Bound by Blood and Obsession

Chapter 3: The Hidden Drawer

Cassian didn't answer. He just turned and started walking up the grand staircase. "Come. Let's show you where you will be sleeping."

I hesitated for a second, looking back at the heavy front door. It was closed tightly, the thick wood blocking out the sound of the rain. There was no escape. I sucked in a deep breath, gripped my bag tighter, and followed him up the dark stairs.

The second floor was filled with long hallways and dozens of closed doors. It felt like a maze. Cassian walked all the way to the end of the main hall, stopping in front of a massive double door made of dark oak. He pushed them open and stepped inside.

I walked in behind him and stopped dead in my tracks.

The room was huge. There was a king-sized bed with dark velvet sheets, a massive fireplace that was completely dark, and huge windows that looked out over the stormy forest. But that wasn't what made my blood go completely cold.

On the far side of the room, near a large leather chair, sat a heavy wooden desk. One of the drawers was slightly open.

My heart did a weird, violent stutter. I didn't know why, but looking at that desk made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It felt like there was a secret hidden in this room, something dark and dangerous that had nothing to do with the mafia war outside.

Cassian walked over to the bed and pointed to the left side. "This is your space. My things are on the right. We will be sharing this room."

I dropped my duffel bag onto the floor, my anger flaring up again. "Sharing? You think I'm sleeping in the same bed as you?"

Cassian turned around slowly, unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. "You are my wife, Isadora. The world needs to see us as a real couple. If my men think we are sleeping in separate rooms, they will think I am weak. And a weak Don is a dead Don."

"I don't care about your rules!" I yelled, stepping toward him. "I am not sleeping next to a killer!"

Cassian moved so fast I didn't even see it coming. In one second, he closed the distance between us, his huge body trapping me against the heavy wooden post of the bed. He didn't touch me, but he was so close I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. His gray eyes burned down into mine, completely dark with a strange, intense hunger that made me forget how to breathe.

"You will sleep in this bed, little bird," he whispered, his voice so low it was almost a growl. "Because whether you like it or not, you belong to the Ghost now."

Before I could say anything back, a faint, rhythmic scratching sound came from the hallway outside the door. It sounded like fingers clawing at the wood.

My entire body went completely stiff. The scratching sound against the heavy oak door was slow and creepy, like fingernails dragging across the wood. In a room this big and dark, it sounded like something straight out of a horror movie.

I looked up at Cassian. His face didn't even change, but his gray eyes narrowed into tiny slits. He didn't look scared; he looked annoyed.

He stepped away from me, breaking the heavy tension that had been trapping me against the bedpost. I finally sucked a full breath of air back into my lungs, my chest heaving as I watched him walk toward the door. He didn't reach for his gun this time. He just grabbed the heavy brass handle and yanked the door open.

I braced myself, expecting some terrifying mafia assassin to jump into the room.

Instead, a massive, muscular black dog with short, sleek fur trotted right past Cassian’s legs. It looked like a giant Doberman, but bigger, its ears standing straight up. It didn't bark or growl. It just walked into the center of the room, its heavy claws clicking against the polished floorboards, and stared right at me with intelligent, dark eyes.

"Goliath," Cassian said, his voice dropping into a quiet command. "Down."

The huge dog instantly dropped to the floor, resting its massive chin on its paws, but its eyes never left my face.

"He’s huge," I whispered, backing up a step until my calves hit the edge of the mattress. "Is he going to bite me?"

"Only if I tell him to," Cassian said, shutting the door and locking it with a loud click. "He guards the hall at night. He heard a new voice in the room. He’s just assessing the threat."

"I’m not a threat," I muttered, glaring at the dog, then back at Cassian. "I’m a hostage."

"You're my wife," Cassian corrected automatically. He walked over to a massive wardrobe against the wall, pulling out a plain white t-shirt and a pair of dark sweatpants. "The bathroom is through that door. There are clean towels inside. Wash up and get into bed, Isadora. I don't have time to argue with you anymore tonight."

Before I could snap back at him, he grabbed his clothes and walked out of the room through a side door, leaving me completely alone with the giant dog.

Goliath let out a heavy sigh, his nose twitching as he smelled the air, but he didn't move. He looked like a statue.

I stood there for a minute, my heart finally slowing down to a normal pace. My clothes felt damp and sticky from the rain outside, and my face felt gross from the tears I had forced down earlier. I grabbed my duffel bag, walked over to the bathroom door, and stepped inside, shutting it tightly behind me.

The bathroom was nicer than any hotel I had ever seen. The counters were dark marble, and there was a giant shower that looked like it could fit four people. I turned on the hot water, stripped off my dirty jeans and hoodie, and washed the grime of my father's house off my skin.

When I looked in the mirror after drying off, I looked terrible. My eyes had dark circles under them, and my skin was pale. I pulled on an oversized grey t-shirt and some old pajama shorts from my bag. I looked like a kid playing dress-up, totally out of place in this giant, scary fortress.

I opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the bedroom.

The lights were turned down low now. The only illumination came from a single lamp on the desk across the room. Cassian was already back. He was sitting on the right side of the giant bed, propped up against the pillows. He was wearing black sweatpants, but no shirt.

I instantly froze in the doorway, my eyes widening.

His chest and arms were covered in ink. Giant, swirling black tattoos covered his skin—dark wolves, thorny vines, and weird geometric patterns that wrapped around his shoulders. But right in the middle of his chest, over his heart, was a long, jagged silver scar. It looked like he had been stabbed with a massive knife and barely survived.

He was reading a thick file, but the second the bathroom door opened, his eyes snapped up to look at me. His gaze traced down my bare legs, then back up to my face. The look in his eyes wasn't cold anymore. It was heavy. Intense. It made my skin feel uncomfortably hot.

"Are you going to stand there all night?" he asked, his voice low and smooth.

"I’m sleeping on the floor," I said, pointing to the thick rug near the fireplace.

Cassian closed the file with a sharp snap and set it on the nightstand. "Don't be ridiculous. The floor is freezing. Get in the bed, Isadora. I won't touch you. You have my word."

"The word of a mafia Don doesn't mean much to me," I shot back, but my legs were shaking from exhaustion. I had been running on pure adrenaline for hours, and my body was finally starting to crash.

"If I wanted to touch you, I wouldn't ask for your permission," Cassian said softly. It wasn't a threat; it was just a fact. "Get in the bed before I carry you into it myself."

I bit my inside lip so hard I tasted copper. I knew he would actually do it, too. Keeping my chin up, I walked over to the left side of the bed, pulled back the heavy dark velvet comforter, and climbed in. I stayed as far on the edge as possible, my back completely rigid, staring at the dark wall.

The bed was incredibly soft, but it felt like danger. I could hear Cassian’s slow, steady breathing just a few feet away from me. He turned off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into total darkness except for the faint moonlight coming through the giant windows.

Hours passed. The clock on the wall ticked slowly, making a rhythmic sound that was driving me crazy.

I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the shooters on the street, or my dad's terrified face, or the dark tattoos on Cassian's chest. I turned my head slightly, listening closely. Cassian’s breathing had completely changed. It was deep and even.

He was asleep.

I waited another ten minutes just to be completely sure. He didn't move a muscle. Goliath was a dark lump on the rug near the door, snoring softly.

Slowly, carefully, I slipped out from under the heavy blankets. My bare feet hit the cold floorboards without making a single sound. I didn't want to escape tonight, I knew the guards outside would catch me before I even hit the driveway. But I needed to know who I was dealing with. I needed leverage. If I could find something in this room to use against Cassian, maybe I could force him to let me and Perry go.

I glanced back at the bed. Cassian was still fast asleep, his chest rising and falling in the shadows.

I crept across the cold floor toward the heavy wooden desk on the far side of the room. The bottom drawer was still slightly open, just like I had noticed earlier.

My heart started to hammer against my ribs again. I knelt down on the rug, my fingers trembling as I reached out and grabbed the metal handle of the drawer. It slid open with a tiny, faint creak that made me freeze and look back at the bed.

Cassian didn't move.

I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down into the drawer. I expected to find guns, or ledger books full of illegal numbers, or secret keys.

But there was only a small, heavy black box inside.

I lifted the lid of the box, my brow furrowing in confusion. Inside was a thick stack of glossy papers. I pulled the first one out and held it up toward the window so the pale moonlight could hit it.

The air left my lungs all at once.

It was a photo. A photo of me.

I was wearing my favorite yellow sundress, sitting on a bench outside the local cafe near my school. I was laughing at something on my phone, completely oblivious to the camera.

My hands started shaking violently as I grabbed the next photo. It was me walking across the campus parking lot in the rain, a year ago. The next one was me at a grocery store. The next one was a close-up picture of me sleeping in my own bed, taken from outside my second-story bedroom window.

There were dozens of them. Photos spanning two entire years.

Cassian hadn't picked me at random to settle my dad's debt. He didn't just accept me as "currency." He had been watching me. Tracking me. Following me in the dark like a predator hunting its prey. This entire marriage wasn't a coincidence.

He had engineered the whole thing just to get his hands on me.

"Do you like what you see, little bird?"

A deep, freezing voice echoed from the darkness right behind me.

I gasped, dropping the photos as I spun around on the floor.

Cassian was standing right over me. He hadn't made a single sound as he walked across the room. He was towering over me in the shadows, his face completely dark, his icy gray eyes looking down at me like a demon who just caught his prize.