Chapter 115: Ghost

NOAH

I stood there, gasping, taking him in. He looked battered. There was a jagged cut above his left eyebrow, still seeping dark red, and another deep gash across his cheekbone.

His expensive white shirt was ruined, torn at the shoulder and splattered with blood. Bruises were already blooming like dark flowers along his jawline.

A nurse was hovering over him, her face a mask of exasperation. “Mr. Wolfe, please. You need to lie down. We need to run the CT scans. There could be internal hemorrhaging, a concussion—”

“I told you, I’m fine,” Cassian snapped. His voice was gravelly, impatient, and vibrated with that familiar, arrogant steel. “Where is Cyan? I want to see him. Now.”

“Sir, you were in a high-speed rollover, ”

“I don’t care about the rollover!” Cassian snarled, trying to stand. He winced, his hand flying to his ribs, but he didn’t stop. “Tell me where he is.”

I took a step into the room, my shadow falling across the linoleum. Cassian’s head snapped toward the movement. His eyes, those sharp, piercing blue eyes, met mine.

For a fraction of a second, the mask faltered. I saw a flash of genuine surprise, maybe even a flicker of something softer, something that looked like relief.

But it was gone before I could even process it. The steel shutters slammed down. His expression shifted into something cold, hard, and utterly unreadable.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

His voice was flat. Empty. It was the voice he used for a disappointing vendor or a minor inconvenience. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him I thought he was dead, to tell him I was sorry for the things I’d said, but the words died in my throat.

Before I could find my voice, Alex rushed in behind me, slightly out of breath. “Cassian, we heard the news. We saw the car. Are you alright?”

Cassian looked past me as if I were a piece of furniture, his gaze fixing on Alex. His jaw tightened, a muscle leaping in his cheek. He stood up fully now, moving with a stiff, pained grace.

He ignored the nurse as he straightened his torn collar, trying to regain some semblance of the Wolfe dignity even while covered in blood.

The tension in the room became thick, suffocating.

“There was no need for you to come,” Cassian said, his voice dripping with dismissive ice. He looked at both of us, at Alex’s concern and my trembling mess of a person, and his lip curled. “It’s just a scratch.”

“Sir, it could be much more than that,” the nurse Interjected, stepping between them. “You need rest. We need blood work, ”

“I want to see Cyan,” Cassian repeated, ignoring her entirely.

I couldn’t stay silent. The fear I had felt seeing that mangled car was still vibrating in my bones.

“Cassian, listen to her,” I said, my voice finally cracking.

“You saw the car. You could have a brain bleed. You could be in so much worse condition than you feel right now. Just… just sit down.”

Cassian turned his gaze back to me. The look on his face wasn’t just cold; it was irritated. “I don’t need your input, Noah.”

The rejection stung, but the anger rose to meet it. I had been terrified. I had felt like my world was ending. “You’re being unreasonable! You’re being stubborn and reckless! Cyan would be fine for ten minutes while you get a scan! You could die!”

Cassian stepped toward me, his height and the dark, bloody aura surrounding him making the room feel small.

“Shut your mouth,” he said, the words a low, dangerous hiss. A look of visible disgust crossed his face as he looked me up and down. “You have no business being here in the first place.”

The nurse tried one last time. “Mr. Wolfe, please, ”

But Cassian was already moving. He headed straight for the door. I stood frozen in his path, my heart breaking all over again. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t even acknowledge that I was a human being standing there.

He brushed past me, his shoulder hitting mine with a hard, intentional jolt that sent me stumbling back against the wall. It was a deliberate act of erasure.

“Take me to Cyan,” he told the nurse, his voice low and threatening. “Or I’ll find him myself. I won’t ask again.”

The nurse looked frightened, her eyes wide as she nodded. “I—yes—of course. This way.”

I watched him follow her down the hall, his gait slightly uneven but his head held high. He didn’t look back. Not at Alex. Not at me. He walked away as if I were nothing more than a ghost he had finally managed to exorcise.

I stood in the doorway of the empty hospital room, the scent of his blood and expensive cologne still lingering in the air. I felt stupid. Small. Invisible.

I had come rushing here, heart in my throat, tears in my eyes, terrified that the world had lost him. I had panicked for a man who didn’t even think I was worth a second glance. He had looked at me like I was a nuisance, a fly buzzing around his head while he was trying to deal with something important.

He was fine. He was alive. And he didn’t care that I had come. He didn’t care that I had been worried.

Alex stepped up behind me, his hand touching my shoulder gently. “Noah?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I just stared at the empty hallway where Cassian had disappeared. The relief I’d felt minutes ago was gone, replaced by a hollow, aching cold that was far worse than the fear.

Because I finally understood. He hadn’t just fired me; he had deleted me. To him, I was exactly what he’d told Cyan I was: a distraction. A useful tool that had outlived its purpose. Nothing special. Nothing at all.

“Let’s go, Alex,” I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.

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