Chapter 28
Twenty Eight
Cassian
The final rep is a controlled explosion of force, a deep groan torn from my throat as I drive the bar up, my muscles screaming in protest. The familiar burn is a welcome, grounding pain.
I rack the weight. The clang of heavy iron against the frame is a sound of finality.
It echoes in the cavernous space, a full stop to the ritual, the only prayer I know.
I swing my legs over the side of the bench, my body humming with exertion, sweat plastering my shirt to my skin.
The physical exhaustion is a balm, a temporary anesthetic for the part of my mind that never, ever rests.
I grab a towel, wiping the sweat from my face, and my eyes land on her.
Aria.
She’s on the sofa, the phone lying forgotten beside her, its screen dark, and she’s staring at me.
I’m used to her watching me, of course. I’ve grown accustomed to her gaze, a sharp, physical thing that I can always feel, a mixture of pure fear and a simmering hatred that I know I deserve. But this is different.
Her face is utterly devoid of color, it’s a pale, translucent mask of shock.
Her eyes are wide, but they are not focused on me, not really.
They are looking through me, as if I am a pane of glass and she is staring at something terrible and broken on the other side.
The fear is there, yes, but it’s a new vintage.
It’s not the sharp terror of a cornered animal fighting for its life.
It’s a hollow, soul-deep horror. The look of someone who has just seen a ghost.
My first thought is a spike of ice in my gut.
The phone. Did I miscalculate? Did she find something?
I mentally scan the possibilities. A news article?
An obituary? No. Impossible. I’ve run the searches myself a hundred times.
The digital world is an ocean of noise. For her to find the one specific drop of water that connects her to me would require a name.
Leonidas Kostas. A name she doesn't have. A name she couldn't possibly have.
I watch her, my own breathing evening out from the workout.
She doesn’t move, she barely seems to be breathing.
Her body is frozen, a statue carved from ice.
This is a break. Not a break for freedom, but a break in her mind.
The trauma, the isolation, the grief I know she carries for her sister…
it’s finally cracking her foundation. A part of me, a cold, clinical part I inherited from my father, notes this as an inevitable development.
Another part, a part that feels like my mother feels a dull, sickening ache. I have done this to her.
I walk toward the kitchen, my movements measured, deliberate.
I am a shark, and she is a swimmer who has just realized the water is cold.
Any sudden movement will only amplify the terror.
I open the fridge, the cool air washing over my heated skin, and pull out a bottle of water.
I lean against the counter, twisting the cap off, and watch her over the top of the bottle.
She still hasn’t moved. Her eyes are locked on the space where I stand.
I can see the frantic pulse beating in the delicate skin of her throat.
She looks so fragile, a porcelain doll held together by sheer force of will.
A doll I have deliberately, systematically taken apart.
It’s for her own good. I repeat the words to myself, the mantra that has become my religion.
The world outside, the world my father moves through, the world that chewed up my brother and spit him out…
it would destroy her. This loft is a cage, yes, but it is also a sanctuary.
She is safe here, whether she knows it or not.
I failed to protect Leo. I will not fail to protect her.
Her stillness, the way she’s staring into nothing… it reminds me of him. Not of Leo himself—he was never still, always a blur of motion and easy laughter—but of the silence he left behind. The deafening, crushing silence in the space where he used to be.
The memory rises unbidden, a ghost slipping through the bars of the cage I keep it in. It’s so clear, so vivid, it feels like the present. The loft melts away, replaced by the smell of ozone, high-octane fuel, and the clean, cool air of my garage.
My garage is my sanctuary, the only place in Slate Harbor that is truly mine.
It is a cathedral of steel and concrete, and in the center, under the bright, white glare of the overhead LEDs is the altar: my midnight-blue Nissan GT-R.
It is a declaration of independence I have built with my own hands, with money from my own construction company.
It is everything my father hates: earned, not inherited; fast, loud, and unapologetically mine.
I am running final diagnostics, the laptop on the rolling cart showing perfect telemetry. Tonight is supposed to be the last race. Not just of the season, but for good.
“Figured I’d find you in here, worshiping your god.”
Leo’s voice startles me. He is leaning against the doorframe, a cocky grin on his face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His eyes haven’t been the same since Mom’s funeral.
“It’s called maintenance,” I say, closing the laptop. “Something you wouldn’t understand.”
“Right.” He walks further into the garage, circling the GT-R. “She looks mean tonight. Ready to make some noise.” He looks at me. “Heard you’re pulling out.”
The question is casual, but it is loaded. He’s been hearing whispers from the racing scene, the one I’ve tried so hard to keep him away from.
“Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Is it true?” he presses. “You’re not running against Silvio tonight? After all the shit he’s been talking?”
“I’m done, Leo. The race tonight, it’s not happening.”
His face falls, his disappointment so naked it’s like a punch. “What? Why? You’ll destroy him. You know you will.”
“It’s not a game anymore,” I say, my voice sharper than I intend. I start wiping down my tools, arranging them on the magnetic board, needing to do something with my hands.
“It was never a game! It was a message!” he shoots back, his voice cracking with emotion he tries to hide. “It was the one thing you did that showed him he doesn’t own us. That a Kostas can build something for himself. Now you’re just quitting?”
I turn to face him, the wrench heavy in my hand. “Mom is dead, Leo.”
The words hang in the air between us, cold and brutal. We never speak of it. We know what happened. We know the truth behind the "fall down the stairs," we just never say it out loud.
“I know she’s dead,” he whispers, his own anger faltering.
“No, you don’t,” I say, stepping closer.
“You don’t get it. I’m all you have left.
You are all I have left. Do you think I can go out there and drive 150 miles per hour on a public road anymore?
Do you think I can risk leaving you alone with him?
With the man who killed our mother and bought a new wife three months later? ”
The mention of Caroline, the woman now living in our mother’s house, makes his jaw clench.
“So you’re just going to let him win?” Leo’s voice is thick with desperation. “He takes Mom, and now he takes this from you too? He breaks you? We have to fight back, Cass. We can’t just roll over.”
“This isn’t fighting back, it’s playing Russian Roulette!
” I yell, slamming the wrench down on the steel table.
“Growing up, building my company, staying away from his dirty money, that’s how I fight back.
Protecting you is how I fight back. This,” I say, gesturing to the car, “this was a kid’s rebellion, and we are not kids anymore. He took that from us.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from my foreman. A problem at a job site. I glance at it, my rage and grief churning into a nauseating cocktail.
“I have to go,” I say, my voice ragged. I walk past him, grabbing my jacket. “We’re done talking about this. I’m not racing. It’s over.”
I leave him there, standing in the middle of the garage, staring at the car that had once been our symbol of defiance, and I don’t look back. I drive to the site, my mind a storm, and spend an hour tearing into my crew over a mistake that doesn’t matter.
When I get back to the garage, it is quiet. Too quiet. The big bay door is open to the night air and the space in the center, the altar, is empty.
My GT-R is gone.
The keys—the spare set I kept on the magnetic board—are gone too.
A cold dread, so absolute and immediate it steals the breath from my lungs, washes over me. I sprint out into the driveway. Nothing. Just the distant sound of an engine, screaming as it hits the main road, a sound I know better than my own heartbeat.
He took it. The stupid, brave, reckless idiot. He took it to race for me. He wasn’t trying to be me, he was trying to fight for us. He was trying to show his father, and the world, that they weren't broken.
I never saw him alive again.
The plastic of the water bottle crinkles in my hand, the sound pulling me violently back to the present.
Back to the cold, silent loft, my knuckles aching from a phantom grip.
The memory leaves a raw, gaping wound, as fresh today as it was the night I got the call from a state trooper. My car. My race. My failure.
I failed. I was supposed to be his shield. I was supposed to protect him from the world, from our father, from himself. Instead, I built the weapon that killed him.
My gaze lands on Aria again. She has finally moved. She’s curled into herself, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head bowed. She’s trembling, a leaf in a storm I created.
The grief from the memory transmutes into something else, something hard and resolute.
My failure with Leo will not be repeated.
Aria is the last piece of that night. The only other person who was there, who felt the impact, who lost everything.
She is the bill for my sins, the living consequence of my actions.
In a twisted way, she’s the only one in the world who could possibly understand the wreckage, and I will keep her safe.
I will lock her away from the poison that took him.
My father, his rivals, the whole damn city.
They will not touch her. I am trying to save her to atone for getting my brother killed.
I am transferring my failed responsibility for Leo onto her.
I push off the counter and walk slowly toward the sofa. Her head snaps up when she hears my footsteps, her eyes wide with that new, hollow terror. She flinches as I get closer, pressing herself into the cushions as if she could melt through them.
I crouch down in front of her, bringing my eyes level with hers. She shrinks back, a choked sob catching in her throat.
“You’re safe here,” I say, my voice low and steady. It is a promise to her, but it is a vow to him. To Leo. I will not fail again.
She just stares at me, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated horror.
She isn’t seeing a savior or a protector.
She’s seeing the man who destroyed her life, the monster who dragged her into this nightmare.
And as I look into the depths of her terror, a cold realization washes over me.
For the first time, I wonder if she’s not just seeing a monster, but the truth.