Chapter 11
CASSIAN
It takes twelve seconds to rise from the ground floor to the Tower.
Beside me, Iris is vibrating. It’s a subtle tremor, the kind that starts in the marrow and works its way out to the skin. She’s pressed into the corner of the elevator car, her arms wrapped around her midsection, clutching the loose fabric at her waist like it can hold her together.
She isn’t looking at me. She’s staring at the digital floor indicator, watching the numbers climb. Her eyes are wide, glassy, and fixed on a point a thousand miles away.
Bali.
The word hangs in the space between us.
I watch her reflection in the polished steel doors. She’s breaking; I can see the cracks forming. The denial she held onto in the Guest Suite, the desperate belief that her father was sending a rescue team, was shattered by a single news clip.
He didn’t send a rescue team; he sent a cover story.
Ding.
The doors slide open with a soft chime.
The Tower is dark. I keep it that way.
It’s a hollow space, occupying the entire top floor.
The walls are reinforced concrete, clad in dark walnut to mask the bunker-like reality.
The floor is black slate. The far wall, facing the ocean, is a single sheet of ballistic glass stretching thirty feet wide.
Up here, facing the sheer drop to the water, we are completely out of range from the tree line.
Outside, the storm illuminates the room in strobe-light bursts of lightning over the Atlantic. Thunder rattles the glass, a low boom that you feel in your teeth.
I step out first.
“Clear,” I mutter.
I turn back. Iris hasn’t moved. She’s staring into the dark room like it’s the mouth of a cave.
“Out,” I command.
She hesitates, then steps over the threshold. Her bare feet make no sound on the slate.
“Stay in the center of the room,” I say, moving to the security console on the west wall. “Do not go near the glass. If they have a thermal scope in the tree line, you light up like a flare.”
I start keying in the lockdown sequence, engaging the magnetic deadbolts on the stairwell access and isolating the elevator controls.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
The sound of steel bolts sliding home echoes through the room.
“We’re sealed in,” I say, not turning around. “Varro has the lower levels. I’ve got the high ground. If they breach the gate, the automated turrets on the perimeter will chew them up before they reach the front door.”
I’m filling the room with noise. With the cold, hard math of survival. Because if I stop talking, I’ll have to deal with the girl standing behind me.
I have to deal with the fact that I locked myself in a bedroom with the daughter of the man who sold me out.
“Why did he say it?”
Her voice is small. Thin.
I pause, my hand hovering over the console. I take a breath and turn around.
She’s standing right where I left her. The lightning flashes again, casting her shadow long and thin across the floor.
“I told you,” I say. “He’s managing the narrative.”
“He lied,” she whispers. She lifts her head, and I see the fire starting to burn through the shock. “He looked right into the camera. He smiled. He made a joke about yoga.”
“He bought himself time,” I say. “If he admits you’re missing, the press camps out on his lawn. The FBI takes over his schedule. He loses control. By saying you’re away, he keeps the board clear.”
“Clear for what?” she demands, stepping forward. “Clear to negotiate? Or clear to forget me?”
“Clear to handle the problem.”
“I’m the problem!” she screams.
The sound tears out of her throat, raw and ugly.
“I’m his daughter!” she shouts, her hands balling into fists. “I’ve spent my entire life being perfect for him! I’ve curated his image! I’ve managed his life! And the first time—the first time—I need him to save me, he sends me to a yoga retreat on the news?”
She’s pacing now, a frantic, caged track. She walks to the unmade bed, my bed, and spins around.
“He erased me,” she says, her voice trembling. “He didn’t just lie; he erased me. If I die now... if you kill me... nobody will even look for me for weeks. They’ll think I’m extending my trip.”
She’s reached the conclusion I reached in the basement, but she’s struggling to swallow it.
“He made you disposable,” I say.
The word lands like a weapon, wounding her.
“He calculated the risk,” I continue, leaning back against the console. “A kidnapped daughter is a liability for a Supreme Court nominee. A daughter on vacation is a non-issue. He chose the nomination. It’s just math.”
“It’s not math!” She stomps her foot, the sound sharp on the slate. “It’s my life! He loves me!”
“Does he?” I ask. “Or does he love the idea of you? Does he love the prop that stands next to him at galas?”
She flinches. I hit a nerve. One she keeps buried deep.
“Shut up,” she hisses.
“You were out there in the middle of the night,” I say, pressing the wound. “You were fixing the flowers because you were terrified of him. You were terrified that a single mistake would make him withdraw his affection. That isn’t love. That’s employment.”
“Stop it!”
She looks around the room, wild-eyed, seeking an outlet.
Her eyes land on the wet bar. Specifically, on the heavy crystal whiskey decanter.
She sprints over, grabbing it.
“I hate you!” she screams. “I hate this place! I hate your voice!”
Rather than tossing back a gulp, she hurls it at my head—a crystal missile moving at high velocity.
I don’t flinch. I move. A fluid, practiced side-step to the left.
Whoosh.
The wind of it passes my ear before the decanter strikes the walnut paneling and explodes. Shards of crystal spray outward. The whiskey splashes against the wood, filling the room instantly with the sharp, stinging scent of alcohol.
Silence follows the crash.
I stand there, looking at the wet stain on the wall where my head was a second ago.
My heart rate drops instead of spiking.
This is the cold zone. The place I go when the bullets start flying. The world slows down. The noise fades. All that remains is the threat and the solution.
I turn my head slowly to look at her.
She’s standing with her hand still extended, chest heaving. She’s staring at the shattered glass, eyes wide.
“I...” she stammers, hand dropping to her side. “I didn’t mean—”
Not letting her finish, I push off the console and cross the distance. My boots are silent on the slate.
She sees me coming. She sees the look in my eyes—the void.
She tries to flee and stumbles, retreating until her back hits the wall next to the bathroom door.
“Stay away,” she gasps, raising her hands.
I slam my hand against the wall next to her head. The sound is a gunshot crack in the quiet room.
She flinches, squeezing her eyes shut.
I step into her space, eliminating the distance. I press my body against hers, pinning her between the walnut paneling and the hard wall of my chest.
“Open your eyes,” I growl.
She shakes her head.
I reach up and grip her chin. My fingers are rough against her jaw. I hold her firm.
“Open them.”
Her eyes fly open. Blue and wet.
“You’ve got a lot of fire for a pawn,” I whisper. My face is inches from hers. I can feel her breath on my lips.
“Let me go,” she says, but there is no air in her voice.
“You threw a glass at my head,” I say. “In my world, Iris, that’s an act of war.”
“I missed,” she spits.
“Only because I moved.”
I shift my weight, driving my knee between hers and forcing her legs apart. My thigh locks her to the wall as I press my hips against hers.
I let her feel the difference in weight. The strength difference. I let her feel how powerless she is.
But as I press against her, the equation changes.
The anger is there, yes. But beneath it, desire ignites. Fear and lust burn the same fuel.
I feel her body against mine. The softness of her breasts pressed against my chest. The heat radiating off her skin.
It’s intoxicating.
I shouldn’t notice it. I have an enemy at the gate and a hostage in my room.
But my body doesn’t care about the siege.
I’m hard.
Iris freezes at the evidence of my reaction pressing against her stomach.
She stops fighting, going completely still.
Her eyes widen in sudden shock.
A heartbeat later, her gaze drops to my mouth, then snaps back up to my eyes.
She hates me. She wants me dead. And yet, her body is leaning into mine. She’s trembling, the fear bleeding into a desperate, raw need.
“You want to fight me?” I murmur, leaning down until my lips graze the shell of her ear. “Be careful. You don’t know what you’re waking.”
She shudders.
“Do it,” she whispers.
The words are barely audible.
I pull back to look at her face. “Do what?”
“Whatever you’re going to do,” she says. Her voice is jagged. “Break me. Kill me. Just stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to devour me.”
I stare at her mouth. Her lips are parted, swollen, red where she has been biting them.
I do want to devour her.
I want to take all the rage she’s feeling, all the rage I’m feeling, and burn it out of us. I want to kiss her until she forgets her father’s name.
I lower my head.
My mouth hovers over hers. I can taste her breath. It’s sweet.
I’m going to kiss her. I’m going to cross the line.
Crash.
A peal of thunder splits the sky outside. It shakes the building.
The sound snaps me back to reality.
I blink, the adrenaline clearing.
I look at the woman pressed to me.
I see the bruise on her neck where I choked her. I see the fear trembling in her eyelashes. I see the daughter of the man who saved my life, and the man who betrayed me.
She’s a victim, and I’m her captor.
If I touch her now, it’s exploitation.
Cold, oily disgust washes over me.
I tear myself away.
I shove off the wall, stumbling back a few steps. My chest is heaving. My skin feels tight, overheated.
She slumps against the paneling, her support gone. She brings a hand up to her mouth, looking at me with wide, bewildered eyes.
I turn my back on her. I can’t look at her.
“Cassian...”
The sound of my name stops me cold. Hearing it from her lips sounds too intimate in the dark, stripping away the title of ‘captor’ and leaving just the man.
“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t speak.”
I need to get out. I need air. I need to be anywhere but in this room with the scent of her and the whiskey.
I walk to the sliding glass balcony door. Rain lashes the glass, driven off the black ocean churning at the base of the cliff far below. I unlock the latch and slide it open.
The storm rushes in.
The wind hits me, carrying cold rain. It soaks my shirt instantly. The frigid droplets sting my face.
I step out onto the terrace.
The slate is slick with water. I walk to the railing and grip the cold steel, looking down into the abyss.
Three hundred feet below, the ocean is a cauldron of white foam and black water.
I close my eyes, letting the rain wash over me. I try to cool the fire in my blood. I try to find the “Ghost” again.
But he’s gone.
All I feel is the heat of her skin, and all I see is the look in her eyes when she said Do it.
I lean heavily against the railing, staying still as time ticks by.
Five minutes. Maybe ten.
Who knows?
When the shivering starts, when my teeth begin to chatter from the cold, I force myself to turn around.
I walk back into the Tower.
Iris has moved. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to me. She’s hugging a pillow to her chest. She doesn’t look up when I enter.
I can’t look at her.
I slide the balcony door shut.
My hands are shaking. The cold has made my fingers clumsy, and the adrenaline crash has left me jittery.
I push the glass flush with the frame, waiting for the heavy clack of the magnetic latch engaging before I walk away.
I cross the room to the elevator.
“Where are you going?” Iris asks.
“To the basement,” I say, not stopping. “To check the perimeter.”
“You’re leaving me here?”
“You’re safer alone,” I say. It’s the truth. She’s safer alone than she is with me right now. And she isn't going anywhere. The glass is bulletproof, the balcony is mag-locked, and the elevator requires my biometrics. The suite is a vault.
I hit the button. The doors open.
I step inside and press B1.
As the doors slide shut, I catch one last glimpse of her. A small figure in a big, dark room, surrounded by shattered glass and spilled whiskey.
I lean my head back against the wall of the elevator as it descends.
I’m a fool.