Chapter 7: Cassian’s Legacy

(First Person – Eva)

The room was too quiet. Too neat.  It felt as if no one had set foot in this place for years. The shelves were packed with dusty old books, the fireplace hadn’t seen a flame in months, and that heavy silence hung in the air—thick and stifling, the kind you only encounter in spaces weighed down by memories.

Cassian didn’t say a word at first. He just stood there, gazing out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. He was so stiff, so composed—just like he always was when something was bothering him, and he didn’t want me to notice.

I lingered in the doorway, feeling uncertain about my presence there. But he had asked me to follow him. He’d said, “You wanted answers. So don’t flinch now.”

I didn’t.

“I hate this house,” he said suddenly. The words dropped like stones.

I stepped inside. “Then why live here?”

“Because the devil left it to me,” he said. “And I’m not sure if letting it rot would be better… or worse.”

He turned then. His eyes met mine—dark, but not cold. There was something else tonight. A crack. Just barely there.

“This room was my mother’s,” he said.

I looked around. No photos. No perfume. No sign of her at all.

“She died when I was twelve.” He walked past me, fingers brushing the edge of the fireplace. “Cancer, they said. But she stopped fighting long before the doctors gave her a reason to.”

I was at a loss for words, so I just stayed quiet.

Sometimes silence works better than sympathy.

“My father remarried a month after the funeral,” he continued. “And brought his new wife to this room. Stripped it of everything that made it hers. Said it was time to ‘move forward.’” He laughed, but it was bitter. “He meant erasing her.”

I leaned against the wall. “What kind of man does that?”

“The kind who taught me power means never looking back,” Cassian said. “The kind who’d backhand me for crying. Who taught me how to shoot before I could swim? Who said love was a leash and vulnerability a weapon?”

He paced, slow and deliberate.  It was as if he couldn’t stop moving, like something deep inside him would just fall apart if he did.

“Have you ever thought about why I don’t flinch when people raise their voices?” he asked. “It’s not strength, Eva. It’s because I learned early that bruises fade faster than weakness.”

I swallowed. My fingers curled against my palm. I didn’t pity him. I didn’t even fully understand him. But I recognized the weight in his voice—the weight of a childhood spent surviving someone else's version of manhood.

“Is that why you push people away?” I asked. “Because you think they’ll use it against you if you don’t?”

His gaze snapped to mine. For a second, I thought he’d snap something back. But then his shoulders lowered, and his voice came quieter.

“I push because I’ve seen what happens when you pull someone close. They become a target. Or worse, they leave.”

He never actually said my name, but honestly, he didn’t need to. I already felt like I was woven into the fabric of it all.

I stepped forward. “So you’re inheriting what, exactly? His business?”

Cassian scoffed. “His legacy. The whole empire. The shell of a company that looks clean on paper but was built on blood, bribery, and backroom deals. Everything the media doesn’t know.”

“Why not burn it all down?”

He tilted his head. “Because he made sure I couldn’t. His will locks me in. If I reject it, it goes to someone worse. A cousin in Sicily who thinks torture is still good PR.”

“Jesus.”

Cassian’s smile was there, but it didn’t quite light up his eyes.

“Welcome to my family, darling. You don’t get out. You just learn to survive it better than the last man did.”

I stared at him for a long beat. “And what are you surviving right now, Cassian?”

His throat worked. His fingers flexed. But he didn’t answer.

He looked away instead, back toward the window. “My father used to sit in that chair,” he murmured. “Drink himself stupid, rant about betrayal, threaten lawsuits over dinner. The last thing he said to me before he died was, ‘Don’t screw this up. You don’t get to be weak like your mother.’”

I stepped beside him. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t offer comfort he hadn’t asked for. But I didn’t leave either.

And that, apparently, was enough.

He looked at me again. Slower this time. Like he was seeing me differently.

“You don’t belong in this world,” he said, voice low. “Not mine.”

“I didn’t ask to be dragged into it,” I said.

His lips curled slightly. “Fair enough.”

He strolled over to a cabinet, yanked open a drawer, and retrieved something from inside. A folder. Thick. Worn.

He tossed it on the table in front of me.

“What’s this?”

He folded his arms. “Everything you wanted to know about the empire. My father’s businesses. The fake shell companies. Blackmail files. Photos. Some people would kill to keep this buried.”

My breath caught. “Why give it to me?”

Cassian didn’t blink. “Because if anything happens to me… someone needs to know where the bodies are buried.