Chapter 361: Next step

CASSIAN

I got up slowly from the bed, my weight pressing into the heavy mattress as I looked at Noah.

He looked flushed, his blonde hair a rumpled mess against the dimly lit room.

"Stay here," I said, my voice low enough that it barely carried in the quiet of the bedroom.

I paused, letting my lips brush close to the curve of his ear, just enough to catch the quick hitch in his breathing. "Rest. You’ll need it later."

The red color flooded his cheeks instantly, dark and sudden. "You horny bas—"

I straightened up before he could finish the sentence, the smallest line of amusement touching the corner of my mouth as I turned toward the heavy oak door.

I left him there, buried under the duvet, and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut until the latch clicked home.

As I descended the sweeping curved stairs, the quiet of the villa began to crack. I could hear Cyan’s voice long before I actually reached the bottom, bright and carrying through the wide-open archway of the kitchen.

"—Mrs. Chen, I am telling you right now, if you ever decide to leave this house, I will personally hunt you down," Cyan was saying, his tone dripping with dramatic desperation. "I’ll hire a team. I’ll make it a full operation."

A small, pleased laugh followed... the soft, rattling sound Mrs. Chen made whenever the younger men in the house treated her like royalty.

"You say that every single time you come through that door, Master Cyan."

"And I mean it with my whole heart every single time," Cyan shot back, the sound of a fork clicking against porcelain puncturing his words.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen, stopping by the edge of the large marble island to watch him for a moment before I announced myself.

Cyan was sitting on a high stool at the counter, a wide plate of sliced melon, berries, and small honey cakes spread out in front of him.

He was completely animated, his hands moving through the air as he gestured toward the cutting board, fully performing himself... or simply being himself.

With Cyan, the line between the performance and the reality was a blurred, shifting thing that I had never been able to locate precisely, even after all these years.

He looked fine. His hair was brushed back, his leather jacket hung perfectly over his narrow shoulders, and his skin looked clear under the bright kitchen lights.

But looking fine meant absolutely nothing when it came to Cyan.

It was an old worry, a familiar, heavy shape that had worn itself into my mind over a decade of watching him hide his fractures until the bone literally broke through the skin.

He was remarkably competent at pretending the world wasn’t burning around him until his strength ran out entirely.

We had never finished the conversation we started in the garden after I woke up... the one about the weeks he had spent in the dark while I was comatose.

I had let it go because he seemed lighter the next morning, and pressing Cyan had never once yielded results.

Mrs. Chen noticed me first, her old eyes widening slightly before she gathered her dish towels. "I’ll leave you two to your business," she said, already bustling toward the pantry exit with her head down.

The moment she was gone, Cyan’s eyes snapped to me. His face lit up with an immediate, enthusiastic grin, and he waved his fork through the air.

"There he is! The walking corpse returns. Come, come, sit down." He patted the marble counter beside him with a manicured hand. "Sit."

I moved across the tile floor, the stiffness in my side a dull, steady thudding that I ignored out of habit. I pulled out the heavy stool opposite him and sat down.

"Rico," I said flatly.

Cyan took a slow bite of a melon slice, chewing with deliberate, unbothered calm before he wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Delivered. Successfully. The man understood the assignment perfectly... eventually. It took a little bit of convincing, of course."

"Define convincing," I said, leaning my forearms against the cool stone.

Cyan gave me a small, sharp smile, his eyes glinting. "Define ’do you actually want to know the messy details,’ or are you just making conversation to be polite?"

I just looked at him, my silence settling the question before he could turn it into a joke.

"He’ll have something for us," Cyan said, dropping the napkin onto the counter. "He has no choice now. He knows exactly who holds his leash." He reached for a small honey cake, completely at ease.

I nodded, my mind already leaving the small fish in the lower districts and moving toward the larger, uglier shape of the problem we were actually facing.

"Marceli was feeding Emilio information," I said, the words coming out hard. "The entire time. Which means he’s had eyes on me since the day I walked out of the prison gates. Maybe even before that."

Cyan paused, his cake halfway to his mouth. "And yet, no actual attempts on your life since you got out."

"None," I said. "Which should have told me exactly what I wasn’t looking for. He was confident. He had a plan that didn’t require his own hands on the trigger. Emilio was the plan."

"And now Emilio is dead in a ditch," Cyan murmured.

"Now Emilio is gone," I agreed, staring down at the grain of the marble. "Which means Marceli is back to the beginning. He has to decide what he wants to do with his own hands now."

Cyan leaned forward, his elbows hitting the counter. "So he panics. Just like Emilio did when things went sideways. We catch him while his hands are shaking."

"No," I said, the answer coming instantly, backed by the weight of the years I had spent breathing the same air as the older captains.

"Marceli doesn’t panic. That’s the difference between an old man and a boy. Emilio was young, stupid, and inherited a seat he never earned a single scar for. Marceli built his house from the dirt up, out of nothing but blood and patience. He’s been playing this game since before either of us existed, Cyan. He’ll be careful. He’ll be methodical. He’ll wait until he sees a crack in our foundation before he makes a single move."