Chapter 29
Terror.
That’s what I felt when I saw Cassian’s face and heard the words.
My body seized. A full-body freeze, muscles locked, brain scrambling to process.
Then I moved.
I didn’t change clothes. Didn’t grab my keys. Didn’t turn around for anything. I just moved—out the door, down the hall, my bare feet slapping against the floor before I even realized I hadn’t put on shoes.
The details came in fragments during the drive.
A fire.
The word still didn’t feel real. Couldn’t settle in my brain.
Grease fire. Oil overheated on one of the stoves, flames climbing faster than the suppression system could trigger. By the time the alarms fully activated, smoke had already overwhelmed the ventilation hood, spilling out beneath it and finding every opening, filling every space.
Most made it out. Cassian’s staff handled the evacuation well. Drills, protocols, all the things you practice but never think you’ll need. The exits cleared fast. Firefighters arrived within minutes.
Dozens stumbled out coughing, eyes streaming, grateful for air.
But two never made it to the door on their own.
A staff member at the back of the restaurant.
And Naija.
My chest tightened at the thought. Tightened until I couldn’t breathe.
They hadn’t found her at first. The firefighters were still sweeping the building when someone realized she wasn’t outside with the rest of the staff. Not in the crowd. Not answering her phone.
She was still inside.
They found her in the bathroom, the door shut behind her. They had to break it down, and when they did, smoke came rolling out in a thick, suffocating wave, swallowing the doorway.
Naija was on the floor just inside, collapsed near the door. Unconscious.
The firefighters said the bathroom must have filled quickly once the ventilation system carried smoke through the building. The closed door sealed her in with it. If she’d stayed in there too long—
I stopped that thought before it could finish.
The Garcias had been escorted home. By morning, the media would have a field day with this—Garcia’s first collaboration, a fire, casualties.
The story would write itself. The damage would be counted in dollars and reputational loss.
Repairs, business losses, cancellations, the brand.
Everything we’d spent years building, reduced to numbers and headlines for the next few weeks.
I couldn’t find a single part of me that cared.
Nothing else mattered.
Nothing but Naija.
My eyes stayed locked on the door.
Felicity hadn’t been there at the launch—work had kept her away. Liam had gone to get her while Cassian came for me. Rohan had stayed behind at the hospital.
Now she sat beside me, shaking with silent sobs, leaning so heavily against my shoulder that I could feel each shudder travel through her, small and involuntary, while her tears soaked slowly through the thin fabric of my top.
My hand moved in slow, repetitive circles on her back—trying to calm her, trying to calm myself, trying to do something with the restlessness trapped inside me.
I had stopped measuring time. Minutes had become indistinguishable from hours, which was probably how panic worked when it had nowhere to go.
Liam sat on her other side, a handkerchief folded neatly in his hand, waiting for the moment she would need it.
Across from us, Rohan stood near the door. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his jaw set, his eyes flicking to the door every few seconds like he could will it open through sheer intensity.
Cassian stood beside my chair. The only time I noticed him leave was when, sometime later, he disappeared without a word and came back carrying a pair of sneakers.
My size, without asking. He placed them at my feet.
I slipped them on without looking at him, without taking my eyes off the door, without even registering the little mercy of warmth returning to my toes until some numb part of me noticed that my feet were no longer cold.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say.
The doors finally opened.
We were all on our feet before it fully swung wide.
A doctor stepped out, her expression carefully neutral. She looked between us briefly, then spoke.
“She’s stable.”
I felt the words like oxygen. Like I’d been holding my breath since Cassian appeared at my door and only now, finally, was allowed to let it out.
Felicity let out a sob of relief beside me, her body sagging against me. Liam pressed the handkerchief into her hand without a word, his own shoulders dropping a fraction.
“She inhaled significant smoke. She was unconscious on arrival, but she’s breathing on her own now, no intubation needed. We’ve had her on high-flow oxygen since she came in, and her oxygen saturation is holding steady.”
My throat tightened. Unconscious. Smoke inhalation. The words were clinical, but the images they conjured were not.
“Is she awake?” Rohan’s voice was rough, strained.
“She regained consciousness about fifteen minutes ago,” the doctor said.
“She’s groggy and disoriented, which is normal after this kind of exposure.
Smoke inhalation puts an enormous strain on the body, particularly when oxygen levels have been compromised, and for a while it can affect cognitive function too.
She needs rest. We’ll keep her here tonight, most likely through tomorrow, just to be safe.
We’ll monitor her oxygen saturation and keep an eye out for any delayed swelling in her airways. ”
“Can we see her?” Felicity asked.
“You can. One or two at a time.” The doctor gave a small nod and disappeared back through the doors.
Felicity wiped at her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed when they found mine.
“We—”
“You should go.” The words came out flatter than I intended, almost calm.
“And stay by her side.”
She frowned, confusion cutting through the relief. “Sia—”
“Felicity, please.” My voice shook—just once, just slightly—and that small crack seemed to reach her. She stared at me for a long moment, searching my face, and then nodded.
She moved toward the door. Rohan followed without a word, his hand already reaching for the handle.
Liam started after them. My hand shot out and grabbed his arm.
He turned, confused.
“Call your father.” My voice hardened, the shake gone, replaced by something colder.
His brow furrowed deeper. “What—”
“Call. Your. Father.” I stepped closer, my voice dropping. “And find out exactly where he is right now. I don’t want to drive to his house only to find he’s not there, but celebrating in some bar, toasting to a job well done.”
Understanding flickered across his face, then horror. “You don’t think…” He trailed off, his eyes darting from me to Cassian, standing silent and watchful beside me. Then he pulled his arm free and yanked out his phone.
He moved a few steps away, the call brief, clipped. When he came back, his expression had hardened into something grim.
“He’s at work.” Liam’s voice was tight. “He sounded like he was expecting my call.”
That was all I needed.
“Stay with Felicity.” I was already moving, already walking away from the door that led to Naija, toward the exit.
It wasn’t a coincidence. A man appears where he has no business being. Hours later, a fire breaks out—a fire that could have killed people, that did hurt people.
I refused to believe in coincidences that convenient.
Michael Hartley was involved. I knew it with the grim certainty of instinct, in my gut, in my bones, in every cell that had learned, over years of necessity, to recognize danger before I could put a name to it.
I was almost out of the hospital doors when I noticed it—another set of footsteps behind me, matching mine stride for stride.
I stopped. Turned.
Cassian nearly walked straight into me. He caught himself at the last second, stopping barely an inch from my face, close enough that for one absurd moment I could hear both of us breathing.
I opened my mouth to ask what he thought he was doing, but he spoke first.
“I drove you, remember?” His voice was maddeningly calm, a steady counterpoint against the chaos brewing inside me. “You’re not going to find a cab this time of night. So come on.”
He started walking before I could respond, pushing through the doors.
I fell into step beside him, my anger building, my mouth opening again—give me the keys, I’ll handle this, you don’t need to be here—
“I’m not giving you the keys.” He didn’t even look at me, just kept walking toward the car. “You’re in no state to drive, Alessia.”
He reached the passenger door and pulled it open. Only then did his eyes lift to mine. “Get in.”
I could have stood there. Could have argued, told him I didn’t need a babysitter, that I had been handling things on my own just fine, that he should go back inside and wait with the others.
Or I could sit in the car and save every ounce of my anger for the person who actually deserved it.
I walked past him and slid into the passenger seat.
Michael was having a drink.
Whiskey, probably. Something expensive. Something he thought he deserved. He sat behind his massive desk like a king surveying his domain, a faint smile, a smile as slick as tar, playing at the corners of his mouth.
My friend was in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines, fighting to breathe.
My other friend had been crying for hours. Her eyes were swollen, her face blotched and wet with tears she seemed physically incapable of stopping.
Cassian and Liam’s work—months of it—was tainted.
The Garcia family’s first collaboration in history had become a catastrophe, their name dragged through the ashes of a fire that should never have happened.
All while Michael Hartley sat comfortably in his office chambers, behind his mahogany desk with his drink and his little smile, as though none of it had cost him a thing.
He was lucky—so fucking lucky—that he was sitting on the other side of that desk. Lucky that I needed answers more than I needed to feel his blood on my hands. Otherwise that glass would have been smashed into his skull before he could blink. His desk would be painted red.