Elias rushed to the fallen man.
Security poured into the hallway.
Guests cried in the background.
The emergency lights turned everything red.
Red walls.
Red dress.
Red hands.
Red secrets.
I looked down and saw the torn silk at my side.
A thin line of blood marked my skin.
Cassian saw it too.
His expression changed.
Completely.
“Alina.”
“I’m fine.”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
One word.
I stopped.
Maybe because his voice shook.
Barely.
But it did.
Cassian Voss, who had faced knives, blackmail, old lovers, and powerful enemies without blinking, looked at one small cut on my body like it was a personal failure.
That scared me more than the blood.
He reached for me, then stopped, his hand hovering near my waist.
“May I?”
The question stunned me.
After everything, after the orders and warnings and contracts, he was asking.
I nodded once.
His fingers touched the torn edge of the dress, careful not to brush the wound. That almost made it worse. The gentleness from a man like him felt too intimate. Too dangerous.
“It’s shallow,” he said, voice low.
“Good. Then stop looking like someone died.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Someone did.”
I glanced at the body and swallowed hard.
“He said Celeste.”
Cassian’s face closed.
“No.”
I stared at him. “No?”
“Not here.”
“Are you serious?”
He took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders before I could protest.
It swallowed me in warmth and smoke and him.
“You were just attacked,” he said. “A man was shot in front of you. You are bleeding. This is not the hallway where I explain a dead woman.”
A dead woman.
The words hit me like ice.
My mouth went dry.
“So she is dead.”
Something moved in his eyes.
Pain.
Rage.
Regret.
Then Elias stood and looked at Cassian.
“He’s gone.”
Cassian did not look away from me.
“Lock down the exits.”
“Already done.”
“Find the shooter.”
“Working on it.”
“And Mara?”
I straightened. “Mara. Where is she?”
Elias hesitated.
That was enough.
My stomach dropped.
Cassian turned to him slowly.
“Elias.”
“She’s missing.”
The hallway tilted.
Missing.
The woman who warned me.
The woman who knew Celeste.
The woman who had said run.
Cassian cursed under his breath, the sound low and vicious.
I pulled his jacket tighter around me.
“This was not about me, was it?”
No one answered.
I looked at the dead man, then at Cassian.
“He said I wasn’t supposed to be here.”
Cassian’s silence was answer enough.
The air left my lungs.
“Who was supposed to be here?”
His eyes held mine.
For the first time, he looked like he wanted to lie and knew I would hate him more if he did.
“Vivienne.”
My blood went cold.
“Your former fiancée?”
“Yes.”
“The attack was meant for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect it.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
Broken.
Disbelieving.
“So I’m not your date. I’m not your distraction. I’m bait.”
“No.”
“Then what am I?”
His answer came too quickly.
“Mine to protect.”
The words landed between us, hot and dangerous.
I should have recoiled.
I should have reminded him I belonged to no one.
But I was shaking in his jacket, bleeding in the dress he sent, standing beside a dead man who had whispered the name of a ghost.
And God help me, for one terrible second, those words made me feel safer.
Mine to protect.
Cassian saw it on my face.
His expression shifted.
Softened by half a breath.
Then security rushed in and broke the moment.
“Mr. Voss,” one guard said. “Police are six minutes out.”
Cassian nodded once, then took my hand.
I pulled back. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“No more red doors.”
His eyes held mine.
“No red doors.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the worst part.
He led me through a side corridor and into a small private study. Elias followed, speaking quietly into his phone. Cassian locked the door behind us, then turned on a table lamp.
Warm light spilled over bookshelves, a leather couch, a desk with untouched glasses.
My knees finally gave.
Cassian caught me before I hit the floor.
Again.
His arms went around me, strong and steady, and for one breathless second I pressed my face against his shirt because I could not hold myself upright anymore.
He went completely still.
Then his hand came to the back of my head.
Careful.
Almost reverent.
“You’re safe,” he said.
I laughed against him, and it came out almost like a sob.
“You keep saying things like you can make them true.”
His hand tightened slightly in my hair.
“I can make many things true.”
I lifted my head.
We were too close.
His jacket had slipped from one shoulder. His shirt smelled like smoke and heat and something I wanted to lean into more than I should. His eyes dropped to my mouth.
My body betrayed me with one shaky breath.
His jaw clenched.
“Alina.”
It sounded like a warning.
Or a plea.
I whispered, “What happened to Celeste?”
The heat vanished.
He stepped back.
Not far.
Enough to remind me he still had walls.
Before he could answer, his phone rang.
Cassian looked at the screen.
Every line of his body went hard.
“What?” I asked.
He answered the call but said nothing.
A voice came through the speaker.
Distorted.
Low.
Familiar in a way I could not place.
“Give back the girl, Voss.”
My heart stopped.
Cassian’s face went deadly still.
The voice continued.
“She belongs in the red room now.”
The call ended.
And somewhere behind the locked study door, someone began to knock.
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