Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Aria
The ride to my apartment is suffocatingly silent.
He drives with a calm, focused intensity, his hands sure on the wheel.
He doesn’t turn on the radio, he doesn’t look at me.
Cassian just drives, navigating the streets of my neighborhood with a familiarity that coils in my stomach.
The lack of conversation is more unnerving than any threat.
It’s the silence of a decision that has already been made, a destination that is not up for debate.
When Cassian parks in front of my building, he kills the engine and just sits there, waiting.
He doesn't order me out of the car. He doesn't have to.
The expectation hangs in the air, thick and heavy.
I know I can open the door, run, and never look back.
I also know, with a chilling certainty, that it wouldn't matter.
My hand trembles as I get out. He follows, his presence a dark, imposing shadow at my back.
I unlock the door to my apartment, push it open, and the silence inside rushes out to meet me. It’s a physical force, cold, sterile, and absolute. The air is still, smelling faintly of dust and loneliness. This was my sanctuary, my fortress against the world. Now, it feels like a tomb.
I stand frozen in the doorway, my duffel bag a dead weight in my hand. My mind screams at me. Tell him to leave. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. This is insane.
"I..." I start, my voice a dry whisper. "I can't do this."
Cassian doesn't respond. He doesn't argue or try to persuade me. He simply walks past me, his shoulder brushing mine, and enters my kitchen. The intrusion is so shocking, so presumptuous, it leaves me speechless.
He opens a drawer, pulls out a black trash bag, and methodically begins to empty my refrigerator. A half-empty carton of milk. An apple. A container of old takeout. The mundane domesticity of the act is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed.
"What are you doing?" I finally manage to ask, my voice trembling.
He doesn't look at me. He ties a knot in the bag, his movements efficient and final. "No sense in letting it rot," he says, his voice flat. "You're not coming back here."
It’s not a threat. It’s not a command. It’s a statement of fact, delivered with the calm certainty of a man who has already seen the future.
That single, quiet act shatters my resistance more than any threat or act of violence ever could.
Cassian isn't fighting me for control; he's demonstrating that my control was never real to begin with.
Protesting would be like arguing with a hurricane. Futile.
A wave of dizziness washes over me. The choice was never mine. It was made the moment I got in his car. Maybe even the moment I met his eyes in that bar. My only choice now is whether I fight a battle I’ve already lost.
Defeated, I turn and walk on unsteady legs toward my bedroom. He follows, leaning against the doorframe, a silent, imposing guard as I numbly stuff clothes into my bag.
Then my eyes land on my nightstand, on the simple silver frame holding a photo of me and Jade. We’re on a beach, squinting in the sun, our arms thrown around each other, both of us caught mid-laugh. My fingers tremble as I reach for it. The memory is a sharp, painful pang.
“I need this,” I say, my voice thick.
“No.” The word is quiet, but absolute. It stops my hand mid-air.
I turn to face him, bewildered. “What? Why? It’s my sister, Cassian.”
He pushes off the doorframe and walks toward me. “That life is over,” he says, his voice soft, which makes the words even crueler. “The girl in that picture is gone. I’m not letting you bring ghosts into my home.”
Tears spring to my eyes, hot and angry. “You can’t ask me to leave this. It’s all I have left of her.”
His expression hardens. He cups my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek, forcing me to meet his intense gaze.
“I’m not asking,” he says, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “You wanted to feel something new, you wanted to be alive again. You can’t do that if you’re clinging to a tombstone. Her memory is a ghost that keeps you a ghost. I’m not competing with that.”
His logic is twisted, possessive, and utterly devastating. He’s framing this as an act of liberation, but it feels like an amputation.
My gaze flickers from his intense eyes to the smiling face in the photograph, the sun, the laughter, the before. Then I look back at him, the noise, the pain, the now.
With a shuddering breath, my hand falls away from the frame.
A dark satisfaction glints in his eyes. “Good girl.”
I zip the bag with a sharp, final sound. I walk past him, refusing to look at the photo on the nightstand, the ghost I’m leaving behind. He follows me out, and as I lock the door to my apartment, the click of the deadbolt sounds like a coffin closing.