Chapter 15
The smell of blood is metallic. It tastes like an old coin left on the tongue.
In the dream, I wasn't in the penthouse. I was back in the limousine, pressed against the beige leather. But it wasn't Enzo, the driver, slumped over the wheel with a hole in his temple. It was my father.
Vittorio D'Angelo turned his face toward me. His skin was gray, waxy—the same as I'd seen in the coffin. His dead lips moved, but no sound came out. Only black blood dripping down his chin. You're weak, Solaia, he whispered, but the voice was Marco's. You're nothing but flesh.
The car windows exploded. Not outward, but inward.
Shards of glass rained down on me, transforming into Stargazer lily petals that cut like razors.
The scent of the flowers was suffocating, rotten, filling my lungs like dirty water.
Hands emerged from the darkness outside.
Disembodied hands, grabbing my arms, pulling my hair, tearing the ivory silk dress.
I tried to scream. The air wouldn't come. The weight on my chest was unbearable, as if the marble from my father's tombstone had been placed on my ribs. No one is coming, the dream whispered. The Ice doesn't care.
“No!” The word tore through my throat, ragged and raw.
I woke to the sound of my own scream. It echoed off the bare walls of the bedroom, a high-pitched sound of pure terror that didn't seem human.
I sat up in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs with such violence it physically hurt.
Cold sweat soaked my t-shirt, plastering the fabric to my back.
The darkness of the room was absolute. Thick.
I didn't know where I was. The disorienting panic blinded me.
Am I still in the car? Still in the coffin?
BANG.
The bedroom door wasn't opened; it was breached. The wood slammed against the wall with a crash that shook the floor. A beam of light cut through the darkness from the hallway.
A black silhouette filled the doorway. Large. Broad. Lethal.
“Hands!” The voice was a guttural bark, a military command.
I shrank back against the headboard, pulling my knees to my chest, hyperventilating.
The figure advanced into the room. He moved with a speed and silence that contradicted his size.
I saw the metallic gleam in his hand. A gun.
Pointed at the center of the room, sweeping the corners, searching for a threat.
“Cassian?” I whispered, my voice broken.
He spun toward me. The gun—a matte black pistol—was leveled at my chest before he realized who I was.
He stopped. The barrel lowered a fraction of an inch, but he didn't relax.
He was tense as a violin string about to snap.
He wore only black sweatpants, his torso bare, muscles defined in the dim light from the hallway.
He didn't turn on the light. He swept the room with his gaze, checking the bathroom, the closet, the windows. “Where are they?” he asked, his voice low, dangerous. “Who came in here?”
“No one…” I managed between gasps of air that wouldn't fill my lungs. “No one.”
He stopped in the middle of the room. His combat stance eased slightly, but adrenaline still radiated from him in waves. He looked at me. I must have looked insane—huddled in bed, trembling, eyes wide.
“It was a dream.” It wasn't a question. His voice lost its sharp edge, replaced by something flat, analytical.
Cassian engaged the safety. The dry click sounded absurdly loud in the silence. He set the gun on the lacquered dresser, out of my reach but within his.
He approached the bed. I recoiled instinctively, still trapped in the fog of the nightmare where male hands meant pain.
“Solaia.” He stopped beside the mattress. He looked like a statue in the dimness. “Breathe.”
“I can't… I can't…” The air came too short, too fast. My hands were tingling. The panic attack was closing my throat.
Cassian let out a short, impatient sigh, but he didn't leave.
Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank under his weight, tilting my body toward him.
His scent hit me. Not the usual sandalwood from when he wore a suit.
He smelled of sleep, warm skin, and gun oil. Of gunpowder and man.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
I raised my eyes. In the darkness, his face was all hard planes and shadows. He wasn't wearing his glasses. His eyes seemed darker without them, more exposed.
“You're hyperventilating. If you keep this up, you'll pass out, and I'm not carrying you to the hospital at four in the morning.”
It was cruel, but the cold logic worked like an anchor. It was real. Cassian being a pragmatic asshole was something real, solid, far from the chaotic nightmare.
“Put your hand on my chest,” he said.
I blinked, confused. “What?”
He didn't wait. He took my right hand. My palm was sweaty and cold.
His hand was large, dry, and incredibly warm.
He pressed my hand against the center of his chest, over his bare sternum, between his sculpted pecs.
I felt the warm skin. The fine hairs. And beneath flesh and bone, the beating of his heart.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It was slow. Rhythmic.
Strong. Forty beats per minute. Absolute calm made physical.
“Feel the rhythm,” he instructed, his voice now a low rumble that vibrated beneath my palm. “Match it. Breathe in when I breathe in.”
He drew in a deep breath, expanding his chest against my hand. I tried to follow. The air came in shaky, irregular. He released slowly. I did the same.
We stayed like that for a few minutes. His hand covering mine over his heart.
The rise and fall of his chest acting as a metronome for my panic.
Gradually, the tingling in my fingers faded.
The knot in my throat loosened. The terror of the dream retreated to the dark corners of my mind, driven out by the massive, physical presence of the man in front of me.
I withdrew my hand slowly. His skin still held the warmth of my touch. “I'm sorry,” I whispered, lowering my head in shame. “I woke you. I screamed.”
“You screamed like you were being gutted,” he corrected. “I thought security had been breached. I almost shot your shadow.”
“It was… it was the car. And my father.”
Cassian said nothing. He didn't offer empty phrases like “it'll pass” or “it was just a dream.” He knew better than anyone that nightmares are just memories remixed by fear.
He moved to get up. The panic returned, a sharp stab in my stomach. The thought of being alone in the dark again was unbearable.
“Don't go,” I pleaded. The words came out before I could filter them through my pride.
Cassian stopped. He tensed, the muscles in his back contracting. “Solaia…”
“Please.” I grabbed the edge of his sweatpants. My fingers gripped the gray fabric. “Just… just a minute. Until I can close my eyes without seeing broken glass.”
He looked at my hand gripping his clothes. Then at my face. I expected scorn. I expected him to recite rule number three: Coexistence, not dependence.
But he didn't. He exhaled through his nose, resigned. “Move over,” he murmured.
I obeyed, dragging myself to the other side of the king-size bed, pulling the comforter up to my chin.
Cassian didn't lie down. He turned and leaned back against the headboard, stretching his long legs over the blanket, keeping a safe twelve inches between us.
He crossed his arms over his bare chest.
“The door is armored,” he said, staring at the opposite wall. “The window glass can withstand .50 caliber impact. Motion sensors cover every inch of the perimeter. No one gets in here, Solaia. Not even ghosts.”
His voice, listing security specs, was strangely more comforting than any lullaby. It was his language of care. He was giving me facts to fight my fears.
“Thank you,” I whispered, closing my eyes.
The room was silent, but no longer empty. I could hear his breathing. I could feel the weight of his body sinking into the mattress, pulling the room's gravity toward him. The heat radiating from him cut through the freezing air.
I was still trembling slightly, remnants of the adrenaline. I felt movement on the mattress. I opened one eye. Cassian had uncrossed his arms. His hand rested in the empty space between us. Palm up. Open.
It wasn't an explicit invitation. It was a passive offer. I stretched my hand out from under the comforter. My fingers brushed his. He didn't pull back. I wrapped my fingers around his. His hand closed around mine. The grip was firm, anchoring me to reality.
We said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was the jailer, and I was the prisoner. He was the ice, and I was the chaos. But that dawn, in the dark, we were just two haunted people trying not to be swallowed by the night.
I squeezed his hand hard, feeling the calluses on his palm from years of guns and pens. For the first time since my father's death, I felt safe. Safe with the monster.
I closed my eyes again. Sleep came quickly this time, dreamless, watched over by the armed man sitting beside me.