Chapter 366: The Flawless Assistant pt 2

CASSIAN

By the end of the week, the car ride to the XUM headquarters felt small, the air thick and stifling between us.

Noah was sitting in the passenger seat, his laptop balanced on his knees, his eyes fixed on a spreadsheet as the city blurred past the windows. His focus was total.

It was too total.

I leaned against the door, watching the side of his face for a long, heavy moment. His skin looked clear, his profile sharp against the grey light outside, but there was an stillness to his shoulders that hadn’t been there a week ago.

Noah didn’t look up from his screen, but I saw his jaw tighten slightly. "What."

"Nothing," I said.

"You’re staring." His tone was perfectly flat, completely professional.

"I’m thinking."

"You should probably think about the project," Noah said, his finger tapping the trackpad to scroll down another page.

"We’re ten minutes away from the building."

He closed the door again. Just like that.

I looked away, turning my face toward the side window as we pulled into the central district.

I told myself it was fine. I told myself this was exactly what a normal relationship looked like... he was an employee, he was focused on his duties, and I was paying him to ensure the transition back into the office went smoothly.

But there was a persistent, irritating hunger clawing at the bottom of my ribs, and it had nothing to do with the work. It wasn’t even about his body, though that hunger was always there, a steady hum in the background.

It was something much larger and far more inconvenient.

I wanted his attention. I wanted the rambling sentences, the small, stupid jokes, the easy affection that he used to give away without me ever having to ask for it.

I had built an entire comfort zone around his presence without ever realizing I was doing it, and now that he had taken three steps back, the floor felt unsteady beneath my feet.

I shook the thought out of my head, focusing instead on my brother. It was a relief, comparatively. Preston was an enemy I knew how to handle.

The moment we entered the main lobby of XUM, the atmosphere changed.

Conversations died out mid-sentence.

Security guards straightened their jackets, and the receptionists froze, their eyes tracking me as I walked through the glass doors.

My father had done his absolute best to suffocate the news of the shooting, keeping the details locked tightly within the family, but rumors in our world were like smoke... they found every crack.

Nobody had known for certain if I was dead, brain-damaged, or permanently crippled.

And now, there I was.

I didn’t look like a man who had been carrying seven bullets a month and half ago.

I walked without a limp, my coat hanging perfectly from my shoulders, my pace unhurried as I moved toward the executive elevators.

I didn’t announce myself, and I didn’t look at the people staring. My presence alone was louder than any statement I could have printed.

Noah walked half a step behind my shoulder.

He kept the exact distance required of a personal assistant, his tablet held against his ribs, his expression a blank, unreadable mask.

Even surrounded by the whispers of the lobby, he didn’t look at me for reassurance.

He just did his job.

We took the elevator up to the top floor, the silence between us heavy until the doors chimed open across from the main conference room.

Through the frosted glass of the double doors, I could hear Preston’s voice. It was confident, resonant, carrying the precise tone of a man who believed he had successfully inherited a kingdom.

I didn’t knock. I didn’t wait for the assistant outside to clear us. I simply reached out, took the silver handle, and pushed the door wide open.

The room turned instantly.

Preston was standing at the head of the long mahogany table, a laser pointer in his hand, a digital rendering of his luxury rehabilitation wing projected onto the wall behind him.

A dozen investors and senior consultants were seated around the room, their notebooks open, their heads turned toward him.

The moment the door swung back, Preston’s voice died mid-word.

His mouth remained slightly open, the laser pointer wavering against the screen as his eyes locked onto mine.

I stood in the doorway for a second, taking in the entire scene. I looked at the investors, I looked at the modified designs on the wall, and then I let a small, calm smile touch the corners of my mouth.

It wasn’t warm, and it wasn’t cold; it was the exact expression designed to make everyone in the room wonder how much I already knew.

"Apologies for the interruption," I said lightly, my voice cutting easily through the sudden silence.

I walked into the room, my boots striking the hardwood floor with a steady, deliberate click. I kept my gaze fixed entirely on my brother. "I thought I’d join the discussion."

The silence in the room was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop on the carpet.

Preston recovered, but it took him a full three seconds too long. The color drained from his cheeks before he forced his features back into a polite, corporate mask. "Cassian... we didn’t expect you back so soon."

"Clearly," I murmured.

I didn’t head for the side of the room. I walked straight down the length of the table toward the heavy leather chair at the head—the exact seat Preston was currently standing in front of.

I didn’t sit in it. I simply stopped right beside it, resting one hand on the carved wooden back, leaning into it just enough to make it clear that he was standing in my space.

"Please," I said, looking around the table at the frozen faces of the board members. My voice was pleasant, soft, and entirely final. "Continue."

Not a single person at that table missed the shift. Without a single word of accusation, without a single threat spoken aloud, the balance of power in the room had just flipped completely.

Preston looked down at the paper in his hand, his knuckles white, his composure visibly cracking around the edges as he realized every move he had made over the last month had just been overridden.

I glanced toward the doorway. Noah was standing just inside the room, his back against the wall, his tablet active in his hands. He was logging the attendance, completely professional, his face a perfect, unreadable slate.

I caught his eye for a fraction of a second, looking for some flicker of amusement, some sign of the shared understanding we used to have whenever we had to deal with my family’s nonsense.

Noah looked back at me. He held my gaze for exactly as long as professionalism required—no longer, no shorter—and then his eyes dropped back down to his screen, his thumb scrolling through a document. He closed the door on me again.

Sitting there at the head of the table, surrounded by investors, consultants, and my brother’s crumbling pride, I didn’t feel a single shred of triumph.

The only thing I could think about was the irritating, persistent fact that I would have traded every single person in this room, and the entire victory over Preston, for five uninterrupted minutes of Noah looking at me the way he used to.

I didn’t let the thought show on my face. I pulled the leather chair back, sat down in Preston’s vacated seat, and asked for the floor.