NOAH

The morning had started with a heavy, cold feeling in my stomach. It wasn’t something I could think my way out of.

It was just there, sitting below my ribs like a stone I’d swallowed. Nick’s words from two days ago kept playing on a loop, his voice thin and sharp, cutting through the quiet of my memory.

You’ve been fucking him.

Not unless it benefits me.

Information is like water; once it’s out, you can’t exactly put it back in the bottle. And in Nick’s hands, information was never just a fact.

It was a weapon. I spent the first few hours at my desk performing the act of working. I moved files. I answered emails. I stared at spreadsheets until the numbers blurred into gray lines.

To anyone walking by, I looked like a productive employee. On the inside, I was a mess of tangled wires.

Nick is calculated. That’s what makes him dangerous. Most people lash out when they’re angry, but Nick waits. He waits until the moment where the truth will do the most damage to you and the most good for him.

I looked over at Cassian’s office. It was empty. He hadn’t been in all day. No calls, no texts, no pings on the internal system. Usually, that was fine. He had other places to be, other fires to put out. But today, the silence felt louder.

I kept asking myself the same question: Should I tell him?

Every time, the answer came back as a firm no. Not yet. Maybe never.

Cassian always steps in. It’s his reflex. He did it in that lobby, in the dark alley behind the club, at the dinner table when things got cold, and even back in Spain.

Every time I’ve been in trouble, Cassian has been the one to pull me out. I’m tired of being the person who needs to be rescued.

I don’t want him to look at me and see a problem to be managed. I want him to look at me and see... me.

Nick is my brother. He’s my cross to bear. I’ve been handling him since before Cassian even knew I existed. I told myself I could manage it. I convinced myself just enough to get through the afternoon without spiraling.

By the time five o’clock rolled around, the office started to thin out. I was packing my bag when Mason appeared at my desk. He didn’t wait for an invitation; he just leaned against the partition, already mid-sentence.

"Gym," he said. It wasn’t a question. "We said this week, Noah. No excuses."

I looked at him, my bag slumped over my shoulder. "My joints are staging a protest, Mason. A formal one. With signs and everything."

Mason squinted at me. "Signs about what?"

"About how they’ve been treated recently," I said, keeping it vague. "The answer is no."

"How have they been treated recently?"

"Poorly, that’s all I can say. Can we please do something else?"

Mason did his thinking face. It lasted about three seconds. "Fine. Grocery run. Then chicken and beer at my place. The one we should have done before. And I’ve got the new wrestling pay-per-view. You can sit on the couch and pretend your knees don’t work."

The idea of a couch, fried chicken, and a television that didn’t belong to Cassian was the most beautiful thing I’d heard all day.

"Yes," I said. "That is exactly what I want."

We hit the grocery store attached to the mall. It was that specific time of the evening where the aisles are a battlefield.

Everyone is hungry, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to figure out what to eat before they lose their minds.

Mason was in his element. He steered the cart like it was a getaway car, weaving through slow-moving families while delivering the office gossip at a volume that made me want to hide under the frozen peas.

"So," he said, leaning over the handle as we hit the pasta aisle. "You know the accounting director? The one with the very expensive watches?"

"Vaguely," I said.

"His wife found out about his affairs. On a Tuesday. By reading his phone while he was in the shower. Classic mistake."

"Wait, what?"

"That’s the boring part," Mason said, waving a hand. "The tea is that the wife showed up to HQ last week. In the lobby. Heels, full face of makeup, looking like she was ready for a funeral. She asked for him by name at the reception desk."

"She didn’t."

"She did. And then, " Mason leaned in, his eyes wide. "The intern. You know the one. Not Eloise, the other one from accounting. Apparently, she’s been seeing her coworker’s husband. And she’s pregnant. Everyone’s figured it out, and now she’s being transferred to a different branch. ’Voluntarily,’ but we all know what that means."

I stopped dead in the middle of the aisle, a jar of sauce in my hand. "What the hell is happening at XUM?"

Mason laughed, a loud, barking sound that drew looks from a woman buying kale. "So much, Noah. You don’t know because you’re upstairs in the executive bubble with the gods. We’re living different lives down here."

I laughed then. It was the first real, honest laugh I’d had all day. The weight in my chest loosened just a tiny bit. "I’m sorry I’ve been absent."

"Don’t worry about it," Mason said, tossing a box of crackers into the cart. Then his tone shifted. It went from gossipy to that casual, dangerous tone that meant he was about to dig. "Speaking of being absent... Eloise has been asking about you."

"Has she?"

"Wanted your number. Should I give it to her? She’s cute. She’s literally so—"

"No," I said. It was immediate.

"Why not? She’s a catch."

"She wants to get close to Cassian," I said, putting the sauce back on the shelf. "I’m the route. I’m not interested in being anyone’s stepping stone, Mason."

"Okay, but what if she actually—"

"No. I’m done thinking about dating. I want to focus on myself."

Mason stopped the cart. He gave me the look. It’s a very specific look that means he’s caught a scent. "Ohhhhhhh. I see what’s going on now.... There’s someone."

"There isn’t."

"There absolutely is," he said, pointing a finger at me. "You just did the thing. Your face did the thing where it tries to look blank, but fails. I saw the thing, Noah. Who is she?"

"There’s no she," I said, the words slipping out too fast. I felt the heat rise in my neck. "I mean, there’s no one. At all."

Mason just stared at me, a slow smirk spreading across his face. "Noah. Who is the lucky girl?"

In my head, the answer was a roar. It’s a man. It’s specifically a man. It’s a very specific man who owns half the city and whose name I am absolutely not going to say in front of the rotisserie chickens.

Out loud, I said, "Can we just get the chicken now?"

"You’re so suspicious," Mason chuckled, pushing the cart toward the deli. "I’m going to find out eventually."

"You won’t."

"I always find out."

I followed him, trying to suppress the flush in my cheeks. "Chicken," I repeated, like a mantra.

As we were walking through the produce section, a thought hit me sideways.

My laptop. My personal one. I’d left it at Cassian’s villa on Sunday night.

I needed it for some personal projects, which meant I’d have to go back there.

And since Cassian wasn’t at the office, there was usually a high chance he was home.

The thought of the villa brought back a rush of images I hadn’t invited in. The kitchen in the morning.

The way the light hit the marble counters. The smell of the coffee Cassian made. The way his clothes smelled when I leaned against him.

There was a specific, quiet warmth to being allowed in that space, not as an assistant, but as a person.

I grabbed a bag of apples and set them in the cart, telling myself to stop.

The problem was that telling myself to stop had a zero percent success rate when it came to Cassian.

It had been that way for months. Even here, in a crowded grocery store with Mason talking about accounting scandals, the thought of him made something warm spread through my chest.

It was a dangerous feeling. It was the kind of feeling that led to getting hurt, but I couldn’t seem to turn it off.

I pushed the feeling away, or tried to, snapping back to whatever Mason was saying about the price of eggs.

We were almost done. The cart was full of beer, snacks, and a very large container of fried chicken. I reached for a bag of chips on a shelf to my left, my mind already halfway to Mason’s couch.

"Well," a voice said from behind us.

It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a while, but I recognized the cadence instantly. It was smooth, melodic, and carried a faint edge of something sharp.

"It’s been a long time, Noah."

I looked up. My heart did a slow, heavy thud in my chest.

Standing there, looking as perfect and out of place as a diamond in a coal mine, was Lila.

She was smiling, but her eyes were busy scanning Mason and the cart, taking us in with a terrifyingly fast assessment.

"Lila," I said, my voice sounding stranger to my own ears than I expected.

Everything I’d been trying to manage for the last twenty-four hours, the secrets, the fear, the weight of Nick’s threats, suddenly felt like it was about to boil over.