Chapter Seven – Cassian
The fire snaps in the grate. Lorenzo’s voice cuts through it.
“All ledgers routed through the Forlì drop have been incinerated. Venice too. Trieste—I kept one. It only names dead men.”
I nod. The study doors creak softly behind us. His boots click across the floor.
“I took the liberty of editing Fontanesi’s cover names out of the Genoa manifest. The ones we stored in the bronze ledger…” He slows. “Are sealed. With me.”
We reach the far side of the study.
The wall should be whole. It isn’t.
The panel hangs open.
Lorenzo stops mid-step.
“Shit.”
I walk past him. The hallway beyond the hidden seam is cool, carved in stone. My footfalls echo down the spiral stairs. I see her before I finish the descent. She collapsed near the altar.
Her body curled just beside the stain in the marble. One arm limp, cheek pressed to the cold stone floor. She’s still breathing—but unevenly. Her skin is clammy.
Lorenzo’s steps scramble behind me.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”
I drop to one knee beside her.
She’s cold. Sweating. Eyes twitching beneath shut lids. The pulse at her neck is shallow.
I slide one arm beneath her knees, the other behind her back, and lift her without a word. Her head falls against my chest.
Lorenzo runs a hand through his hair. “How the hell did she even—”
We move. Back up the stairwell. The walls press in like stone ribs around us.
Lorenzo shuts the panel as we enter the study. The seam clicks closed behind us, sealing the secret away again.
He reaches for her.
“I’ll handle her—”
I turn slightly. My grip tightens.
Lorenzo stops. The message is clear.
He looks from her to me. His mouth opens. Closes. He straightens, hands raised.
“Right.” A beat. “I’ll give you space.”
Then two fingers raise from my side.
You can go now.
Lorenzo nods. It’s not agreement. It’s submission. The door closes behind him with a final click.
I carry her to the east wing. Through the corridor no one else walks. Into the private room no one enters. My room.
The mattress creaks as I lower her gently onto the bed.
She sinks into the pillows as if she belongs there. Her breath evens slightly. A soft exhale parts her lips.
I sit beside her. Her hair spills like shadow over the white linen. Her cheek is still flushed. Her mouth slightly open.
Almost like Giovanna. Almost.
But not.
Giovanna’s mouth tilted differently when she slept. Softer. Like she was smiling at something left in a dream.
Elaria looks… haunted. Even here. Even now.
My eyes trail the line of her jaw. Her throat. The bare skin above her collar where sweat clings in a fine sheen.
I lean forward.
My lips hover inches from hers. I sigh and I pull away and I walk over the sofa in the room.
I warned her father.
When Allegra came to me with the intel, her voice had shaken—just slightly. Enough to be real.
“They’re going to kill him. Within the week. There was a leak, they know everything.”
I told her I’d handle it. And I did.
I sent Oreste a message. Personal. Not from the family. From me.
He read it. Sent one line back.
“I have lived long enough. It’s about time I died.”
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t try harder.
Allegra did.
She’d begged. Her voice cracked in the stairwell behind my study door.
“What about Giovanna’s baby sister? You knew her as a child. Are you going to let them bury her too?”
I said nothing.
But I’d known.
I knew Allegra would get the girl out.
And she did.
So why was she here, now—burned into my mattress, breathing under my roof, bleeding memory onto the floor of my chapel?
Elaria stirs.
A moan leaves her lips—My eyes sharpen.
She shifts in the sheets. One leg curls, the other presses down. Her hips twitch. Her head tilts, baring her throat.
She moans again. This time, lower.
My breath freezes.
Heat rushes downward. Blood stirs behind my belt.
I close my eyes. My jaw clenches. It doesn’t help.
I shift in the chair.
But I don’t leave.
The blanket shifts again. A sigh slips from her lips—fragile, caught somewhere between waking and want.
My eyes stay trained on the rise of her chest.
I wonder if she knows how much has been given for her all year.
I was sixteen, reckless and deeply in love. With my face half-hidden by my hood, I scaled the southern wall of the Fontanesi mansion to avoid the guards who would’ve gutted me before asking who I was. And rightfully so.
They didn’t know.
They didn’t know their heir had already been bound to me.
I didn’t come for her, I came for Giovanna.
Always for Giovanna.
She was waiting in the garden—barefoot, hair pinned in that low, messy knot she only wore when she couldn’t be bothered to care. She had flowers in her lap and dirt on her knuckles and when she looked up at me, the corners of her mouth twitched like she’d been trying not to smile all day.
“You took too long,” she said.
I didn’t answer. I never did with her. She didn’t need my words—just my hands, my presence, the silence that filled the space between us and made it ours.
Then her step mother appeared from nowhere. She didn’t act surprised to see me. She asked that I follow her and I did. She led me to a room and she sat straight-backed on the edge of a brocade chair.
“Cassian,” she said, like we were cordial acquaintances, not fire and kindling. “Sit.”
I did. Warily.
She watched me with a kind of quiet desperation women like her wear like perfume. A need that clings to power because love’s already abandoned them.
She didn’t waste time.
“Are you in love with Giovanna?”
My spine stiffened. I didn’t speak.
She asked again—gentler, like she was asking if I liked the weather.
I nodded.
She smiled.
“Then why don’t you marry her?” she said. “Why don’t you love her?”
I didn’t understand. At first.
And then—
“Elaria is young. Too young for you. She’s still a petulant child.”
My throat dried.
She leaned forward, rosary swinging slightly, catching light in silver glints. “Is it about the bond?”
My silence said enough.
She laughed. “I’m a cradle Catholic, Cassian. Those rites mean nothing. They only have power if you believe in them.”
She reached for my hands. I let her touch them.
Not out of agreement. Out of morbid curiosity. What did it feel like, to be a woman trying to sell off her stepdaughter to protect her own blood?
I watched her hands curl over mine. Her nails were painted pale—chipped at the edges. The skin around her knuckles cracked. She gripped like a woman used to grasping for things already gone.
“Save her,” she whispered. “Save Giovanna. Marry her. The rest will be forgotten.”
I pulled back.
Her eyes flickered. She’d known, even before asking, that I would say no. But she’d asked anyway. Because what else could she do?
I left her there. And when I stepped into the corridor—there she was.
Giovanna.
Light spilled in from the stained-glass landing window behind her. Reds and golds painted her shoulders. Her hair caught the sun like spun bronze, loose now, tumbling over her collarbones. A curl clung to her mouth like it belonged there.
God, she was beautiful.
Ethereal.
Like she belonged to another time. Another realm. Too still for this world, too aware to leave it.
She had a ribbon in one hand. A pale blue one. Frayed.
Her voice was low when she spoke.
“Let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s get married.”
She’d heard. Of course she had.
I stepped forward, close enough to see the crack in her armor—the faint tremble in her lower lip, the way her free hand curled in on itself like she was hiding a wound.
“You don’t have to—”
“I do,” she said, too quickly.
I reach for the bridge of my nose now, fingers pressing against my temple as the ache resurfaces—years old, never dulled.
Behind me, Elaria shifts again in the sheets. A quiet, broken sound escapes her throat.
And just like that—
I’m back in the room. Back in the now. With her.
She shifts again—barely—and the sheet rustles with her breath. My eyes drag over her face, still pale from whatever she saw, from wherever she went.
Standing, I hover above her, gaze cold as stone.
Does she even know?
How much has been sacrificed for her?
The passage was sealed. But she found it.
My jaw ticks.
Did she see Giovanna’s portraits? The ones I refused to move, even when the memories clawed at me like open wounds? Did she stare into her sister’s eyes and feel nothing?
Or worse—did she feel everything?
My fists curl at my sides.
The altar.
Did she touch it?
A thin vein throbs beneath my temple. I shove the thought down. Bury it deep.
Because if she touched the stone—while still bound to me... and my blood, once given, had been stirred, defiled, mixed with Giovanna’s—
The consequences would not be symbolic. They would be real.
No. I tell myself she fainted from shock. The cold. The scent of memory clinging to stone and shadow.
A soft sound escapes her lips.
“…water…”
I blink.
Her mouth parts again, breath shallow. “Water…”
I move across the room. My hand slides over the pitcher. Glass clinks against porcelain. I fill it halfway. I bring the cup back.
At her side, I ease down—one knee on the mattress, the other braced on the floorboards. The bed dips beneath me. My palm slips behind her neck, cradling her upright. She stirs but doesn’t wake.
Her skin is clammy. Sweat beads faintly at her hairline.
The glass tips against her lips. She drinks—thirsty, unconscious, greedy—and some of it trickles past the corner of her mouth.
I catch it with my thumb.
When she’s done, I draw the glass away, careful not to let it clink. I shift, preparing to rise—
Her hand curls around my wrist. A tether. Loose but insistent.
She tugs.
Half-asleep, she shifts against me, forehead pressing to my chest like it’s instinct. Her breath is warm where it touches my shirt.
Then—
“Cas…”
Soft.
Barely audible.
My heart stops.
“You smell so good…” she murmurs, the words breaking into a smile as her hand flattens over my ribs.
Still half asleep. Still half in dreams.
I don’t move.
The name lodges in my chest like a blade.
Cas.
Only one person ever called me that.
And only behind locked doors, with her body curled around mine like confession.
Giovanna never used it in daylight.
Never in public.
Never without her hands in my hair and her lips brushing against my jaw.
And now—
This girl.
Her sister.
Says it in her sleep, like it’s hers to use.
I sit there, frozen.
Her breath slows again. Her smile fades into rest.
But the name echoes. Over and over.