Chapter 363: Broken

NOAH

I froze with my body pressed against the cold wall close to the kitchen.

The door downstairs was only cracked open an inch, just a tiny sliver of space, but the words drifted through anyway, clear and sharp enough to cut right through me.

"Whatever this is... between me and Noah... it has an end. It was never built to be a permanent thing."

Then came the second blow, delivered in that same calm, matter-of-fact tone.

"Our arrangement has an expiration date."

It didn’t hit me in waves. It didn’t take time to sink in or register.

The moment the words left his mouth, everything inside me just broke. It was like a glass dropping onto concrete from a high shelf.

One second it was whole, and the next it was just dust and jagged pieces. There was no middle ground.

My body knew what had happened before my brain could even find the words for it. My chest caved inward, pulling tight, shrinking as if I’d been punched hard in the ribs.

The air caught in the back of my throat, turning thick and hot, refusing to go down.

My fists clenched so hard my nails bit into my palm, my knuckles turning white as I tried to hold myself upright.

I didn’t stay to hear whatever else they were going to say. I didn’t want to hear Cyan’s response, or Cassian explaining himself further, or any more talk about dates and endings. I had heard enough to ruin me.

Slowly, I turned around and moved back toward the stairs, keeping my weight light on my feet.

I walked with a terrible, absolute quiet.

I didn’t make a sound. Not a single floorboard creaked under my sneakers as I pulled myself back up to the bedroom.

Upstairs, the television was still on. It was just a stupid movie playing to an empty room, a bunch of bright colors and loud voices that meant absolutely nothing to me now. I had left it on when I went downstairs.

Cassian had told me to stay put. "Stay here. Rest," he’d said before he went down to meet Cyan. He’d smiled when he said it, that low, heavy sort of look in his eyes that always felt like a promise, like a little bit of flirting he couldn’t help but slide into the middle of a serious day.

And I had tried. For a while, I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the TV dialogue fade into background noise. But my mind wouldn’t go quiet. The curiosity had been building inside me for weeks, heavy and rotten, and I couldn’t shake it off.

I kept thinking about his wallet. I kept thinking about the cards inside it, the name I’d seenm... the name Cassian had mentioned while unconscious.

When he was lying in that hospital bed, completely unresponsive, he had cried. The man was covered in bandages, fighting for his life, and he had wept for someone he had never once mentioned to me.

A name he kept locked away in the dark.

I had told myself a lie before I walked out of the bedroom. I told myself I was just going down to listen so I could understand.

I just wanted to know what kind of world Cassian really lived in.

What kind of danger resulted in a man getting seven bullets pumped into his body? What was he hiding behind that quiet, smug face of his?

He wouldn’t tell me directly. Every time I asked, he bypassed the question or gave me a half-answer.

I figured Cyan wouldn’t be as careful. I thought if I just stood in the hall, I might catch a name, a detail, a piece of the puzzle that would make the nightmare make sense.

The plan was simple. I had taken off my shoes. I had crept down the stairs, keeping close to the wall, sliding down the hallway until I reached the door that was left open just enough for sound to carry.

I went down there looking for an answer about his past. Instead, I found something else entirely. I found a truth I wasn’t ready for, something I hadn’t built up any armor to protect myself against.

I sat down on the very edge of Cassian’s mattress, my hands pressed between my knees to stop them from shaking. The TV was still shouting at the wall, but the sound felt miles away, like it was playing at the bottom of a deep well. It couldn’t reach the ache growing in the center of my chest.

The tears came then.

They didn’t start with a sob or a gasp. They were just wet, heavy drops that spilled over my lower lids and ran straight down my cheeks, dripping off my chin onto the dark fabric of my jeans.

I didn’t make a sound. I had learned how to cry like that a long time ago, back when I was a kid living under my parents’ roof. In my house, making noise when you were hurt only brought more trouble.

You learned to grieve with your mouth shut, hiding the evidence before anyone could use it against you.

My father had taught me that lesson years before I ever met Cassian, but sitting on this bed, the habit felt incredibly useful.

What did you expect?

I asked myself the question plainly. I didn’t say it to be mean to myself. I didn’t say it to twist the knife. It was just the cold, hard truth.

You knew what this was from the very beginning.

My mind dragged me straight back to Spain. The hotel room, the smell of the city outside, and the exact words he had used before he ever put his hands on me.

He had laid out the terms clearly. I was an escape. I was a distraction, a boy toy to keep around until the mess cleared up or until he got bored of looking at me. That was the contract. We had both agreed to it.

I was the one who broke the rules. I was the one who forgot what we were doing somewhere between the walks in the park, the long nights in the kitchen, and that horrible, freezing chair in the hospital waiting room.

I had spent an entire month talking to a man who couldn’t even hear me, holding his cold hand and begging him not to die, and somewhere in all that misery, I had let myself think we were building something real.

I forgot. But Cassian hadn’t. He hadn’t forgotten for a single second.

A wave of hot, sickening shame washed over me, mixing with the grief until I couldn’t tell them apart.

Our worlds weren’t even close to the same size. I was just an assistant, a regular guy trying to pay bills, and he was the son of one of the richest, most dangerous men in the country.

Cassian had a record full of things I was still too scared to look up. He had killed people. He had told me so himself, his voice entirely flat, talking about taking a life the way normal people talk about a rainstorm coming in from the east.

What were you thinking, Noah?