Chapter 34
Henry stood by the door, his face shifting from neutral to alarmed in the time it took to recognize me.
I smiled. “Henry, right? I’m Alessia Quinn. You were injured at one of my events.” I lifted the bouquet in my hand, presenting it like an offering. “I wanted to come by, meet you, make sure you were recovering well.”
His eyes darted from my face to the flowers and back. “Thank you.” He accepted the bouquet, then stepped aside and opened the door wider.
“Would you like to come in?” he asked hesitantly.
“Of course.” I stepped forward, slipped past him, and entered the apartment.
The apartment was small. A narrow kitchen tucked into the corner, counters cluttered with instant noodle packets. A couch that had seen better days. No photographs on the walls. No sign of anyone else living here.
I turned to him, smile still in place. “I wanted to apologize. You got hurt at my event, and I want to make sure you’re properly compensated. I just have a few questions.”
He set the bouquet aside, ran a hand through his hair. “This won’t take long, right?”
“Not at all. I’ll be quick.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
“So, Henry.” I moved deeper into the room, my eyes scanning the counters, the cabinets, the corners where a life was lived in small, solitary pieces. “You were with the kitchen staff, correct? How long had you been working there?”
He stammered. “Not long, I was—”
“Two weeks.” I smiled. “We have to keep this fast, remember?”
He swallowed.
I turned to face him fully. “You know, Henry, there were a lot of cameras that night. Not the restaurant’s—those were off, we checked. But influencers, journalists, guests. Everyone documenting everything. We watched every video, every photo, every frame. It took days.”
I stepped closer. His breathing had changed. Faster. Shallow.
“And in one of those videos, we found something interesting.” I let the silence stretch. “You. Walking up to the fryer. Leaning in. Adjusting something on the controls. Looking around. Walking away.”
His face drained of color.
“The timing matched the fire report. Grease doesn’t overheat on its own that fast. Suppression systems don’t fail that conveniently.
” I tilted my head. “Someone made sure that oil got hot enough, fast enough. Someone who knew exactly where to stand to stay out of most sightlines. Someone who’d only been there two weeks. Someone nobody would remember.”
His hands were shaking.
“It’s so funny,” I said, stepping closer, “that a kitchen staff was found conscious near the back of the restaurant. Almost like he was running away before anyone found him.”
I was close enough to see the tremor in his hands. He started breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in sharp, panicked bursts.
“You’re nineteen, aren’t you?”
He nodded fast, his eyes already filling.
“I didn’t want to do it.” His voice cracked.
“I just needed some money. I swear. He told me to do it, said nobody would get hurt. I did it, and I was going to run away, but I panicked. I went the wrong direction first, and then the smoke was everywhere, and I tried to run, and I fainted.” He was crying now, the words spilling out.
“I heard someone else got hurt. I’m so sorry.
I didn’t want it to happen. I’m so sorry. ”
My jaw ground together. He was just a kid. A kid who needed money and got caught up in something he didn’t understand.
“Who’s he?”
I knew the answer. But I needed to hear it from him.
He took a shaky breath, still crying. “Michael Hartley.”
“He came to you himself?”
He nodded. “I thought it was weird. Why would someone like that come to someone like me? But he said he handled things personally. Didn’t trust anyone else.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I really didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. I’m sorry.”
My chest burned. Fucking Michael.
I reached out and patted his shoulder. He flinched, then stilled. “It’s okay. Stop crying. She’s fine. She’s recovering. Like you are.”
He looked up at me, eyes red, breath still hitching. “She’s okay?”
I nodded.
He exhaled, long and slow, the tension in his shoulders releasing all at once. He pressed his palms to his face, rubbed hard, and when he pulled them away, he looked young again. Almost like a kid who had been carrying something too heavy and finally, finally put it down.
My eyes held his. “You have a whole life ahead of you, Henry. I haven’t passed the video to the detectives yet. But I will. And if you take the blame alone, you’ll go to prison.”
His face crumpled. “No. I didn’t—I didn’t mean for this to happen—” The tears were back, spilling over, his voice cracking on every word.
I caught his shoulders, steadying him. “I know, Henry. There’s a way you won’t have to go to prison.”
His eyes snapped to mine, desperate hope cutting through the fear. “There is?”
I softened my voice. “You confess. You tell the detectives everything Michael said to you. Everything he told you to do. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.”
He was nodding before I finished, his whole body leaning into the idea like a lifeline. “Yes. I will. I was already thinking about it. I was scared, but the guilt—” His face crumpled mid-sentence. “The guilt was killing me.”
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, breath still unsteady but something else taking shape behind his eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“I have it. The meeting. I recorded it.”
He pulled up the video and handed me the phone.
Michael’s voice came through the small speaker, calm and measured, laying it out. The fryer. The sequence. The exit. No one will suspect you. You do this right, you walk out, no one even knows you were there.
I watched the whole thing. Michael’s face, clear in the frame. His instructions, unmistakable. His confidence that nothing could touch him.
A smile spread across my face.
“For a man with such deep trust issues,” Henry said quietly, “he didn’t think about all the places a camera can be hidden.”
No. He didn’t.
Henry did good.
Now it was my turn.
“Guess what happened—” I stopped myself when I saw Cassian wasn’t alone.
Liam sat in one chair, a folder open on his knee. Another man—older, someone I didn’t recognize—sat across from him. All three of them turned to look at me.
“Uh.” I took a step back. “Rohan didn’t stop me. I’ll leave—”
“No.” Cassian was already standing, a smile breaking across his face. “They were just leaving.”
The other man stood, reached across the desk, and clasped Cassian’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, quiet, sincere.
He passed me on his way out, offering a small smile. I returned it, stepping further into the room as the door clicked shut.
“You didn’t have to cut your meeting short for me.”
Cassian shook his head, already dismissing the idea. “We were done anyway.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, his gaze lingering on my face, but he held back.
Liam looked between us, then stood abruptly. “I have—there’s a thing—” He sighed, giving up. “I can’t think of a believable excuse. I’m just going to leave.” He waved a hand, already heading for the door, and was gone before either of us could respond.
I kept my eyes on Cassian. “What’s going on?”
“I wanted to tell you this before.” He took a breath. “I didn’t get the chance.”
I waited.
“I’m stepping down as CEO.”
I went still. “What?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, like he was confirming it to himself as much as to me. “I’m stepping down. I’ll run operations now. It’s not as stressful—”
“You built this company.” I heard my voice rise, confused, disbelieving. “You love it. Why would you do that?”
His eyes held mine. Unblinking. Unwavering.
“I’m not a good fit for CEO, Alessia. We both know it.
I can’t hold too many things at once. I lock onto one and the rest disappears.
I feel it pressing on me all the time. The stress of it.
The weight.” He looked down at his hands, then back up.
“I’m trying to figure out the whole work-life balance thing.
But I’m still struggling. And I don’t want to keep struggling.
The company stays mine. I just found a way to still be in it without letting it consume me. ”
I stared at him. Trying to understand. This man had nearly lost the company, actually lost his marriage, himself—and now he was stepping away from the very thing he’d sacrificed so much for?
Why?
The question pressed against my ribs. Why would he—
“You’re not doing this for me, right?” My voice was tight. “This isn’t some grand gesture to win me back?”
His face softened as he stepped forward.
“This will be the most unromantic thing someone has ever said,” he said, “but no, Alessia. This isn’t for you.”
Something loosened in my chest.
“This is for me,” he said it like a revelation.
Like he was still surprised by it himself.
“I am doing this because I hate missing out on my life. Because I’m stuck inside this office, and I look up, and years have passed.
I hate that I didn’t have a hobby until a few months ago.
I hate that it took me so long—and losing the most important person in my life—to realize that being CEO isn’t even something I want.
I just want to be part of this company. I want to use my skills, be useful. And that’s in operations.”
He was close now. Close enough that I could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his jaw relaxed when he said the words, like he was letting go of something he’d been holding for too long.
“I want to have free time. I want to waste time. I want to spend time doing nothing.” He paused, his attention settling entirely on me. “I want to spend time with the people I care about most. I want to be with you. I want time to live.”
I searched his face. He was telling the truth. I could see it in the way his eyes didn’t waver, the way his voice stayed steady even when the words were hard. Earnest. He was so earnest, so open. He was beautiful like this. Laid bare. No walls. Just him.