Chapter 8
CASSIAN
In the bathroom adjoining my office, I pull the black silk handkerchief from my breast pocket.
I wind it tight around my palm, pulling until the fabric bites and the bleeding slows. The sharp sting clears the whiskey fog. I tie the knot with my teeth and look up at the mirror.
Same dark eyes. Same sharp jaw. Same controlled posture. But the foundation is cracked. There’s a flicker behind the pupils that wasn’t there an hour ago.
A man can stand on a landmine for days. It’s the click that changes him.
Iris Hale. The name repeats in my head.
I shouldn’t go back in there.
Smart money says I walk to the garage, get in the secondary car, and drive until the road turns into another country. Let Varro handle the mess. Let William Hale wonder where the monster he unleashed and his daughter went.
But I can’t run.
I have an empire to defend. Men to lead. Debts that don’t dissolve because the creditor might be rotten.
I turn away from the mirror and exit the bathroom, swiping the license from my desk.
The walk to the Guest Suite feels different this time. Before, I was hunting. Now I’m walking into a room where every sentence has a body count attached to it.
I don’t soften my steps. I let my boots strike the floor, hard and deliberate. I want her to hear me. I want her braced.
At the entrance, I verify the lock status on the keypad. Still engaged.
I punch in the code.
The lock releases with a dull clunk.
I push the door open and step inside.
The room hasn’t changed, but the air is thick and charged with fear.
She’s not in the chair anymore.
She stands near the reinforced glass, staring out at the storm like the ocean might offer her an exit if she looks hard enough. When she turns, the desperation in her face hits first, sharper than fear.
She’s wearing my shirt. The hem skims mid-thigh. The sleeves are rolled up poorly, her hands freed because she refuses to look helpless.
A girl in borrowed clothes, if you ignore the bruise on her throat and the war in her eyes.
Her gaze flicks to the silk wrapped around my hand. To the dark stain seeping through the black fabric. She notices but doesn’t ask.
I walk to the center of the room and stop, taking the plastic card from my pocket.
One flick of my wrist and the license spins, landing on the coffee table face up.
Her face. Her name.
She stares at the card, then at me, like the floor has shifted under her.
“You went through my things,” she whispers.
I ignore her and take a step closer.
“Iris Hale.” I say the name like an accusation. “You forgot to mention that part.”
Her chin lifts. It’s a reflex. She’s terrified, but the training holds. She’s trying to look like a Hale.
“I told you my father is a judge,” she says. Her words are steady, but her voice isn’t. “I told you he’s important.”
“You told me he’s a judge.” I close the distance by another inch. “You didn’t tell me he’s William Hale.”
Her brows knit. Confusion first, then something close to alarm.
“Does it matter?” she snaps, reaching for certainty. “Kidnapping a judge’s daughter is prison, no matter what his name is.”
A dark, ugly laugh drags out of my throat.
“You think I’m worried about prison?”
“You should be.” She steps forward, trying to find height where she has none. Trying to turn her name into armor. “My father knows everyone. Police Commissioner. FBI field director. The Governor.”
She’s building a wall out of titles because it’s the only defense she has left.
“If you know who he is,” she says, her voice rising, “then you know what he’s capable of. He won’t stop. He’ll hunt you down. He’ll burn this city to the ground to find me.”
I watch her.
I watch the conviction in her eyes. She believes it. She genuinely believes that her father is a hero who will come for her.
“He won’t hunt me,” I say softly.
“He will!” She stomps her foot, a flash of the petulant daughter surfacing through the trauma. “He loves me! I’m his only family! Do you really think he’s going to let some... some criminal take me and do nothing?”
“I think he’s going to do exactly what William Hale always does,” I say. “He’s going to calculate the cost.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father isn’t the hero you think he is.”
I walk past her, heading for the wet bar in the corner. I need water. The whiskey is still burning in my stomach, and the blood loss is making me lightheaded.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me!” she screams.
I ignore her. I pour a glass of water and drink it, watching her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
She’s fuming. Shaking with rage.
“My father is a good man,” she spits out. “He has put away men like you for thirty years. He stands for the law. He stands for justice.”
I turn around, leaning against the bar and crossing my arms over my chest. The movement pulls at the cut on my hand, sending a fresh spike of pain up my arm.
“He stands for the law,” I agree. “But the law is about maintaining control, not doing what’s right.”
“You don’t know him,” she snaps.
“I know how he thinks,” I say, stepping closer. “He calculates risk. And right now, Iris? You are a risk.”
“Not him,” she insists. “He’s incorruptible. He doesn’t calculate lives.”
I look at her. I look at the absolute, blinding faith in her eyes. It mirrors the faith I had in him five years ago. The faith I’m still desperately trying to hold onto, despite the evidence in my pocket.
Part of me wants her to be right. Because if she’s right, if she’s a florist who got unlucky, then the Judge didn’t betray me.
But the logic doesn’t hold.
“You’re a child,” I say, my tone rougher than intended. “You still believe in fairy tales.”
“I believe in my father,” she says. “And I believe that right now, there is a manhunt looking for me. The longer you keep me here, the worse it gets for you. If you let me go now... maybe you can disappear before they find you.”
She’s bargaining. She’s trying to save me, so I will save her.
“There’s no manhunt,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know. I monitor the FBI dispatch and federal databases. There are no alerts, no flags. Nothing.”
“It’s been...” She checks her wrist, realizing her watch is gone. She looks at the clock on the wall. “It’s been eight hours. Maybe they’re keeping it quiet to protect the investigation.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe he hasn’t called it in.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because a missing daughter is messy,” I say brutally. “Men like William Hale don’t survive scandals. They manage them.”
She flinches like I slapped her.
“He wouldn’t,” she whispers. “He wouldn’t prioritize his job over my life.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say, and for the first time, I mean it. “But until the Feds kick down my door, the silence speaks for itself.”
I set the glass down on the bar with a sharp clink.
I walk toward her. She holds her ground this time, though I catch the tremble in her hands.
“You’re a liability,” I say. “You saw a murder, and you can identify me.”
“Then let me go!” she pleads. “I won’t talk! I swear! I’ll tell my father I ran away. I’ll tell him I went to Europe. I’ll disappear!”
“You can’t disappear,” I say. “You’re a Hale. You’re visible by default.”
I stop in front of her, looming over her and letting the silence stretch until it’s uncomfortable.
“I can’t let you go,” I say. “You know my face. You know my voice.”
“So you’re going to kill me?”
She asks it plainly. The fear is there, but there is a strange acceptance in it, too. Like she has run the math and arrived at the same conclusion I did.
“I should,” I say.
She goes perfectly still.
“You saw my face,” I say. “The truth is, you’re a problem. The smart play is a bullet in your head and a drop in the Atlantic.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. A single tear tracks down her cheek.
“But I’m not going to do that,” I say.
Her eyes fly open. “Why?”
“Because you can’t bargain with a corpse.”
She blinks. “Money? You want a ransom?”
“Not money,” I say. “Leverage.”
I reach out and pick up the driver’s license from the table. I tap the edge of it against my palm.
“Your father is a powerful man,” I say. “He’s got influence. He’s got reach. And right now, he thinks he’s untouchable.”
I look at her.
“As long as I have you,” I say, “he’s vulnerable.”
“You’re going to use me to blackmail him?” She looks horrified. “For what? To get your charges dropped? To get immunity?”
“Something like that,” I lie.
I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell her that I need leverage to protect myself from her father.
If the Judge knows I have her, he has to negotiate. He can’t risk a kinetic assault on the compound if his daughter is in the line of fire.
“You’re disgusting,” she spits.
“I’m alive,” I counter. “In my world, that’s the only metric that counts.”
I pocket the license.
“You’re not a prisoner, Iris,” I say, my voice flat. “You’re an insurance policy. A bargaining chip. And until I get what I want, you stay in the box.”
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I don’t need forever,” I say. “I just need until the deal is done.”
“What deal?”
“The one I’m going to make with your father.”
I turn to leave. I’ve given her enough. I’ve given her a narrative she can understand—a simple kidnapping for leverage. It’s a lie she will swallow because it fits her worldview of criminals and victims.
“Wait!” she calls out.
I stop at the door, my hand on the handle.
“Does he know?” she asks. Her voice is small, fragile. “Does he know you have me?”
I hesitate.
Does he?
The secure line is silent. If he knew, it would be ringing.
“Not yet,” I say.
“When he finds out,” she says, her voice gaining a sudden, fierce strength, “he’ll come for me. And when he does, he won’t negotiate. He’ll destroy you.”
I look back at her over my shoulder.
She stands in the center of the room, bathed in the harsh light. My shirt hangs off her shoulders, swallowing her frame, but she doesn’t look small. She looks entrenched. She looks like a daughter who refuses to see the truth.
It hurts to look at her.