Chapter 3 - The Name Buried in the Past
The first thing I saw when the lights went out was Cassian moving toward me.
Not toward the door.
Not toward the men who had attacked me.
Toward me.
His hand found mine in the darkness before I even realized I was shaking.
"Stay close."
His voice was calm.
But I felt the tension in his fingers.
Cassian Voss was never afraid.
Not of enemies.
Not of threats.
Not of men who wanted him dead.
But whatever was happening inside that abandoned hotel had changed something.
And I knew exactly when it happened.
The moment he saw that name.
The name written on the back of the photograph.
A name he thought was gone forever.
The room was completely dark.
The only light came from the small emergency sign above the exit.
The attackers who had laughed minutes earlier were now silent.
Nobody knew what was happening.
Nobody knew who was coming.
And that scared them more than Cassian ever could.
"Mara," Cassian said.
"I'm here."
"Get Elena out."
My heart dropped.
"No."
Cassian looked at me.
For a second, he wasn't the feared man everyone talked about.
He was my husband.
The man who was scared of losing me.
"Elena..."
"No."
I tightened my grip on his hand.
"You don't get to send me away when something involves me."
His expression softened.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
The conflict.
He wanted to protect me.
I wanted the truth.
And after everything that happened that night, I couldn't walk away from secrets anymore.
Cassian looked at Mara.
"Five minutes."
Mara nodded.
She understood.
Everyone who worked for Cassian understood one thing.
When Elena Marlowe stood beside him, she wasn't a weakness.
She was the one person who could make him change his mind.
The emergency lights flickered back on.
The abandoned hotel returned to view.
But something felt different.
The room was no longer about my humiliation.
It was about whoever had planned it.
Cassian picked up the photograph from the floor.
I watched his face carefully.
I had known him for years.
I knew every expression.
The way his eyes changed when he was angry.
The way his jaw tightened when he was hiding something.
The way he became completely still when something truly frightened him.
And he was frightened.
"What is that picture?" I asked.
Cassian didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he walked toward the broken window where the city lights were visible in the distance.
"I should have told you."
Those words made my chest tighten.
"About what?"
He looked down at the photograph.
"Before I met you, before I built everything I have now, there was someone who tried to destroy my family."
I waited.
Cassian rarely spoke about his past.
Not because he forgot it.
Because he buried it.
Deep.
"His name was Lorenzo Voss."
The name meant nothing to me.
But the way Cassian said it made me understand.
This wasn't just a person.
It was a scar.
"My uncle."
The room went quiet.
"Your uncle?"
Cassian nodded.
"He was supposed to inherit everything after my father died."
He paused.
"But he wasn't interested in leading."
His eyes became colder.
"He wanted control."
I looked at the photograph.
"And this has something to do with him?"
Cassian didn't respond.
That was my answer.
"When I was twenty-three, Lorenzo disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Everyone thought he was dead."
A chill moved through me.
"But you didn't."
Cassian looked at me.
"No."
The honesty in his voice scared me.
"Because you knew?"
"I knew he was capable of surviving."
A sudden noise came from the other side of the room.
Everyone turned.
One of the attackers was gone.
The man who had been holding the phone.
Adrian.
Cassian immediately noticed.
"Where is he?"
Nobody answered.
The remaining men looked terrified.
"He left when the lights went out," one of them said.
Cassian walked toward him.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Cassian stared at him.
The man looked away.
That was when I noticed something.
A small mark on his wrist.
A symbol.
A black circle with a line through it.
I had seen it before.
But I couldn't remember where.
"Mara."
She looked at me.
"What?"
I pointed.
"That symbol."
Her face changed.
Only for a moment.
But it was enough.
"You know it."
Mara didn't answer.
Cassian noticed.
"What does it mean?"
Mara looked between us.
Then she slowly spoke.
"It means Lorenzo isn't working alone."
The silence afterward felt heavier than anything before.
Cassian turned toward her.
"How long have you known?"
Mara looked guilty.
"Since yesterday."
My heart stopped.
"Yesterday?"
Cassian's voice became dangerously quiet.
"You knew someone was watching us?"
"I wasn't sure."
"You weren't sure?"
Mara looked at me.
"Elena, the first attack wasn't supposed to happen tonight."
I felt cold.
"What do you mean?"
She reached into her bag again.
This time she pulled out a folder.
Inside were pictures.
Of me.
Walking into restaurants.
Leaving our house.
Sitting in the garden.
Moments I never knew anyone had captured.
My stomach turned.
Someone had been watching me.
For weeks.
Maybe months.
Cassian took the folder from her.
His expression changed with every page.
The last photograph stopped him.
I saw it before he could hide it.
It was taken outside our home.
At night.
A person stood near the gate.
Watching.
Waiting.
The person was wearing a dark coat.
But the face was visible.
I knew that face.
Cassian knew it too.
Because his hand tightened around the paper.
"No."
The word escaped him.
I had never heard fear in his voice before.
Not once.
"Who is it?" I whispered.
Cassian didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because the person in the photograph wasn't Lorenzo.
It was someone much closer.
Someone who had been inside our home.
Someone I trusted.
The hotel suddenly became quiet again.
Too quiet.
Then Cassian's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
A message appeared.
One sentence.
One name.
May you like
His face went completely pale.
And then he whispered the name of the person who had betrayed us...
