37. Sinker
Ithink I knew I was down bad for Vaughn, like more than I’d ever been for someone before, when I started to miss him after the first day.
I missed the way his big body crowded me in our bed, and the way his eyes would rake over me while I showered and we chatted…
and that after my shower he’d wrap me up in a towel and cart me off to bed…
After years of toxic or shallow relationships, being with Vaughn was like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly, without him, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
It was difficult not to think about him and instead direct my attention to the task at hand, but it was too important to falter now.
Just like we’d talked about, I spent the first few hours I had alone after our fake separation in Cassidy’s room, sweeping for listening devices and cameras, while placing a few of my own.
As we’d hoped, he appeared to have been lax in his security measures.
Maybe he thought there would be nothing to find, but what we needed was footage of his comings and goings that he couldn’t erase.
Vaughn and Darren were taking shifts monitoring the channels I set up to broadcast.
The real challenge was going to be planting recording devices in his office.
I’d done a preliminary scan of his office and there were several anomalies that shouldn’t have been there, which meant that he had recording devices of his own, which might out me if I got caught trying to place anything while he was gone.
I was, however, able to set up equipment just outside the hallways so we could see and hear him if his door was open, or watch his movement about the ship, all of which could be helpful.
Instead of risking planting devices, I’d suggested I simply try to hang out more with Cassidy in his office to try to confirm his whereabouts to compare to the fabricated log that continued to be tampered with, showing erroneous network access timestamps.
It was on one of those mornings that I put into motion a plan that would have me going a bit rogue. If executed correctly, it could give us everything we needed. If I was discovered, it would be the end of everything.
While we were supposed to be on opposite shifts, which initially removed some awkwardness from having to share a bed, I recognized the earnestness in Cassidy’s demeanor when I was around.
He was figuratively frothing at the mouth at the thought of having a real shot with me.
So us keeping our distance felt like the wrong call for this final push in the mission.
Instead, I’d only sleep for a couple hours and then curl up on the sofa in his office and talk while he worked.
It was difficult to be around him, knowing what he’d done, and the sheer number of people that were gone because of him and Meridian, but as a well-trained operative, I had to switch off that part of my brain and inhabit a version of myself—a character, if you will—that was numb to those thoughts.
Everything was resting on how thoroughly I could convince Cassidy that we had a future together.
I wouldn’t fail.
I couldn’t.
“You’re up early,” Cassidy noted as he scrolled through his comm. “Did you miss me?” He grinned at me over the screen.
“Maybe,” I said through a laugh as I closed the door behind me before dropping into one of the chairs across from his desk.
“Did you need something?” He set the comm down and looked up at me curiously, his eyes flicking to the closed door, then back to me.
“No…” I sunk further into the chair. “I had a weird dream about Xavier, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Oh.” He raised a brow, encouraging me to continue.
This wasn’t part of the scheme Vaughn and I had concocted, but I was running out of time to get the answers I so desperately needed. This might be my last chance to get some modicum of closure.
“Was he the reason you never tried anything?”
Cassidy’s lips parted as he took in the question, but then nodded slowly.
What I said next was a risk, but one I had to take. “I know you guys were still talking in college.”
Cassidy leaned back in his chair, a look of regret crossing his face.
“I thought you might be upset with me, when you never reached out to me, even after you reconnected with him.” I looked up at him through my lashes, hoping he didn’t see right through me.
“I was working on a business idea that took off and needed his advice on some encryption stuff,” Cassidy offered, confirming my suspicions. “I asked him about you, and he…” Cassidy seemed to want to choose his words carefully. “He just said you were doing well and that I shouldn’t bother you.”
“You shouldn’t have listened to him,” I forced through my teeth, somehow managing a coy smile. Every nerve in my body was on fire as I fought the urge to continue with where I planned on leading this conversation.
Vaughn was going to kill me when he realized what I was up to. Even I had to admit it was less about getting an outright confession and more about asking the questions I’d been searching for, for years, to get what I felt I needed to move on.
Cassidy cocked his head. “No?”
I leaned forward, making sure he had a good view of my cleavage against his desk. “He told me, ya know.”
Cassidy’s jaw clenched.
“I know who you are.” I held his gaze.
He stayed still, save for gulping, as he waited on pins and needles for me to expose the truth.
“I know, and I’m still here, still thinking about what a life with you would be like.” I let my voice go low.
“I don’t know what you think you know—”
“Cassidy,” I purred, allowing a smile to curl my lips. “You don’t have to hide. It’s okay. I haven’t told another soul.”
His whole body had gone taut.
“It’s a good thing they caught Simon. Takes the heat off things.” I smiled wider. “And he deserved it after how he treated me.”
Cassidy’s lips parted. He took a beat, calculating how to move forward. Would he deny everything, or give in, thinking that already had me in his clutches?
“He wasn’t supposed to give you to those traffickers.
I just needed to make sure Chadwick had time to get the package off the ship.
” The asshole had the audacity to reach across the desk for my hand, which I gave him.
“I was already working on a way to get you back, before Vaughn figured out you were gone. You know I’d never let anything happen to you. ” His eyes smoldered.
“Why did you stay away so long?” I asked, my voice breathy and wanting. “I could have been helping you build this empire the whole time, at your side.”
The look on Cassidy’s face was full of yearning. “I wanted that, more than you could ever know. I wasn’t lying when I told you everything I’d done was to be enough for you.”
“But you’ve always been enough, Cassidy.” I squeezed his hand. “My parents and Xavier were always limiting me, and you set me free.” I swallowed back bile at the vicious lies. “Have you really loved me all these years, like I’ve loved you?”
He released a shuddering sigh, his shoulders sagging at the faux revelation. “You’re the reason for all of this. Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
My heart broke at the thought, but I was too close to show him how I really felt. “How? How did it all happen? You’ve done so much in such a short time. I’m so proud of you.”
Cassidy’s eyes darted past me to the closed door again, as if needing the reassurance that we wouldn’t be overheard.
It was a good thing he seemed to be entranced enough by me not to think I would be streaming all of this to Darren and Vaughn, who were recording every single fucking word coming from his disgusting mouth.
“I guess it started with my college roommate. He was a chem major and liked to experiment with new compounds and side effects in his custom narcotics. He stumbled upon the strain now known as Elysian by accident, but it took off like wildfire, and when I gave him the idea for the name…he couldn’t make it fast enough,” Cassidy recalled.
“You weren’t really into that stuff when we were growing up,” I told him.
Cassidy shook his head. “I never have been.” He laughed. “I’ve never tried Elysian. Not worth the risk.”
I nodded in agreement.
“The thing was, Trevor—my roommate—he had no head for business. He just made what he could in between classes and spent all the extra cash on more drugs and girls. But I saw so much potential, if he could just find a way to scale up his operations.”
“So clever.” I beamed at him, encouraging him to continue.
“I reached out to someone I’d met through our travels.
He had a reputation for being a little on the unsavory side, so I wasn’t worried about him selling me out.
And he agreed with everything I wanted to do and saw the same potential and utilized some connections in Meridian to help me get things set up. ”
“They were kind of a mess back then, huh?” I commented.
Cassidy snorted a laugh. “You have no idea. But once the money started flowing in, all of a sudden people were looking to me for guidance and it all just kind of snowballed. I worried getting stationed out on the helioplex would cause things to fall apart, but I was able to figure out a workaround to piggyback on nearby ships, other relay stations, and satellites to significantly reduce the communication delay, so I was still able to keep tabs on things from even the far reaches of the system.”
“I always hated how much everyone underestimated you. Xavier always stole all the glory from you and me because he was so outspoken and outgoing, but you were always the quiet genius between the three of us,” I told him, continuing to stroke his ego.
He shook his head, smiling wide. “I knew you were the only one who ever saw me—the real me. Growing up, my mom was always comparing me to Xavier, always making me feel like nothing I did was good enough. And even though me and her traveled with your family, she still worked for them, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel lesser. ”
“I’m so sorry.”