5. Cassie
Cassie
They know. They have to know. My mind is already three steps ahead, cataloguing exits I don't have, wondering if they're going to hand me a bag and point me toward the gate before I've even had a chance to explain myself. Nobody wants a war parked on their front porch, and I've just delivered one.
Prez doesn't waste time getting to it. "Thanks for coming down, Cassie. We need to ask you something, and I need the truth. Are you Cassandra Del Torro?"
There it is. Ethan's hand tightens around mine, and when I look at him there's no disgust in his face, no pulling away, just something steady and full that I don't deserve yet.
I pull my shoulders back the way my mother taught me before I knew enough to hate her for it. "Yes. I'm Cassandra Del Torro."
"Fuck." Prez sits back like the word costs him something. "I was hoping I was wrong about that."
"Why does it matter so much?"
"Your photo's out there. There’s a reward, for whoever finds you and brings you home to the Famiglia." He says it plainly, no dressing it up.
"They actually put money on my head?" A laugh claws out of me before I can stop it, ugly and disbelieving. "They didn't even want me there. Funny how badly they want me back now that I'm gone."
Abby turns her laptop toward me without being asked, already three steps ahead of the conversation, the way I'm starting to understand everyone in this club tends to be.
"That's a hell of a picture they picked." She huffs out a laugh of her own, sharp and unbothered by any of this the way nobody in my old life ever was. "They want you back safe and sound, according to this. Real touching."
"So, what happens now? You turn me in, split the reward?" My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
"Absolutely not." Prez doesn't blink saying it. "You're not getting handed back to anybody. We just needed to know exactly what we're standing in front of. Why'd you run?"
I take a breath and let it all come out at once, because there's no version of this where I get to keep half of it back.
"I was promised to Pablo Estrada. Arranged before I was old enough to have a say in it.
He died before the wedding, and God forgive me, I was relieved.
He would have destroyed me slowly. He collects people the way other men collect watches.
My father pushed the match to stitch our families together into one bigger, uglier thing.
When Pablo and my father both died, I thought I was finally free.
" My hands are shaking in my lap. "My brothers took over within a week.
They want me married into the Estrada line anyway.
Different groom, same cage. Nobody in that family has ever once asked me what I want.
So, I ran. I was headed for Florida. I never planned on stopping here.
" I look up at Ethan. "Guess I got lucky, or unlucky, depending which one of us you ask. "
Ethan lifts me straight off the chair and sits back down with me on his lap, his arms locking around me like a wall. "You're safe here, babe. Nobody's touching you. We just have to figure out how to keep them off our doorstep once they realize you're not going home on your own."
"I'm already working on that part." Abby doesn't look up from her screen, her fingers moving fast. "I’m wiping you off every camera in town, and every database that'll let me touch it.
Whoever was on that bike outside your place is the only loose thread left thinking he actually saw you.
" She glances up at Prez, all business. "Might be worth having a conversation with him. "
"Find out who he is." Prez's jaw sets. "Then we'll have that conversation."
I sit back, the shaking not quite gone yet. "How are you all even able to do this? My family doesn't stop. Ever. Maybe I should just go back. At least then it's only me they hurt, not all of you."
"Nobody's finding you." Prez leans forward, elbows on the desk.
"And if they do, they go through us first. That's not up for negotiation.
The only thing you get to decide is whether you want to be here, with Ethan, with all of us, or whether you'd rather take your chances alone.
" His eyes flick to Brick for half a second, some silent thing passing between them that I don't have the context to read yet.
I look up at Ethan, and there's a flicker of doubt behind his eyes, he's trying hard to hide from me.
I take his hand instead of letting go of it.
"I want to stay. With Ethan. These last few months have been more than I ever let myself hope for.
I've never had people look out for me the way this club does, not once in my whole life, and I've decided I'm done pretending that doesn't mean something. "
"You're family now, babe." Ethan says it simply, like it costs him nothing, and I feel it land somewhere deep and unguarded in my chest.
"Alright." Prez straightens. "Abby and Brax keep working on erasing your trail. Cash or bank?"
"Cash. All of it. I pulled everything before I ran."
"You bring it with you, or leave it at the house?"
"Brought it. Do you have somewhere to put it?"
Prez takes a framed photo down off the wall behind him, revealing a safe built right into the plaster. "Go get it. We'll count it and lock it up properly."
I walk out to find my bag where Brick left it. Ethan is trailing behind me, and when I unzip it his eyes go wide at what's sitting inside. "Christ, Cassie. That's a lot of cash to be carrying around loose."
"I had a safe of my own." I can't help the small, tired laugh. "Give me some credit."
"Wasn't doubting you, babe." He helps me carry it back in, and we lay it all out across Prez's desk. "I'll keep a little on me week to week. Rest can go where it's safe."
Prez counts it in silence, the brothers watching, and when he's done he looks up. "Forty thousand. That sound right to you?"
"That's right."
"You watch me put it away." He locks it into the wall safe, then drops the key into a locked drawer in his desk, turning that key too. "There’s only one of these floating around, and it's mine. Anything you need, you come to me."
"Understood, Prez. Thank you."
"Now we settle the real question." Prez looks around the room at his brothers. "We sit tight, let her trail stay cold, and hope her family gives up chasing a ghost. Or we go after this at the source." He pauses, jaw working. "Meaning her brothers."
My stomach drops. "You'd go after them? On my account?"
"We protect our own and you’re under our protection." Shadow says, flat and certain, no room in it for argument.
Ethan clears his throat, and something in the shift of his body against mine makes my whole chest go tight before he's even said a word. "What if Cassie and I got married? Legally. They can't touch what's already claimed."
My jaw actually drops. "What? Ethan, we've been together for a few months. That's insane."
"Cassie." He turns me on his lap so I'm looking right at him, and there's nothing but certainty in his face.
"I already know you're who I want the rest of my life to look like.
I'll sign whatever prenup you want drawn up, I don't want a cent of your money, I want you safe and I want you free. That's the whole ask."
Brick's been quiet this whole time, his arms crossed by the window, and when he finally speaks his voice is low enough that the entire room stills to hear it.
"That's a hell of a thing to offer a woman you've known for four months, son.
" It’s not a rebuke. Just a father making sure his boy knows exactly what he's putting on the table.
Ethan holds his gaze and doesn't flinch, and something passes between them, some silent understanding I'm not part of yet, and Brick gives one curt nod, like that's all the answer he needed.
"It's not a terrible play." Prez taps his pen against the desk. "You'd be married, though. Not a play-pretend patch. You understand that, Ethan?"
"I understand it." He doesn't look away from me once.
"I want to marry someone because I love them, not because a gun's being held to my head, even a friendly one.
" I shake my head slowly, working through it out loud.
"But it would stop my brothers cold. There'd be nothing left for them to negotiate.
" I look at Ethan, torn clean in half. "I need to think.
I can't just say yes to this in a room full of people. "
"No pressure, babe," he says easily, but I catch the flicker of hurt he tries to hide before it's gone.
"We've been in here long enough." Prez pushes back from the desk. "I've got a woman of my own to go find." He heads out, and Brax, Shadow, and Brick file out behind him, Brick's hand landing on Ethan's shoulder for just a second on his way past, gone before either of us can name it.
That leaves me, Ethan, and Abby.
"Thank you." I mean it more than the words can carry. "For all of this."
Abby waves it off, already closing her laptop.
"If it helps, I can build you a marriage that looks completely real on paper.
Filed, legal, and airtight. But it comes with an out built in from day one, so you're not actually trapped in anything.
Nobody would ever know it started that way.
Not your brothers, not the best hacker money can buy. "
"That might be exactly what I need." Something in my chest loosens for the first time all night. "Just until I know for certain what this is."
Ethan pulls me to my feet, he’s quiet which tells me he heard every word of that and is choosing not to argue with it tonight. "Thanks, Abby. We'll let you know."
He leads me out and down the hall toward his room, my bag is heavy in his hand, and neither of us says anything the whole walk there.
"Let's get you settled," he says finally, pushing his door open. "Then I think we need to talk."
I follow him inside, my stomach in knots, bracing for whatever comes next.