Chapter Fifteen
Cassian
Anya.
My Anya.
Every breath she takes is a prayer answered, a reason for the blood in my veins. My obsession for her is a furnace in my chest that burns away everything else. The world is just background noise to her existence.
I spent a fortune to have the sex tape scrubbed from the internet, hired the best digital cleanup team money could buy. But it’s like a virus—every few days, it pops back up on some obscure forum. I make sure the videos are removed each time.
I slide out of bed without waking her. She needs her rest. She is so pure, so good. She doesn’t need to be stained by this filth. My team is already working, but I need more. I need the person who did this.
It takes me three weeks.
A staff member from my store—just like I expected. A weasel-faced little man named David who worked in the stockroom. He was the one who filmed us in the dressing room that day.
I arrange for a little “inventory issue” that requires David to come to the warehouse after hours. He’s nervous, fidgeting, but he comes. He doesn’t see me until the door is locked behind him. It’s too easy. I bind his wrists and ankles, gagging his useless sobs with a strip of duct tape. He’s nothing. He’s less than nothing.
I send Anya a text: One of my men is going to pick you up. I have a surprise for you.
An hour later, she arrives—looking as beautiful as she always does.
“Cassian? What is this?” She loves it when I surprise her.
I open the heavy door to the warehouse and guide her inside. In the center of the room, tied to a chair, is David. Anya’s smile vanishes. She looks from him to me.
“Oh my god. Cassian, who is that? What’s going on?”
“He’s the one who filmed us, Anya.”
He’s trying to scream behind the gag, bucking the chair with his hips and crying. I need to get this over with quick, before my Anya starts to feel bad for him. I walk over to the gun rack, pick up the Glock 19 I taught her to shoot with, and hold it out for her.
Her eyes lock on the gun, then on the bound man. Her hand trembles as she reaches for it. Her fingers wrap around the grip, but the reality is too much. She lifts the gun, aiming it at David, who is whimpering and struggling against his bonds. Tears well in her eyes.
“I… I can’t,” she chokes out, the gun wavering. “My hand won’t… I can’t.”
“It’s okay, my little doll,” I whisper, stepping behind her. I cover her hand with mine, my larger, stronger fingers closing over hers. My other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her flush against me. Together, we lift the gun. I press my cheek against her hair.
“I’ve got you.”
I guide her finger to the trigger. And then I help her squeeze.
The gunshot is deafening in the enclosed space. David slumps in his chair, blood splattering from his chest. I take the gun from her slack grip and set it on a nearby table. She sags back against me, tears soaking her face. She hates that she ended him. She hates that her obsession and darkness now match my own.
But I love it.
I turn her to face me and sink to my knees before her. I look up at my beautiful, perfect Anya.
“No one,” I say, my voice thick with a reverence so deep it feels like worship, “will ever hurt you again. I swear it.”
She strokes my hair. “I know,” she whispers. “But Cassian—we are rotten. Look at what we did. This isn’t justice, this is… this is monstrous. We are wrong. This isn’t right.”
I rise slowly to my feet. “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ There is only us.”
Panic flickers in her eyes—her conscience clawing its way back to the surface. I can’t have that, so I lean down and kiss her.
I kiss her to erase the world.
To erase the dead man in the chair.
To erase the words wrong and rotten from her mind. She kisses me back with frantic, hungry desperation. This is our baptism.
I tear at her clothes. I need to feel her, to mark her, to remind her that she is mine—saved and claimed. I yank my own belt free and enter her in one hard, deep thrust.
She cries out. I grip her hips, my fingers digging into her flesh, sure to leave bruises. My bruises. My marks. Her body arches to meet me, her nails scraping my back, her gasps demanding more.
When it’s over, we collapse against each other. We are filthy—stained with sin and sex and cordite. We are broken and beautifully, irrevocably damned.
And I have never felt closer to her.