Chapter 26
Twenty Six
Aria
The morning light slants through the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating a universe of dust motes dancing in the air.
In my old apartment, this kind of light would have been cheerful.
Here in the cavernous, sterile loft, it feels like an interrogation lamp.
It exposes everything. The silence is a physical weight, broken only by the deliberate, unnaturally loud clink of a heavy ceramic mug against the stone countertop.
Cassian is in the kitchen area, his back to me.
He’s making coffee. The scent of it, dark and bitter, fills the space.
He moves with a slow, controlled grace that is utterly at odds with the violence I know he’s capable of.
It’s the calm of a predator resting in its den, conserving energy.
Every few moments his shoulders will tense, and I know without seeing his face that he’s checking my reflection in the dark glass of the oven. He’s a warden on patrol.
I sit at the enormous concrete table, my hands wrapped around a mug of tea I don’t want.
It’s already growing cold. I am playing the part he has assigned me: the subdued, broken captive.
My eyes are downcast, my posture slumped.
Inside, I am a cauldron of simmering rage, aimed squarely at myself.
The search yesterday—Leo. Icarus.—was an act of pure, idiotic impulse.
A rookie mistake. I’m lucky it was a dead end.
If I had found something, my mask would have shattered.
My shock, my horror, my rage—it would have all been on my face, and he would have known I’d found the note.
He would have known I lied. The thought of what he might have done then, knowing his intimidation had failed, sends a cold shiver of dread down my spine.
I will not make that mistake again. From now on, every move is a calculation. Every breath is a performance.
After our silent, tense breakfast, I retreat to the long leather sofa, curling my legs beneath me like a stray cat seeking warmth.
I pick up the phone—his gift, his leash—and I can feel his attention sharpen, a tangible force on the back of my neck.
This is what he wants. He wants to watch me, so I will give him a show he will believe.
I open the browser. My first search is for "grief counseling in Slate Harbor.
" I let the page of therapists and clinics load, a list of smiling, professional faces who promise healing.
I scroll through it slowly, my expression one of weary sadness.
I click on a few links, reading their mission statements about "journeys" and "safe spaces.
" It all feels like a language from another planet.
Next, I search for "online support groups for sibling loss." This search feels like a desecration. I am turning the most sacred, painful experience of my life into a tool of espionage but I push the feeling down, burying it deep. This is war. My grief is just another weapon.
I find a forum and spend the better part of an hour reading posts.
The anonymity of it makes the pain sharper, more real.
One post, titled "The Sound of Her Laugh," stops my breath.
A man writes about how he can no longer remember what his sister's laugh sounded like, and the fear that one day he'll forget her face, too. My own throat tightens. I can still hear Jade’s laugh—a bright, bubbling sound that could fill a whole room.
A single, hot tear escapes and traces a path down my cheek before I can stop it.
I quickly wipe it away, but it was real.
Let him see it. Let him think I am just a broken girl, lost in her memories.
I am constructing a digital ghost. The ghost of a grieving sister, adrift and harmless. My search history will be my camouflage, a trail of plausible breadcrumbs so that when I finally make my real move, it will be perfectly hidden in the noise of my sorrow.
The morning bleeds into a tense, quiet afternoon. I'm lying on the bed in the alcove, pretending to read a book on the phone when the sound comes.
It’s not the electronic buzz of the downstairs intercom. It’s a sharp, specific knock on the heavy steel door of the loft itself. Three quick, hard raps that echo in the vast, silent space.
Cassian, who had been staring out the window across the loft, goes completely rigid. It’s not the reaction of a man expecting a guest. It’s the full-body alarm of a man caught by surprise. His head whips toward me, his eyes dark and urgent.
"Go to the bedroom," he says, his voice a low, urgent command. "Now, and don't make a sound."
The order confirms what I already suspected; I am a secret.
A secret he is keeping from his own world.
I don't question him; I scramble off the bed, my bare feet silent on the cold concrete, and retreat deeper into the bedroom alcove. It’s mercifully out of the direct line of sight from the door.
I press myself into the shadows against the far wall, my heart starting to pound a frantic, heavy rhythm.
I hear the heavy, metallic slide of the deadbolt. The door groans open.
"What are you doing here, Milo?" Cassian's voice is tight, stripped of any pretense, laced with pure annoyance.
"Had to talk to you," another voice replies, rougher and older. "Dimitri's been calling all morning. He's not happy about the port situation. Says container three is a total loss."
"He's never happy," Cassian bites back. "This couldn't have been a phone call?"
"He said to find you. Said it was urgent. You know how he gets."
Dimitri. The port. The names mean nothing to me, but the tone is everything. Cassian is not the king of this world, he answers to someone. He is a man under pressure, and right now, that pressure is standing in his doorway. He is completely, utterly distracted.
This is it. This is my chance.
My body moves before my mind can second-guess the risk. I snatch the phone from the bedside table, my hands surprisingly steady. The screen is still on the grief forum. I have two minutes. Maybe less.
I open a new browser tab. No more reckless keywords.
I need to be smart. I need a search that fits my alibi, one that looks like a natural progression of my morning's activity.
With frantic, silent taps, I type in the search that a grieving sister, having spent hours dwelling on her pain, might actually perform.
Slate Harbor car crash Route October 9, 2024
I hit enter.
My pulse is a frantic drum in my ears. The results load. It’s not commercial noise this time. It’s focused. Near the top of the page is a link from the Slate Harbor Chronicle's digital archives. The headline hits me like a physical blow, sucking the air from my lungs.
"Fiery Crash on Route 9 Claims Two Lives"
Two lives. The words stare back at me, clinical and cold. I always knew, but my grief had been a universe of its own, with Jade at its center. I’ve never truly considered the other life lost, the other family shattered.
My finger trembles as I tap the link. The article page begins to load, the blue bar crawling across the top of the screen with agonizing slowness.
The first thing to appear is the photo—a grainy, low-resolution image of the wreckage.
A horrifying, tangled knot of black and silver metal that I’ve seen a thousand times in my nightmares.
I physically flinch, my stomach churning.
I force my eyes away from it, down to the text of the article as it appears.
The first line materializes. A high-speed, late-night collision on Route 9 resulted in the deaths of two local students, the deceased have been identified as Jade Miller and...
"Fine. Tell Dimitri I'll handle it," I hear Cassian say from the other room, his voice sharp and final.
The front door slams shut. The deadbolt slides home with a deafening thud.
He's coming back.
Panic, cold and absolute, seizes me. My fingers fumble, almost dropping the phone.
With a choked gasp, I manage to close the browser tab, the half-read article vanishing.
My screen defaults back to the grief counseling forum.
I shove the phone under the pillow, pull the covers up to my chin, and squeeze my eyes shut, forcing my breathing to even out, praying he can't hear my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
A moment later, his heavy footsteps enter the bedroom space.
I feel his presence, a large, dark shape standing over the bed.
He stays there for a full minute, the silence stretching into an eternity.
He's watching me. I can feel his suspicion, a palpable force in the air.
I imagine him listening to my breathing, analyzing the flush on my cheeks.
Finally, with a soft sigh that sounds more like frustration than relief, he turns and walks away.
I lie there unmoving for a long time. I didn't get the name.
I was a single second, a single word away, but it doesn't matter.
The frustration is eclipsed by a surge of adrenaline.
I know for certain there is a name to find.
I know there's an article, and I know exactly how to look for it the next time I get a chance.
The hunt is on.