Chapter 112: Confession

CASSIAN

I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, the leather warm against my back. The music cut off immediately, plunging the car into a silence that felt twice as heavy.

Cyan didn’t start the car. He turned in his seat, his eyes hidden behind expensive sunglasses, studying me with the intensity of an artist looking for a flaw in a canvas. “How’d it go?”

“He agreed to sell,” I said, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. “Under the condition that I oversee the integration personally.”

Cyan whistled low, raising his eyebrows. “Seriously? You’re going to be grounded in the office for months.”

“My father agreed. Enthusiastically.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Cyan paused, waiting for me to look at him.

I turned my head to look out the window, watching the gates of Durant’s estate. “Yeah,” I breathed. But the word lacked weight. I didn’t feel the rush of victory. I didn’t feel the predatory satisfaction of a successful hunt.

All I could see was Noah’s face… the raw, bleeding hurt in his eyes when he told me I was heartless. I could still hear the disgust in his voice, a sound that resonated with Durant’s warning about being terrified of caring.

“You know, I thought you’d be happier about this,” Cyan said, his voice dropping into a more serious register.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” Cyan’s voice sharpened, the playful edge vanishing. “You weren’t fine last night when you were at Mateo’s drunk and high off your ass, looking for a way to delete your own brain. And you’re still not fine now.”

I didn’t respond. I kept my gaze fixed on the passing scenery as he finally pulled the car into gear.

“You’re brooding,” Cyan continued. “You never brood like this unless… ” He stopped, the realization clicking into place. “This really is about Noah isn’t it?”

“Drop it,” I said, my voice flat and dangerous.

“Cassian… ”

I turned to him, my eyes hard. “I said drop it, Cyan.”

But Cyan didn’t have the sense to be afraid of me today. He crossed his arms, steering with one hand as he navigated the winding road. “No. Something happened between you two. Something bad enough to make you self-destruct in a way I haven’t seen in a while. What did he say to you? Or better yet, what did you do to him?”

The question hung in the air, heavy and accusatory. I felt the pressure in my chest building, the need to purge the truth just to stop the internal thumping.

I exhaled slowly through my nose. “I fired him. His termination takes effect when we return from the trip. He’s done.”

Cyan actually flinched, his foot tapping the brake for a second. “What? You… you fired him? Why the hell would you do that?”

“I did him a favor,” I snapped, my voice tight. “He clearly wants to be with Alex. He’d rather be with someone like that than… ” I bit the words back, but it was too late.

“Than what?” Cyan pushed.

“Than a criminal,” I spat. The word tasted like ash. Noah’s word. The word he’d used to define me.

Cyan went very still. “Oh?”

“Yeah. He threw it in my face. Said only one of us has a criminal record. Said I must have done something horrible for my family to cover it up.” I clenched my fist until the knuckles turned white. “The disgust in his voice, Cyan… it was absolute.”

“Cassian… ”

“I don’t care,” I lied, cutting him off. “It doesn’t matter. He wants Alex. He can have the ’good guy.’ He can have the genuine, kind, boring life he deserves.”

“You’re lying,” Cyan said firmly. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have gotten blackout drunk. You wouldn’t be sitting here looking like someone ripped your heart out. And yet, here you are. Still moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

“You absolutely are.” Cyan looked away, his jaw working as he wrestled with something. “God, now I feel guilty,” he muttered to himself.

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.

Cyan hesitated, then let out a long, ragged sigh. “I might have… made a deal with Noah. I told him that if he didn’t want you, I was willing to take you off his hands. He was hesitating, and I wanted to see where his head was at. I made him a test.”

My blood turned to ice. “What kind of test?”

“I told him I’d ask you how you really felt about him,” Cyan whispered. “And that we’d see what you said.”

My mind flashed back to that night… the cocktails, Cyan’s pointed questions about Noah’s utility, about my feelings. I remembered my response. I remembered being a Wolfe. “He’s a distraction. A useful one, but just a distraction. I don’t care about him. I own him. Why would I care? He’s nothing special.”

The realization hit me like a physical blow to the gut. “Noah might have been listening,” Cyan added quietly.

Everything clicked. The sudden shift in Noah’s demeanor. The cold, professional distance. The way he’d looked at Alex as if he were a life raft in a storm. He hadn’t just suspected I didn’t care; he’d heard me confirm it with my own mouth.

“So what?” I said, my voice cold, shielding the agony underneath.

“So what? Cassian, he thinks you think he’s nothing!”

“Maybe that’s better,” I said. “There’s no point in clearing it up. Drive, Cyan.”

I pulled out a cigarette, the lighter clicking with a metallic snap that echoed in the cabin. Cyan took one too, and for a few minutes, we just smoked, the blue haze filling the car as we drove toward the city center.

“It’s better this way,” I said eventually, my voice clinical. “Noah wants to be with Alex. And honestly? Maybe I was wrong about Alex. Maybe he is what Noah needs.”

“You don’t believe that,” Cyan said, glancing at me sharply.

“Noah deserves better than a piece of shit criminal,” I continued, ignoring him. “I am exactly what he said I am. Selfish. Heartless. Manipulative. I am beyond saving, and I plan on committing more crimes to get what I want. I’m the highest scumbag you can think of and I wasn’t exactly nice to him.”

My chest ached, a deep, hollow throb. “So there’s no point in clearing things up. Even if he knew the truth… even if he knew I… ” I stopped, the words loved him or cared for him unable to pass the barrier of my pride. “It doesn’t matter. He’s better off away from me. I already made him miserable. Other than money, I have nothing to offer him. Alex will do better. Let it end here.”

My voice didn’t waver, but inside, I was shattering into a million jagged pieces. I was choosing to be the monster everyone expected because it was safer than being the man who lost.

Cyan was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spoke, his voice soft. “You’re as stubborn as a mule, Cassian. No… worse. You’re as stubborn as your father.”

I flinched. That was the deepest cut. But I didn’t argue. I just stared out the window at the Barcelona streets, trying to breathe through the sensation of drowning.

“He wants Alex,” I repeated, a mantra to kill the heart. “He can have him.”

Suddenly, the world exploded into a cacophony of sound. A horn, loud and prolonged, blared from the side. I looked up just in time to see the grill of a massive trailer-truck, a wall of steel heading toward us without slowing.

“Cyan!” I roared.

Cyan swerved, the tires screaming against the asphalt, but it was too late. The impact was a bone-jarring, metallic thunder. The glass shattered, a thousand diamonds flying through the air. The car flipped, the world spinning in a terrifying blur of sky, road, and crunching metal.

My head hit the window. Pain, white and searing, spiked through my skull. Then, the world went black.

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