Chapter 17
CASSIAN
I’m standing at the window of my office, watching the tree line.
The tree line is pitch black. The thermal cameras sweep the perimeter, tracking every falling branch and wind gust in the heavy drizzle.
It’s a nightmare. A blind spot the size of the entire estate.
The lights in the office flicker. They dim, buzz, then flare back to full brightness.
“Generator transfer switch,” Varro says from the doorway, without looking up from the tablet in his hand. “The grid is unstable. If the main line goes down, there’s a ten-second delay before the backups kick in.”
“Fix the delay,” I say. “I don’t want ten seconds of darkness.”
“I’m working on it, but the storm is playing hell with the relays. If that delay stretches past ten seconds, it isn’t the weather. It means the lines were cut.”
I stare at the darkness.
The Judge knows where we are. The Syndicate knows where we are.
We repelled the first wave. We survived the probe. But they didn’t commit their main force. Kirill—the man leading the contract—isn’t the type to give up after a few burning SUVs. He’s a hammer. He’ll keep swinging until the nail is flush or the wood splits.
“Status on the decryption?” I ask.
“Slow,” he admits. “The audio files on Elias’s drive are heavily encoded.
We’ve got the metadata—timestamps, geolocations—but the actual conversations are garbled.
The tech team says they need another twenty-four hours to clean the signal.
Right now, we can pull timestamps and locations, not voices. ”
“We don’t have twenty-four hours.”
“I know.”
I turn away from the window.
The office is small tonight. The walls, lined with books I’ve inherited but never read, feel like they’re closing in.
“Where is she?” I ask.
He nods toward the ceiling. “Last I checked, she was heading for the library in the tower. Guess the storm’s keeping her up.”
I check my watch. 23:00.
“Keep the perimeter tight,” I order. “If the sensors trip again, I want eyes on it before we dismiss it as wind.”
“Copy.”
He leaves, shutting the heavy door behind him.
I’m alone with the storm. I should be planning. I should be reviewing the kill zones, checking the ammo reserves, and analyzing the patrol routes.
But my mind keeps drifting upstairs to the girl in the gray sweater.
She didn’t run today, try to sabotage the comms, or throw glass. She kept her end of the deal.
It seems she accepts the narrative. She believes Elias was a thief and that the Syndicate wants leverage.
She trusts me.
The thought sits in my gut. She trusts the man who put the bruises on her hips and the fear in her eyes.
It’s dangerous, and if Kirill breaches the walls tonight, hesitation gets her killed.
I think about the museum. About the way she froze when I shot Elias.
If that happens again, I can’t save her. I can’t be everywhere at once. I need her to move. To fight.
I walk out of the office and head for the private elevator.
She’s exactly where Varro said she’d be in the library.
It’s a suspended glass box on the mezzanine level of the Tower, overlooking the ocean. The rain is lashing against the three walls of glass, the panes vibrating so violently against the wind.
Iris is curled up in a leather armchair, a thick book resting on her knees. She’s wearing a gray cashmere sweater and dark jeans. Her feet are bare, tucked under her for warmth.
She’s peaceful. Almost normal. Except for the butterfly bandage peeking out from the collar of her sweater, and the faint yellow bruising on her jaw.
When I step inside, she looks up from her page. That’s when I notice the flush in her cheeks. Her chest hitches in shallow, jagged bursts, too, like she’s just finished a sprint.
Must be a hell of a book.
As I approach, her eyes scan me warily, and I notice the small mess on the shelves behind her. A few of the leather-bound volumes are slightly out of place, their spines tilted as if the storm winds outside got in... or someone shoved them back in a hurry.
My head tilts with curiosity. But before any thoughts can materialize, she speaks.
“The lights keep flickering.”
I turn my attention to her.
“The storm is hitting the grid. It’s normal.”
“It doesn’t feel normal.” She closes the book—The Count of Monte Cristo—and sets it on the side table. “It feels like the end of the world.”
“Not yet,” I say.
I stop in the center of the room.
“Get up,” I say.
She stiffens. “Why?”
“We’re going downstairs.”
“To the bunker?” The book slips from her lap. “Are they back?”
“No,” I say. “To the gym.”
She blinks. “The gym? It’s eleven o’clock at night.”
“The enemy doesn’t work nine-to-five. Get your boots.”
“I don’t want to work out,” she says, sinking deeper into the chair. “My shoulder hurts. My feet hurt.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted.”
I cross the room to her without grabbing—I’ve learned that touching her is a catalyst I can’t always control—but I loom over the chair, blocking out the light, blocking out the room.
“At the museum,” I say quietly, “you froze.”
Her jaw tightens. “I was in shock.”
“You were a statue,” I correct her. “You stood there for ten seconds while I put two bullets in a man’s chest. If I had been sent to erase you, you’d be dead.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“You don’t know,” I say. “You think you know. You think because you survived the car crash, you’re ready. You’re not.”
I lean down, bracing my hands on the arms of her chair, trapping her.
“The Syndicate isn’t going to try to put you in a car,” I say. “They aren’t going to call you sweetheart. They’re going to kick down the door and put a round in your center mass. And if you freeze, if you hesitate for one second, you die.”
Her breath hitches.
“I won’t freeze,” she says defiantly.
“Prove it.”
I straighten.
“Boots,” I say. “Two minutes.”
I turn and walk away. There’s a rustle of movement behind me. The soft thud of her feet hitting the floor.
She listens. Good.
The gym stays at sixty degrees to keep the sweat down and the mind sharp.
I stand by the mats, wrapping my hands tight. The black tape bites into my skin, reinforcing the knuckles. It’s a ritual. A way of armoring myself.
Iris walks in.
She’s wearing the leather boots. They look ridiculous on her small feet, clunky and oversized, but she laced them tight. She’s pulled her hair back into a severe ponytail, exposing the clean line of her neck.
She stands like a soldier who hasn’t seen war yet.
“What do I do?” she asks, standing on the edge of the mat.
“Take off the sweater,” I say. “You’ll overheat.”
She hesitates before grabbing the hem of the cashmere and pulling it over her head.
Underneath, she’s wearing a black tank top she must have found in the duffel bag. It’s tight, clinging to her torso. Her arms are slender. The bandage on her shoulder is stark white against her skin.
I force my eyes off the bruises and the tight stretch of fabric across her chest, grinding my jaw to maintain focus.
I walk to the armory cabinet on the far wall and punch in the code. The metal doors slide open, revealing racks of weapons. Guns, batons, blades. I pick up a solid rubber training knife, weighted to mimic steel, and toss it to her.
She catches it, fumbling with the handle.
“A knife is the great equalizer,” I say. “It doesn’t require strength. It requires intent.”
“You want me to stab you?”
“I want you to learn where to stab,” I say, pointing to my own body for the lesson. “The neck,” I say, tracing the carotid artery. “The groin. The inner thigh. Soft targets. High-value targets.”
I step closer.
“Grip it like a hammer,” I instruct. “Ice-pick grip. Blade down.”
She adjusts her grip, strangling the rubber handle.
“Now,” I say. “Come at me.”
“Cassian—”
“Come at me!” I roar.
She lunges. It’s sloppy, but it’s fast. She aims for my chest.
I side-step, catching her wrist with my left hand and guiding the momentum past me.
I don’t throw her this time, stepping in instead.
I spin her around, slamming her back against my chest. Then, I lock my arm across her throat, holding her there while I trap her knife hand with my other hand, pinning it to her stomach.
We’re frozen.
My chest is flush against her back. Her ass presses against my hips. The heat of her body burns through the thin tank top. The sharp, sour spike of her sweat and the heavy soap from the suite blend in an intoxicating scent that’s uniquely her.
It’s devastatingly familiar. Intimate. The exact position as the night in the corridor. The same as the night in the bedroom.
But this time, I’m not taking. I’m teaching.
“You overextended,” I murmur, my mouth next to her ear.
She shivers, a hard, involuntary spasm that rattles her ribs against my forearm.
“You aimed for the chest,” I say. “You’d hit the Kevlar plate and break your wrist.”
I slide my hand down her arm, covering her fingers on the knife handle. My palm swallows her.
“Aim lower,” I whisper. “The gut. Under the vest line.”
I guide her hand, pulling it back and pressing the rubber blade against my own stomach, below the ribs.
“Here,” I say. “Up and under. Into the diaphragm.”
She isn’t moving. She’s barely breathing.
I should let her go. The lesson is over.
Instead, I tighten my arm across her chest and pull her closer, eliminating the millimeter of space between us.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“That’s the kill zone. That’s where you end it.”
I rest my chin on the top of her head. Her hair tickles my jaw.
For a second, the looming threat outside ceases to exist. The Judge, the Syndicate, the blackmail files—it all fades into the background noise of the storm. There is only this. The heat of her. The weight of her against me.
I realize, with a sudden clarity, that my motivation has shifted. When I took her from the museum, she was a liability. When I locked her in the suite, she was an asset. When I slept with her, she was a release.
But now, as I hold her in the circle of my arms, teaching her how to kill so she can survive, I realize she’s none of those things.
She’s the light, and I’m the shadow trying to swallow her whole.
“Cassian,” she breathes.
She turns her head slightly, her cheek brushing against my mouth.
It would be so easy to turn this into something else. To drop the knife. To spin her around. To lift her onto the equipment and take her again. The hunger is there. It’s a constant, gnawing ache in my belly.
But I can’t. Not tonight.
Tonight, she needs a protector. Not a lover or a monster.
I step back and release her abruptly, putting distance between us before I do something stupid.
She stumbles slightly, catching her balance, and turns to face me. Her face is flushed, and her eyes are wide, searching mine.
She felt it too. The shift. The gravity.
“If he grabs my wrist,” she asks, her voice breathless but steady, “what do I do first?”
I study her.
She’s thinking, processing.
“You drop your weight,” I say. “You use gravity, and you aim for the throat.”
She nods and settles into her stance. It’s better this time. Lower. More stable.
She raises the knife.
“Ready,” she says.
We train for an hour.
I run her through the drills until her arms are shaking. Until she’s sweating through the tank top. Until she stops flinching when I lunge at her.
She’s learning and adapting. She’ll never be a soldier, but she’s a survivor.
“Time,” I call out.
She drops her arms and bends over, hands on her knees, gasping for air.
“Good.”
I walk over to the bench and pick up the towel. But instead of handing it to her, I reach for the small bag I brought down and pull out a sheath.
It’s black Kydex, with an ankle strap. Inside is a three-inch fixed blade. Double-edged. Matte black steel.
I walk back to her.
“This stays on you,” I say, holding it out. “Boot. Inside ankle. If you draw it, you commit.”
She looks at the real knife, then takes it.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what? Making you bleed?”
“For showing me how to bleed them.”
In her, I see a change. I see the girl who arranged flowers fading away.
I did that. I took the innocence and forged it into a weapon. I should be proud. It increases her odds of survival. But instead, I feel a sharp pang of loss.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “Save it for when you actually have to use it.”
She nods. Shivering as the adrenaline begins to fade, she scoops the gray sweater off the mat and pulls it quickly over her head.
BOOM.
Thunder cracks directly overhead. A massive, earth-shaking peal that rattles the bag on its chain.
The gym lights flicker, then buzz, slowly dimming to a brownout.
And then the grid dies, swallowing the room in darkness.
“Cassian?” Her voice is small in the dark.
“Stay where you are,” I command.
I wait, counting the seconds. One. Two. Three.
The emergency generators should kick in at ten.
Four. Five. Six.
Silence. No hum of the backup turbines. No click of the relays. Just rain hammering against the roof.
Seven. Eight.
My hand moves to the small of my back, finding the hilt of the real knife I keep tucked in my waistband.
Nine. Ten.
Darkness.
The generators didn’t fire.
“The lights,” she whispers. “They aren’t coming back.”
“No,” I say flatly. “They aren’t.”
I tap my earpiece. “Varro,” I say. “Report.”
Static. Dead air.
The comms are down. The grid is down. The cameras are blind.
This isn’t the storm.
“Cassian?” Iris says again, panic rising in her voice.
She shuffles on the mat.
“Quiet,” I hiss.
I move through the dark, guided by memory and instinct. I find her and grab her arm.
“Come with me,” I order.
“What’s happening?”
“The lesson is over,” I explain, pulling her toward the door. “The test has begun.”
I reach for my gun on the bench and rack the slide.
The sound is loud in the silent room. Chk-chk.
“Stay behind me,” I say. “And remember where to aim.”
I open the door to the hallway.
The house is a tomb. Silent. Black.
The ten seconds are up.
Someone cut us off from the world.