The Billionaire’s Forbidden Toy

Chapter 10: The Ones He Chooses

The darkness swallowed the room whole.

Not soft darkness.

Not the kind that came when lights simply went out.

This darkness felt deliberate.

Heavy.

Engineered.

Like someone had reached into the walls and turned the room into a trap with all of us breathing inside it.

Tessa’s hand clamped around mine.

Hard.

“Alina,” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

“I hate this room.”

“Same.”

Across from us, I heard Cassian move.

One step.

Then his voice cut through the dark.

“Don’t move.”

Tessa made a small sound of disbelief. “Wonderful. The haunted billionaire has instructions.”

“Tessa,” I whispered.

“No, I think I’m handling this beautifully for someone locked inside a murder archive.”

The voice from the speakers laughed.

Low.

Distorted.

Wrong.

It crawled out from every corner of the red room.

“Still collecting strays, Cassian?”

Cassian went still.

I couldn’t see him, but I felt it.

The change in the air.

The way his silence tightened.

He knew that voice.

Even distorted, he knew it.

My stomach dropped.

“Who is that?” I asked.

No answer.

Not from Cassian.

Not from the voice.

Then the screens flashed back on.

All at once.

The sudden light made me flinch.

Rows of faces glowed across the screens.

Women.

Dozens of women.

Some smiling.

Some unaware.

Some walking down streets.

Some entering hotels.

Some sitting in cafés.

Some crying.

My own face appeared in the center screen.

A video.

Me six months ago, outside the hospital, helping my mother into a taxi.

I stumbled back.

Tessa caught me.

“No,” I whispered.

The camera angle was distant but clear.

Someone had been watching me long before I met Cassian.

Long before the red dress.

Long before the contract.

Long before I ever stepped into The Velvet House.

Cassian saw it too.

His face turned lethal.

“Turn it off,” he said.

The voice laughed again. “Still giving orders in rooms you don’t control?”

Cassian stepped toward the main console.

A metal shutter slammed down in front of it.

He stopped.

My pulse hammered.

Tessa looked between the screens and Cassian.

“You said you didn’t do this.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

Cassian’s jaw flexed.

The voice answered for him.

“Tell her, Voss. Tell pretty Alina why poor girls keep ending up in your world.”

I looked at Cassian.

“Tell me.”

His eyes held mine.

For one terrible second, I thought he would refuse again.

Then he said, “My father started it.”

The room went silent.

Even the speakers seemed to wait.

I swallowed. “Started what?”

Cassian’s gaze moved to the wall of names.

“The selection.”

Tessa whispered, “Oh my God.”

My skin went cold.

“The selection?” I repeated.

His voice was low. Controlled. But beneath it, something burned.

“Years ago, powerful men used this club to hide what they wanted from the public. Affairs.

Deals. Blackmail. Women they could buy, control, discard.” His eyes came back to mine. “My father kept records.”

“Why?”

“Insurance.”

The word made me sick.

On the wall, my name stared back at me.

Alina Moreau.

The ones he chooses.

“You inherited the club,” I said slowly.

“Yes.”

“And the room.”

“Yes.”

“And instead of burning it down, you kept it.”

His face tightened.

“I used it.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

“Of course you did.”

“Not like him.”

“That’s what men always say when they want credit for using the same weapon differently.”

That hit.

I saw it hit him.

Good.

Let it.

Cassian took one step toward me.

Tessa moved in front of me immediately.

Cassian stopped.

His eyes flicked to her, then back to me.

“I used the records to destroy men like him,” he said. “To expose them quietly. Remove them from boards. End careers. Protect women when I could.”

“When you could,” I repeated.

Celeste’s crossed-out photo burned in my mind.

His expression changed.

Pain again.

There.

Raw and ugly beneath all that expensive control.

“Celeste found the room,” he said. “She thought the names were women I had chosen for myself. She thought I was continuing what my father built.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

The answer was instant.

Sharp.

Almost violent.

“But she didn’t believe you,” I said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

His silence told me before his mouth did.

Because he had lied too many times.

Because he had hidden too much.

Because men who build walls cannot act surprised when people cannot see through them.

The distorted voice clapped slowly through the speakers.

“Beautiful. Almost touching.”

Cassian turned toward the nearest speaker.

“Show yourself.”

“Why? So you can ruin another secret?”

“Come close enough and I’ll do more than ruin it.”

The voice laughed.

Tessa leaned close to me. “Why do rich men flirt with death like it’s a sport?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hate it.”

“Me too.”

The screens changed again.

Now they showed Celeste.

Clips of her walking into The Velvet House.

Celeste playing violin on a small stage.

Celeste laughing with someone off-camera.

Celeste standing near the red door.

Then a final clip.

Celeste running.

Barefoot.

White dress torn.

Hair loose.

Fear all over her face.

My stomach turned.

Cassian’s face went white.

He had not seen this before.

I knew it immediately.

Whatever else he was guilty of, this footage was new to him.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

The voice ignored him.

The screen froze on Celeste’s terrified face.

Then words appeared beneath the image.

SHE RAN FROM HIM.

My breath caught.

Cassian’s earlier words came back.

Celeste didn’t vanish because she came with me.

Because she ran from me.

I looked at him.

He looked wrecked.

Not openly.

Cassian did not know how to fall apart in ways normal people could recognize.

But I saw it.

In his eyes.

In the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides.

In the way the room had taken something from him he did not know how to defend against.

“Cassian,” I said before I meant to.

His eyes came to mine.

For one second, the red room, the cameras, the voice, the names, all blurred.

There was only him looking at me like the past had opened its mouth and bitten him.

Then the screen flashed.

A new video appeared.

Me.

Tonight.

Entering the red room with Tessa.

The footage was live.

I turned sharply, scanning the ceiling.

“There are cameras in here?”

Cassian cursed under his breath.

“There shouldn’t be.”

“Oh, comforting.”

The distorted voice spoke again.

“Alina Moreau. Twenty-three. Mother: Isabelle Moreau. Medical debt: cleared by Cassian Voss.

Employment: temporary contract. Status: emotionally compromised.”

My blood went cold.

Tessa stepped closer to me.

“Don’t listen.”

But the voice kept going.

“Profile: beautiful, ambitious, financially vulnerable, loyal attachment to one female friend, high resistance to authority, high curiosity, high likelihood of disobedience.”

Tessa muttered, “That last part is rude but accurate.”

I couldn’t laugh.

My hands were shaking.

I felt stripped open.

Not touched.

Not physically.

Worse.

Studied.

Reduced.

Turned into data for someone else’s game.

“Stop,” Cassian said.

The voice softened.

Mockingly.

“Why? She wanted truth.”

The screens flickered again.

My name enlarged across them all.

NEXT TRANSFER: ALINA MOREAU.

I stepped back.

“What does that mean?”

Cassian did not answer fast enough.

I turned on him.

“What does transfer mean?”

His voice was low. “I don’t know.”

“Liar.”

His eyes flashed.

“I don’t know what they mean by it.”

“But you’ve seen the word before.”

Silence.

There it was.

My chest tightened.

“Celeste was marked failed transfer.”

“Yes.”

“Cassian.”

He looked away.

I hated him for that.

I hated how much it hurt.

Then Tessa said, very quietly, “Guys.”

We both turned.

She was staring at the wall behind us.

One of the cabinets had opened by itself.

Inside was a single white box.

My name was written on top.

Not printed.

Handwritten.

I moved toward it before either of them could stop me.

Cassian’s voice snapped behind me.

“Alina, don’t.”

I stopped.

Not because he ordered me.

Because his fear sounded real.

The voice from the speakers whispered, “Open it.”

Tessa grabbed my arm. “Do not open the creepy box.”

But my name was on it.

My life was on the screens.

My mother had been watched.

Celeste had died.

And every man in this story seemed to think the truth was something I should be protected from until it was too late.

No.

Not again.

I opened the box.

Inside was a red silk ribbon.

A hospital bracelet.

And a photograph of my mother.

Sleeping.

In her hospital bed.

Taken tonight.

The room tilted.

My heart stopped.

“No.”

Tessa covered her mouth.

Cassian moved so fast he was beside me before the box slipped from my hands. He caught it, saw the photo, and went utterly still.

Then something in him changed.

Completely.

The dangerous man became something worse.

A man with nothing left to restrain him.

“Whoever you are,” he said, voice terrifyingly soft, “you have ten seconds to tell me where she is.”

The voice laughed.

“Still making threats when you’re already late.”

My phone buzzed.

I pulled it out with numb hands.

Unknown number.

A live video opened.

My mother’s hospital room.

Empty bed.

Unhooked monitor.

No nurse.

No mother.

My knees gave out.

Cassian caught me.

But this time, I fought him.

“No! Let go of me!”

“Alina—” “My mother!”

His arms tightened around me as I struggled, not to trap me but to keep me from collapsing completely.

The voice filled the red room one last time.

“Bring the girl to the west pier before dawn, Voss. No police. No Elias. No loyal little friend.”

The screens went black.

The locks clicked open.

Silence crashed down.

For one second, none of us moved.

Then I shoved against Cassian’s chest, tears burning my eyes.

“You brought this to my mother.”

His face twisted.

“Alina—” “No.” My voice broke. “You said you could protect me.”

“I will get her back.”

“You don’t get to promise things after they’re gone!”

Tessa grabbed me from the side, holding me as I shook.

Cassian stood there, looking at me like every word had cut exactly where I wanted it to.

Good.

I wanted him to bleed too.

Then he pulled out his phone.

His voice, when he spoke, was calm again.

Too calm.

“Elias. Hospital. Now. Find Isabelle Moreau.”

He hung up and looked at me.

“I’m going to the pier.”

“I’m coming.”

“No.”

I laughed.

Wet, ugly, furious.

“My mother is missing because of your secrets, and you think I’m staying here?”

His eyes darkened. “They asked for you.”

“Then they’ll get me.”

“No.”

I stepped closer, shaking with rage.

“You do not own my fear, Cassian.”

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then his gaze dropped to my trembling hands.

When he looked back up, his voice was lower.

“No,” he said. “But I own the consequences of letting you walk into danger.”

I moved close enough to feel the heat of him.

“Then carry them.”

Silence.

Hot.

Violent.

Alive.

Then Tessa stepped between us.

“I hate to interrupt whatever toxic eye contact ritual this is, but if we’re saving Alina’s mother from kidnappers, we need to move.”

Cassian looked at her.

“You’re not coming.”

Tessa smiled without humor.

“Try stopping me and find out how loud I can scream in a billionaire crime room.”

For the first time all night, Cassian looked almost defeated.

Almost.

Then he turned toward the open red door.

“Fine. Both of you stay close.”

We followed him out.

But as we stepped into the hallway, my phone buzzed again.

One new message.

No number.

No name.

Just a photo.

Cassian as a boy, standing beside a younger man who looked almost exactly like him.

And beneath it, one sentence: Ask him why his brother wants you.