Chapter 368: Feud pt 2

CASSIAN

"Does she know about the apartment downtown?" I leaned in a little closer, watching the skin around his eyes tighten.

"The one that isn’t listed under your name or hers? Or the man who seems to visit it twice a month whenever she’s out of the country?"

For one beautiful, unbroken second, Preston froze completely.

The perfect, aristocratic mask he hid behind cracked right down the middle, revealing a sudden, sharp panic that made his breath catch in his throat.

"Hmm... Funny... And the way you always spoke about my sexuality..." I paused, letting the words hang like a noose around his neck. "Who knew you were busy participating in that so called disgusting act?"

"I’m not the same as you."

He tried to pull the pieces back together, smoothing his expression out as fast as he could, but it was already too late. I had seen it.

I smiled, letting him see the teeth behind it. "I know things too, Preston. I’ve always known things. I just don’t usually find it useful to say them out loud until someone starts forgetting their place."

Preston swallowed hard, his jaw working as he gripped his folders until his knuckles turned entirely white.

"Fine," he muttered, his voice sounding entirely too strained, too tight. "If you are so desperate to have this miserable project back, take it. I have far more important priorities to deal with anyway."

I knew exactly what he was doing. Preston had never given away a single thing in his entire life without a fight, and this sudden surrender was a massive red flag.

He turned toward the door, his stride quickening as he headed for the exit.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, little brother," he called out over his shoulder, his voice recovering some of its bitter edge.

"Just because Father changes his favorite tool of the month doesn’t mean he changes his mind about who actually belongs in this family."

The threat hung in the air like winter frost, heavy and cold.

He reached the threshold, his hand on the heavy brass handle. He took three steps out into the hallway, then four.

Then, without turning around to look at me, he stopped.

"By the way," he said.

Every single muscle in my back locked up. An old, deep instinct rolled through my chest, putting me on high alert before I even knew why. I didn’t answer. I just stood by the table, watching his back.

"Noah, wasn’t it?" Preston asked. He threw the name out with a casual, careless shrug, as if he were simply trying to remember the name of a restaurant he had passed on the street.

My throat went completely dry.

"He seems remarkably loyal," Preston murmured, finally turning his head just enough to show me the sharp edge of his smile. "That’s a very rare quality in our line of work these days. A bit fragile, perhaps, but loyal."

He paused, his eyes gleaming in the dim light of the hallway. "Try not to get him killed, Cassian."

The world inside my head went completely quiet.

The project, the investors, the missing signatures, the budget sheets... every single bit of it vanished from my mind in a fraction of a second.

None of it mattered anymore. The anger that flared up inside my chest wasn’t the cold, calculated resentment I used to handle my brother. It was a heavy, suffocating heat that made my hands curl into fists.

Preston didn’t notice people. He didn’t care about assistants, or secretaries, or the help.

He only looked at someone if he saw a way to slide a knife between their ribs or use them to pull down someone else. If he knew Noah’s name, it meant he had already been watching him.

"Mention him again," I said. My voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried a weight that made the air in the room feel instantly heavy.

Preston turned around fully, his brows drawing together. "What?"

"Mention his name again," I said, stepping away from the table.

The entire energy in the space shifted. Preston took a half-step back before he even realized he was doing it, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at my face.

He had insulted my time in prison. He had insulted my birth, my mother, and the fact that I had nearly died on a stretcher, and I had taken all of it without a single change in my posture.

But this was different.

I took another step forward, closing the distance between us until I was standing right in the doorway, looming over him.

"You’ve spent your entire life hiding behind Father’s name and your prestigious little titles, Preston. I spent mine becoming the exact reason the people who locked me up in that cell never wanted me released back into the world."

I stepped even closer, until I could smell the expensive cologne on his neck, my voice dropping into a dangerous, jagged edge.

"So if you ever decide that Noah is useful to you, or if you even look in his direction again..." I let the silence stretch out, absolute and terrifying. "You better pray to whatever God you believe in that the police find your body before I do."

Preston stared at me, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have a witty comeback.

He didn’t have a sarcastic comment about the gutters. He looked into my eyes and realized with absolute, terrifying certainty that I wasn’t playing a corporate game anymore. I was telling him exactly how he was going to die.

He swallowed hard, trying to patch up what was left of his dignity as he backed out into the main corridor, his movements hurried, almost clumsy.

"Relax," he stammered, his voice shaking around the edges. "It was just an observation, Cassian. Don’t lose your mind."

He turned and practically bolted out.

The doors closed, and he was gone.

I stood alone in the empty conference room. The digital projector was still running against the back wall, casting a soft, hopeful blue light across the empty chairs.

The luxury rehabilitation wing was still rotating on the screen, a beautiful, multi-million-dollar dream that suddenly felt completely empty.

A year ago, Preston could have threatened me with anything he wanted. He could have threatened my position, my money, my cars, or my standing in the family, and it wouldn’t have broken my skin. I didn’t have a weak spot. I didn’t have a single thing in the world that he could touch that would actually make me bleed.

Now, there was Noah.

A cold, heavy knot of fear tightened in my gut. It wasn’t a fear for myself... I had never given a damn about what happened to my own skin but for Noah.

Noah, who was currently waiting somewhere out in the lobby, thinking his biggest problem was a tense boss and a mountain of unanswered emails.

He didn’t understand the people I came from. He didn’t understand what my brother was capable of doing when he had years to plan a strike from the shadows.

I walked into this building thinking that reclaiming this project was the only thing that mattered. I thought winning the room was the goal.

I stood there in the quiet, watching the lights flicker against the glass, knowing that only one thing actually mattered now. I had won the project back, but I was leaving the room knowing that I had just given my brother the one weapon that could actually destroy me.