Chapter 16 Cassian
CASSIAN
When I walk into the house, I find Jet leaning casually against the kitchen counter peeling a green apple, the skin hanging from the fruit in one long swirl. He watches my approach, his gaze dark.
Angelo’s text comes back to me. The gun that someone hand-delivered to Vivi’s mother in the guise of a present for a two-year-old is registered to Blackstone Holdings.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand, the bullet burning a hole in my pocket. I stalk up to him.
Blackstone Holdings could mean Jet, Severin, Sybil or any one of their security team.
“Your dog call you?” he asks, making a barking noise at Enzo.
In fact, Enzo did call me as I was on my way back from the café.
Jet and Enzo hate each other. They have from day one.
Jet slices off a wedge of the apple and brings it to his mouth at the point of the sharp knife.
He eats it before slicing another and holding it out to me like we’re not discussing what we’re discussing.
I slap his arm away. The apple goes flying, the knife clanking loudly on the stone floor. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
He stands up to his full height and comes nose-to-nose with me.
“What the fuck was I doing?” he asks, eyes narrowed. “Do you have any fucking idea how cold it is down there? Did you want her to freeze to death? Or just be terrified to death?”
I snort, but he’s not wrong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He shoves me backward.
Enzo takes a step toward us, but I signal for him to stop, never taking my eyes off Jet. I recall the leak about the shipment within my own household and now this. Now that gun. Am I surrounded by traitors?
“Why do you care? And while you’re answering that question, why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re doing here anyway?”
His jaw tenses, and I see a twitch. “You know a simple thank you would suffice.”
“Answer my question. What are you doing here when I’m not here?” I glance at my open bedroom door, walk over because I have a feeling. When I find the bed empty, I stalk back and round on Jet. “Where is she?” I ask, my voice that of a predator.
He grins.
I glance at the door that leads to his bedroom. Correction. Not his bedroom. The room he used to use when he stayed over. When things were different.
He watches me.
I draw a deep breath in. She’s in his bed. I know it. She’s in his fucking bed. “Did you touch her, Jet?”
A smirk curves one corner of his mouth upward. “Would it upset you if I did?”
I fist the collar of his shirt. “Did. You. Fucking. Touch. Her?”
He grips my collar, mimicking my posture.
“Well, I’m no magician and she couldn’t walk so what do you think?
” He shoves me backward, unafraid. Jet knows me better than any member of his family.
There was a time when we were friends. As close as brothers.
Maybe I even wanted that and that’s why he’s so fucking brazen now.
“You seem pretty upset considering the fact she’s just collateral.
” He pauses dramatically and I want to fucking kill him. “Or isn’t she?”
“It’s none of your business what she is.” I drop my grip and walk away, pushing a hand through my hair.
I hadn’t planned on leaving her down there for as long as I did. It was only to scare her. I planned on going back in half an hour, max. Just giving myself enough time to clean up the blood. Take care of the wound. But then the shit hit the fan.
By the time Enzo called to let me know Jet was here. That he’d gotten Allegra out, she’d been down there for three hours.
Shit. Why is my life always such a fucking shitshow?
I walk over to the cabinet where I keep a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a glass. I down it in one go and don’t offer him any. Instead, I pour a second and turn to face him. I know what he wants. I saw how he looked at her. And I need to manage this.
“Allegra’s off limits.”
He studies me and I wonder what he sees.
Wonder if I’m not as good at hiding what’s in my head as I like to think I am.
Jet knows me better than anyone else though because Jet was there when the ground fell out from under me.
When Seth’s disease progressed too far, too fast, when my father’s illness took hold of him and destroyed his life.
Jet knows about Seth. In a moment of weakness, I told him.
I’d needed to tell someone. To talk to someone.
I’ve wondered ever since that night if that was a mistake.
“We’ve shared before,” he says, voice low. My hand tightens around my glass. I knew he wanted her. I fucking knew it.
I turn away and shake my head. “No.”
“If she’s nothing more than collateral, why does it matter?”
“I said no.”
“Fuck’s sake, Cassian, you’re not going to fuck her anyway!”
I spin to face him, my mouth open to respond because I knew it was a matter of time before he’d throw that in my face, didn’t I?
But before I can, a sound comes from behind me.
As if on cue, no, more likely she had her ear pressed to the door, my Little Moth, we turn to find Allegra standing at the door of Jet’s bedroom.
She looks from me to Jet and back, her eyes narrowed, fury making her hands into fists, her lip into a snarl.
Her hair is a wild mass around her head and she’s fucking beautiful in all her rage, and I remember how she clung to me when I took her down to the crypt. How she changed.
How scared she was.
Her rage had gone, only fear left in its place. Being down there triggered something, some memory. I want to know what. And I want to know if I’m right about the kidnapping. If her father had ordered it.
She steps out of the room then, coming fully into view and when I see what she’s wearing, when I see Jet’s shirt on her, my brain fucking rattles against my skull and all thoughts are gone, but one.
He. Touched. Her.
She’s wearing his fucking shirt.
She’s naked underneath. I know. I stripped her myself. And for her to be wearing his shirt now? Did she want it?
The fury I feel has no words.
I shift my gaze from Allegra to Jet. He’s looking at her too. Hell, he can’t seem to drag his eyes away and I can’t read his expression. My hands turn to fists so tight, my fingernails almost break the skin of my palms.
“Out!” I bellow. “Enzo. Get everyone out. Now!” My voice bounces off the walls, the vaulted ceilings. I don’t look away from Jet, not for the time it takes for the soldiers to clear out. I watch him watch her, watch his gaze move to mine, narrowing to slits.
He wants a fight. He’s itching for it.
I force a slow breath in, count to ten, turn to Allegra.
She’s watching us, her gaze moving between Jet and me, settling on me.
I get the feeling she’s not sure if she wants to tell me off or go back to hiding in his room.
“Allegra.” Her name sounds strange on my tongue.
My voice is low and tight. “Come here.” She doesn’t move. “Now.”
It takes her a minute to decide and when she does, she raises her head, makes a hard line of her mouth.
Her bare feet pad over the stone floor and up the stairs to the kitchen.
She wraps her arms around herself, the sleeves of his shirt so long they drape like bishop’s sleeves.
Is she hugging his shirt to herself? Is that what this is?
“You have no right to be angry,” she hisses.
I let my gaze move slowly over her. Let myself feel the boiling of my blood.
“Did he touch you?”
She glances over my shoulder to Jet.
“Don’t look at him. Look at me.” She does, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Did. He. Touch. You?”
“What if he did?” she says through clenched teeth.
My fist comes down on the altar-table so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if it cracked the stone. Allegra jumps, backs up a step.
“He didn’t touch me!” she cries out.
Do I believe her?
I look at Jet. Allegra moves to stand between us. “I said he didn’t.”
“But he wanted to.”
Jet keeps his eyes on me, and I keep mine on him. He’s right, we have shared women in the past. And maybe I’ve been a fool to give him the impression he can somehow come and go as he pleases here in my home.
“You want her,” I say. He doesn’t deny it. If anything, the look on his stubborn face tells me I’m right.
Allegra starts to say something, to move away, but I set my hands on her shoulders, keeping my eyes on Jet. Moving behind her, I slide my hands to her arms and lean close to her ear. I make myself breathe in the smell of his aftershave on her.
His. Fucking. Aftershave. On. Her.
“Tell me, Moth,” I start, liking that she shudders when my breath tickles her cheek. When the scruff along my jaw brushes her ear. “What do you want?”
“What are you doing?” she hisses, turning her head, but the collar of the shirt is unbuttoned and too wide and I see the throbbing of her pulse at her neck.
“You want him to touch you?”
“Don’t be fucking crazy,” she says, trying to tug free. “You left me down there. You just left me.”
“That’s not what I asked you, Moth.” I straighten to look at Jethro and reach around to undo the buttons of the shirt.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asks, catching my hands.
I take hold of her wrists, draw them behind her back, noting how her cheeks are flushed, how dark her eyes have gotten.
I hold both tiny wrists in one hand while I continue to undress her with the other.
When the shirt is unbuttoned, I watch Jet.
Watch his eyes move over her. I take note of how his jaw tenses.
“You want to see, don’t you?”
Jet meets my gaze. He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t have to.
I draw the shirt off her shoulders and the soft cotton slides easily down, the only thing stopping it from dropping fully to the floor is my hand cuffed around her wrists.
“Cassian,” Allegra starts, twisting in my grip, shuddering as her nipples tighten when Jet takes her in.