The Billionaire’s Forbidden Toy

Chapter 15: Hello, Brother

The corridor lights died one by one.

Not all at once.

One.

Then another.

Then another.

Like something was walking toward us through the darkness and turning the world off as it came.

My mother whimpered.

I stood frozen beside her chair, staring at the hospital room doorway as the last strip of light outside disappeared.

Cassian moved first.

Of course he did.

One second he was pale with shock, the ghost of his brother’s voice still hanging between us.

The next, he became steel.

“Elias,” he said.

“On it.”

Elias was already at the door, gun lifted, phone pressed to his ear.

No signal.

His mouth tightened.

“Jammed.”

Cassian cursed under his breath.

My heart hammered so hard it hurt.

Adrian’s voice kept replaying in my head.

Hello, brother.

Not distorted.

Not a trick of static.

Not a recording.

Alive.

I looked at Cassian.

His face gave away nothing now, and somehow that was worse.

“Is he alive?” I whispered.

Cassian did not look at me.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t say that again.”

His eyes cut to mine.

I stepped closer, anger rising because anger was easier than terror.

“You keep saying you don’t know while everyone else seems to know enough to move us like pieces on a board.”

His jaw tightened.

“Alina, this is not the moment.”

“My mother is sitting right there, shaking because a dead man just called her phone. I think the moment is whatever I say it is.”

Something flashed in his eyes.

Not anger.

Pain.

Then he looked past me to my mother.

Isabelle Moreau sat in the chair, both hands wrapped around herself, her face gray with fear.

“He can’t be alive,” she whispered. “He can’t.”

Cassian’s voice softened by one dangerous degree. “Isabelle. Did you see Adrian die?”

She closed her eyes.

“No.”

The word landed like a stone.

Elias looked back sharply.

Cassian said nothing.

My stomach dropped.

Of course.

No body. No certainty. No truth. Just rich men, burned houses, fake records, and women expected to build lives around whatever version they were allowed to know.

A sound came from the corridor.

Metal scraping.

Slow.

Dragging.

My entire body went cold.

Elias lifted one finger to his lips.

Quiet.

The scraping came again.

Closer.

Cassian stepped to the side of the doorway, gun in hand. Elias took the other side.

I grabbed my mother’s hand and pulled her carefully from the chair.

“We need to move,” I whispered.

She nodded, but her legs shook.

The room had one other exit: a narrow door leading into a supply area. I spotted it behind the privacy curtain.

“Tessa would love this,” I muttered under my breath.

My mother blinked at me through tears. “What?”

“Nothing. Survival joke.”

Cassian glanced back at me once.

Even now, even here, something like approval moved through his eyes.

Then the scraping stopped outside the door.

Silence.

Too much silence.

A small object rolled into the room.

Elias saw it first.

“Down!”

Cassian lunged toward me.

The object burst with a sharp hiss.

White smoke exploded across the floor.

My mother screamed.

Cassian’s arm locked around my waist and dragged both of us behind the bed. Elias shoved the door closed with his shoulder, coughing as smoke poured in.

Not fire.

Gas.

My throat burned instantly.

“Cover your mouth,” Cassian ordered.

I pressed my sleeve over my nose and helped my mother do the same.

Her eyes were wide and terrified.

The smoke thickened, swallowing the room.

Cassian grabbed my wrist.

“Supply door.”

We moved low and fast.

Elias fired once through the closed door.

Something crashed outside.

I didn’t look back.

Cassian pushed the supply door open, shoved my mother through first, then me. He followed, Elias last, slamming the door behind us.

The supply room was dark and cramped, lined with shelves of medical gloves, sheets, disinfectant, and boxes.

My mother coughed hard.

I held her upright.

Cassian moved to another door on the opposite side and checked it.

Locked.

“Of course,” I rasped.

He shot the lock.

The sound made my ears ring.

The door kicked open into a service hallway lit only by emergency strips along the floor.

Red light again.

Always red.

I was starting to hate that color.

We moved through the hallway, Cassian in front, Elias behind us. My mother leaned heavily against me, every breath shaky.

“Almost there,” I whispered, though I had no idea if that was true.

She squeezed my hand.

“Alina,” she whispered.

“Not now, Mom.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words hit my chest and lodged there.

I swallowed hard.

“Not now.”

Because if she apologized, I would break.

And I could not break in a dark hospital with gas behind us and possibly my biological nightmare ahead of us.

We reached a stairwell.

Cassian opened the door slowly.

The stairwell was dark.

Too dark.

Elias moved past us and scanned downward.

“Clear.”

We began to descend.

One floor.

Then another.

Every sound felt too loud.

My mother’s breathing.

My heels on concrete.

Elias’s phone buzzing uselessly.

Cassian’s controlled silence.

At the second landing, my mother stumbled.

I caught her, but she cried out softly.

Cassian turned instantly.

“I can carry her.”

My mother recoiled.

It was small.

But he saw it.

So did I.

His face went blank.

My heart twisted despite everything.

He stepped back immediately.

“I won’t touch you,” he said quietly.

My mother looked ashamed.

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” Cassian said. “Don’t be.”

It was the first time I saw him speak to her without command, without power, without anything except restraint.

That made it harder to hate him.

I did not appreciate that.

Elias opened the bottom door.

Fresh air hit us.

We stumbled into the underground ambulance bay.

Empty.

Too empty.

No vehicles.

No staff.

No backup.

Just concrete, red emergency lights, and one black ambulance parked near the exit with its rear doors open.

Cassian stopped so abruptly I nearly hit his back.

“What?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

Then I saw it.

Inside the ambulance, a white violin lay on the stretcher.

Celeste.

Cassian’s hand tightened around the gun.

Elias swore.

My mother began to cry silently.

A speaker crackled from inside the ambulance.

Then Adrian’s voice filled the bay.

Smooth.

Warm.

Alive.

“Still slow, Cassian.”

Cassian’s face turned cold enough to freeze the air.

“Where are you?”

“Close enough to enjoy this.”

I scanned the shadows, heart pounding.

There were cameras in the corners. Security lights. Places a man could hide. Places a ghost could watch.

Adrian laughed softly.

“Hello, Alina.”

My blood went cold.

Cassian moved slightly in front of me.

I hated that I let him.

Adrian continued, “I’ve waited a long time to meet you properly.”

I forced my voice to work.

“Are you my father?”

Silence.

Then a soft chuckle.

“Straight to the wound. I like that.”

“Answer me.”

Cassian glanced at me, something unreadable crossing his face.

Adrian spoke again.

“Would it comfort you if I said yes?”

“No.”

“Good. Comfort makes women stupid.”

My mother flinched.

I felt rage rise through me, hot and clean.

“You don’t get to talk about women after what you did to them.”

Another pause.

Then Adrian’s voice lowered.

“Careful, little toy. You don’t know what I did. You only know what Cassian survived long enough to edit.”

Cassian lifted his gun toward the speaker.

“Say what you came to say.”

“I already did.” Adrian sounded amused. “Bring her to me.”

“No.”

“You always did want what was mine.”

Cassian went still.

So did I.

The words curdled the air.

My skin crawled.

“I am not yours,” I said.

Adrian laughed.

“No? Your mother took my money. She wore my gifts. She slept in my house. She ran with my blood in her belly.”

My mother made a broken sound.

“Stop,” I snapped.

“I could stop,” he said. “But then you would never learn why Cassian put his hands on you before asking whose blood you carried.”

Cassian’s face went white.

My stomach twisted.

“Enough,” Cassian said.

“No, brother. Let her hear it. Let her stand there wearing your jacket, smelling like your protection, and know that you looked at her the same way you looked at Celeste before she burned.”

The words hit him.

I saw it.

Cassian did not move, but something in his eyes cracked.

For one second, he looked less like a dangerous man and more like a boy standing in front of a house on fire.

And I hated Adrian for making me see that.

Elias raised his phone suddenly.

“Signal.”

Cassian’s gaze flicked to him.

Adrian sighed through the speaker.

“Time’s up.”

The ambulance doors slammed shut by themselves.

The engine roared to life.

No driver.

No one inside.

The vehicle lurched forward.

Straight toward us.

“Move!” Elias shouted.

Cassian grabbed me and my mother at the same time, shoving us behind a concrete pillar as the ambulance smashed through the bay, tearing past us with a scream of metal. It crashed into the exit gate, exploding through it into the street beyond.

The bay filled with alarms.

Cold night air rushed in.

For one second, nobody moved.

Then Cassian’s phone rang.

He answered instantly.

Elias.

Even though Elias stood ten feet away.

Cassian looked at the screen, then at Elias.

Elias lifted his own phone, confused.

The call was not from him.

Cassian put it on speaker.

Adrian’s voice came through one last time.

“You have until sunrise.”

Cassian’s jaw clenched.

“For what?”

“To decide whether she is your weakness or mine.”

The line went dead.

My mother collapsed against me.

Elias rushed forward to help, and this time she let him.

Cassian turned to me slowly.

His face was shadowed, unreadable, terrifying in its restraint.

“We need to get you both somewhere safe.”

I looked at him.

At the man who might be my uncle.

The man who might be nothing to me by blood.

The man I should not want either way.

The man whose brother had built a nightmare around my name.

And then I said the one thing that made his entire body go still.

“No. We need the DNA test.”

Cassian’s eyes darkened.

“Alina.”

“No more guesses. No more maybe. No more men deciding what truth I can handle.” My voice shook, but I did not stop. “I want to know if Adrian Voss is my father.”

My mother sobbed softly.

Elias looked away.

Cassian stared at me like the answer might destroy us both.

Then, very quietly, he said: “And if he is?”

I swallowed the fear in my throat.

“Then whatever this is between us dies before sunrise.”

The words had barely left my mouth when the ambulance bay lights flickered back on.

And on the wall across from us, written in fresh red paint, was a message that had not been there before.

DNA WON’T SAVE YOU FROM WHAT YOU WANT.