Chapter 92: Sentimental

CASSIAN

The door clicked shut behind us, severing the sounds of the string quartet and the high-pitched chatter of the reception.

The room was a sanctuary of mahogany and leather, dimly lit by amber lamps that cast long, mournful shadows across a heavy desk. In the center sat a decanter of deep red wine and two glasses, looking like an altar prepared for a sacrifice.

Louis Durant didn’t look like a titan of industry. He looked like a man who had spent the last decade trying to hold back the tide with a leaky bucket. His silver hair was perfectly groomed, and his tuxedo was impeccable, but his eyes were hollow, the eyes of someone who had seen the bottom of the abyss and was just waiting for the fall.

I settled into the leather chair across from him, leaning back with a grace that felt like a lie. Every movement pulled at the stitches in my side, a sharp reminder of my own mortality, but I kept my face a mask of cool, corporate indifference. Louis sat stiffly, his hands folded on the table as if he were trying to keep himself from shaking.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. I let it hang there, a tactical weight. In negotiations, the first person to speak usually loses the high ground.

“You know why I’m here, Louis,” I said finally, my voice a calm, low vibration in the quiet room.

Louis let out a bitter, jagged smile. “Your father sent you. Charles must be getting desperate if he’s sending his most effective weapon to crash my daughter’s wedding.”

I allowed a slight smirk to tug at the corner of my mouth. “You’re right. He is. He doesn’t like being told no, and he especially doesn’t like being ignored.” I reached out and poured myself a glass of wine, the liquid dark and viscous in the light. I took a slow sip, watching Louis over the rim.

People like Louis Durant are the hardest to break. No scandals to unearth. No mistress in Paris. No offshore accounts hidden from the taxman. It’s much harder dealing with honest men than dishonest ones. You can’t threaten a man with the truth when he has nothing to hide.

“My father’s offer is generous,” I continued, setting the glass down with a soft clink. “More than generous, actually. Selling Durant Logistics to Wolfe Enterprises would be beneficial for everyone involved. You walk away with enough money to retire three times over, and the company gets the infrastructure it needs to survive the next decade.”

Louis’s jaw went tight. “I don’t care how much you offer. I’m never selling. Not to a man like Charles Wolfe.”

“Is it because of your late wife?”

Louis’s eyes widened, a flash of raw pain cutting through his stoicism before his gaze narrowed into a glare. He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “So now you’re digging up information about me? About her? Is that the Wolfe way? Graverobbing for leverage?”

“My apologies,” I said, entirely unfazed. “I was simply curious about the kind of man I was going to meet. Information is just a tool, Louis.”

“And? Did you find anything useful in your little investigation?”

“Nothing of use to me as a weapon, no,” I said honestly. “But I did find a few interesting things. Your wife, Elena, wasn’t it?, she was the real founder of Durant Logistics. She built it from the ground up while you were still working for the port authority. It was her vision. Her blood, sweat, and tears.”

Louis didn’t deny it. His eyes glistened slightly in the dim light, the mention of her name cracking his armor.

“After she passed, you took over,” I said, my voice softening just enough to be dangerous. “You kept it running. Expanded it. It’s precious to you because it’s the only thing you have left of her. Every truck with her name on it, every warehouse… it’s her legacy.”

“It’s all she had,” Louis whispered, his voice breaking. “I won’t let your father turn her life’s work into a line item on a balance sheet.”

“I understand sentiment, Louis. I really do,” I said, leaning forward into the light. “But I also looked into your financials. I know about the CFO who embezzled two million euros three years ago. I know you covered it up, paying back investors out of your own pocket to avoid a scandal that would tarnish her name.”

Louis stiffened, his hands clenching on the table.

“Since then, Durant Logistics has been hemorrhaging money. You’ve been operating at a loss for eighteen months. You’re keeping it afloat through sheer, stubborn will, but the ship is sinking. You’re clinging to it because it’s hers, but you’re drowning in the process.”

“We’re recovering,” Louis insisted, though the lie tasted like ash.

“Are you?” I pulled a document from my jacket and slid it across the mahogany. “Your projected losses for the next fiscal year. Your dwindling client base. The debts piling up. In six months, you won’t just be broke; you’ll be forced into a bankruptcy that will strip the Durant name off every building you own. Wouldn’t it be better to hand it over to someone who can save it? Who has the resources to honor what she built?”

Louis looked up, his eyes hard and glassy. “If people like the Wolfes knew what family meant, maybe I’d believe you. But you don’t. Your father sees his sons as tools. Assets. Not people. So forgive me if I don’t trust your ’good intentions.’”

I paused. The air in the room felt stagnant. Then, I let out a soft, bitter laugh that surprised even me. “You’re right.”

Louis blinked, caught off guard by the admission.

“The Wolfe family is exactly what you think it is,” I said, leaning back. “My father uses us to further his empire. We are pieces on a chessboard, moved and sacrificed for the sake of the win. There’s nothing real there. No love. No loyalty. Just transactions.”

I let the silence hang for a moment, my own chest tightening with a phantom weight. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand love, Louis. I know what it means to love someone endlessly. To carry them with you even after they’re gone. To see them in every shadow and hear them in every quiet room.”

Julian. The name was a ghost in my throat. I could almost smell the cheap cigarettes and the copper tang of blood. I suppressed the memory with the practiced ease of a man who had spent years building a wall around his own heart.

“Louis, I’m going to be honest with you,” I said, clearing my throat and returning to the clinical coldness of business.

“That would be a first for a Wolfe,” he muttered.

“If you refuse this deal, my father will pursue… other methods.”

“Is this a threat?”

“This isn’t a threat Louis, it’s a warning. Charles Wolfe doesn’t give up. Right now, I’m being the polite one. I’m offering you a choice. If you refuse me, he’ll send someone else. Someone like my brother, Preston, who won’t care about your wife’s legacy. He’ll tear the company apart just for the sport of it.”

Louis’s face went pale.

“Take the money,” I said. “Use it to start something new. A foundation in Elena’s name. A scholarship for women in logistics. Something that honors her without drowning you in debt. Don’t let her memory become a millstone around your neck.”

Louis stared at the document on the table. His hands trembled as he touched the edge of the paper. After a long, agonizing silence, he spoke. “I need time to think.”

“You have twenty-four hours,” I said, standing and straightening my jacket. “After that, the offer expires. And my father takes over the negotiations personally.”

I turned to leave, but Louis’s voice stopped me at the door.

“Mr. Wolfe.”

I paused, looking back over my shoulder.

“You said you understand love—” Louis said, his voice steady now. “If that’s true, then maybe you should stop running from it. Whatever, or whoever, it is you’re holding onto in your head, let yourself feel it. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

My jaw tightened. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just turned and walked out, the sounds of the wedding reception hitting me like a physical blow as I exited the room.

Rather than going back to the table where Cyan and Noah were, I took a detour. I found a secluded stone balcony overlooking the gardens, far away from the string quartet and the forced joy of the guests.

I pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. The lighter was old, a brushed silver Zippo engraved with a simple, elegant J. My thumb traced the letter, the metal cool against my skin. I flicked it open. Click. The flame flared. Click. I closed it.

I lit the cigarette and took a long, deep drag, letting the smoke fill my lungs. My chest hurt, not just from the ribs, but from a deeper, older ache that I usually kept buried under layers of ice and ego.

The apartment in the outskirts of the city. It smelled like damp walls and Julian’s cooking, something cheap, mostly pasta and garlic.

Julian was making a lame joke as usual, his hair messy, prancing around the tiny kitchen while he tried to explain a move on the chessboard we’d set up on the floor. He was the only person who had ever looked at me and seen something other than a Wolfe.

The image shifted. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the kitchen. I was in the rain. I saw Julian’s face, crushed, bloodied, and pale. I saw him trying to crawl toward me on the pavement, his fingers scratching at the asphalt, his eyes wide with a terror I couldn’t soothe.

I clicked the lighter one last time, the sound sharp in the night air. I was irritated. I hated feeling sentimental. Sentiment was a weakness, a crack in the armor that my father and Preston would exploit until I was nothing but dust.

Usually, when the memories of Julian became too loud, I took it out on someone. I exerted control. I reminded the world that I was the one holding the leash.

Noah came to mind.

The image of him earlier, sweaty, defiant, his green eyes flashing with that ridiculous American spirit, flickered in my head. He was so incredibly irritating. He was stubborn, he was loud, and he had absolutely no sense of self-preservation.

But as I thought of him, the irritation in my chest shifted. It didn’t disappear, but it changed shape. It wasn’t the jagged, cold anger I felt toward my father or the hollow grief I felt for Julian. It was something else. Something hot and insistent.

Why him? I wondered, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the Spanish night. Out of everyone I could have chosen to break, why was I so fixated on a junior assistant who didn’t even know how to fold a shirt correctly?

I clicked the lighter shut and slid it into my pocket. I needed to get back to the reception.

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