Chapter 1 - The Door Between Them
Elara closed the door because Cassian told her to, but she kept one hand on the lock. Dario moved immediately toward the window, peeling back the curtain with two fingers while the second security man crossed the apartment and switched off the lamp beside the sofa. The familiar little room changed in seconds. Her half-finished glass of wine sat beside a bowl of popcorn. A Christmas movie continued silently on the television. Beyond the darkened window, snow drifted past the streetlights, and somewhere below them a black sedan idled at the curb.
“Stay away from the glass,” Dario said.
Elara looked at Cassian. “That’s my street.”
“I know.”
“That’s my apartment.”
“I know that too.” His voice remained controlled, but the stillness in him felt different now. At the office, Cassian’s calm usually meant everyone else was about to become efficient. Here, with two armed men in her living room and a vehicle apparently watching her building, it looked more like effort. “I’m sorry this reached your door.”
She hated that apology more than an order would have been. An order she could argue with. An apology suggested he believed the danger was real.
Dario murmured into his earpiece, then glanced back. “Car’s moving. Northbound.”
“Can you follow it?” Cassian asked.
“Already happening.”
Elara folded her arms over the oatmeal sweater Priya mocked for its hole near the cuff. “You said people connected to your enemies were asking about me. What exactly does that mean?”
Cassian looked toward Dario, who understood the dismissal and stepped into the hall with the other man. The apartment suddenly felt too quiet without them.
“Valenti Logistics has been trying to push into contracts my company controls,” Cassian said. “That part is public. What isn’t public is that some of their business isn’t conducted through contracts.”
“You mean the rumors.”
“I mean the rumors are incomplete.”
Elara’s stomach tightened. She had worked for him for three years. She had booked meetings, canceled flights, memorized dietary restrictions, and learned which men shook Cassian’s hand while visibly wishing they were somewhere else. She had also learned not to ask why certain meetings never appeared on the company calendar. “And your side?”
His gaze stayed on hers. “Also incomplete.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s the most honest version I can give you tonight without making you part of something you never chose.”
She almost laughed. “Someone is sitting outside my building because of you. I think the part where I wasn’t involved may have passed.”
The words landed. Cassian looked away first.
Elara had never seen him do that.
A knock came from the inner hallway, and Priya’s voice followed. “Elara? Why are there men who look like federal agents outside your door?”
Elara opened it before Cassian could stop her. Priya stood there in plaid pajama pants, holding a wooden spoon like a weapon. Her eyes went from Elara to Cassian and widened. “Oh. Wow. Your terrifying boss is significantly more alarming in person.”
“Priya,” Elara said, “this is Cassian Blackwood.”
“I guessed.”
Cassian stepped forward. “Ms. Shah, I need you to go back downstairs and lock your door. My people will remain in the building tonight.”
Priya’s grip tightened on the spoon. “Is Elara in danger?”
“Yes.”
Elara appreciated that he did not soften it.
Priya looked at her. “Then you’re coming downstairs with me.”
“Her apartment has already been identified,” Cassian said. “Moving her one floor changes nothing.”
“And moving her with you does?”
“Yes.”
Priya studied him for a long second. “Do you intend to hurt her?”
Cassian’s expression barely changed, but his answer came without hesitation. “No.”
“Do you intend to boss her around?”
Elara covered her mouth.
Cassian glanced at her. “Statistically, probably.”
Priya blinked, then almost smiled. “At least you know yourself.”
The moment broke something in the room. Not the danger, but the feeling that Elara had already lost control of the night. She went to her bedroom and packed a small suitcase while Cassian waited in the doorway without entering. Two sweaters, jeans, underwear, toiletries, laptop, charger. Her hands shook only once, when she reached for the framed photograph of her mother and younger brother from a summer picnic five years earlier.
“Take it,” Cassian said quietly.
She did.
When she zipped the bag, she turned to him. “Where are we going?”
“A house outside the city.”
“We?”
His eyes met hers. “I’m not sending you somewhere while I stay behind.”
“Because I’m your employee?”
“No.”
The single word hung between them.
Before she could demand the rest, Dario reentered. “We found the sedan abandoned six blocks away. Driver switched cars. More important, building camera caught one of them entering the lobby yesterday afternoon.”
Elara stopped breathing. “Inside?”
Dario nodded. “He never reached your floor. But he photographed the tenant directory.”
Cassian’s face turned cold in a way she had seen only twice, both times when someone threatened a junior employee in a meeting. “We leave now.”
Elara put on her coat. At the door, she paused and looked back at the roasted chicken cooling on the counter, the wine, the cheap decorations, the life that had seemed embarrassingly small an hour earlier. She suddenly wanted it fiercely.
Cassian seemed to understand. “You’ll come back.”
She looked at him. “Don’t promise things you can’t control.”
His jaw shifted. “Fair.”
In the elevator, Dario stood in front while Cassian remained beside her. Their shoulders almost touched. Elara stared at the glowing numbers descending one floor at a time.
“Cassian,” she said.
He turned.
“You said someone noticed you cared enough about me to ask questions.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did they notice?”
May you like
For the first time that night, the man everyone else feared looked uncertain.
The elevator doors opened before he answered.
