Shattered Lines

~ARIA’S POV~

I should have listened to the voice in my head.

The one that sounded too much like Cassian’s, clipped and cold with danger laced beneath every word.

But when I saw Sienna’s message, I didn’t think. I felt.

Now, standing in that alleyway, hidden behind crates soaked in salt air and city grit, I wished I’d stayed behind the gates of the estate. I wished I hadn’t left the shadows Cassian kept me under because out here, something was unraveling, and I was at the center of it.

I pressed myself closer to the wall, barely daring to breathe as Sienna’s voice cracked through the quiet.

“It’s not that simple,” she hissed into the phone. “The first attempt failed. Someone seems to have neutralized both assets. The source is unknown but I'm sure we're being watched.”

My fingers dug into the brick. The first attempt. Assets. Neutralized.

I didn’t need Cassian’s cold briefings to translate that. Someone had tried to eliminate me. Someone had failed.

And now Sienna - my best friend, my only friend was here, in this alley, talking about me like a target.

A low voice crackled faintly through her phone. I couldn’t make out the words, but they made her flinch like they’d cut skin.

“Then finish it,” she whispered back. “The window is closing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My pulse thundered in my ears. I should’ve run. I should’ve turned and sprinted down the alley and called…

Cassian.

God help me, he was the only one who could protect me from this.

But I didn’t move.

Not yet.

Sienna was shaking. Her voice cracked again. “Do you have any idea what will happen if he finds out I touched her? You don’t know him. Cassian Wolfe will raze the city for her, even if he doesn’t love her.”

I sucked in a breath.

I wasn’t supposed to hear that. I wasn’t supposed to know.

But now it was burning into my skin.

They knew. They all knew.

I wasn’t Cassian’s wife because of love. I was his because I was his property. A possession. Something he’d fight for, not because he wanted me, but because someone else did.

Sienna’s voice dropped into something bitter and broken.

“You’re asking me to die. That’s what this is.”

Then came a heavy and cold silence.

I backed away, careful not to make a sound.

My legs moved before my mind caught up. Back toward the café. Back to the memory of her smile across our coffee cups.

She returned minutes later, face pale, hands trembling, but her expression was tight and controlled.

“Sorry about that,” she said with a weak laugh. “Work drama.”

I stared at her, trying to match the girl in front of me to the one I’d just seen unravel in the alley. She looked like Sienna. She sounded like her. But now… I couldn’t unsee the truth behind her eyes.

We talked about small things with a few empty words. The kind you say when you both know the truth but can’t name it.

I sat through it all like I was somewhere else, floating in slow dread.

Her phone buzzed again. Another call.

She didn’t excuse herself this time. Just rose and left, clutching the phone like it was burning her from the inside out.

And I followed again.

Like a fool. Like a girl still clinging to the last frayed string of trust.

I watched as she stepped into the alley, voice cracking again. “I can't carry out this task. He will destroy me without a second thought.”

Then the voice on the other end said something - something that made her mouth twist.

“Do it.”

Her breath hitched.

“It won't be simple but at least it's better,” she whispered. 

The words echoed in me like thunder.

She ended the call with shaking hands and leaned against the wall like it was the only thing holding her up.

That’s when I knew.

This wasn’t just betrayal. This wasn’t just a bad friend or a petty rivalry.

This was a game I didn’t understand, one I was never meant to survive.

It was danger and I needed to escape it but my legs were locked in place and weak to move. My hollow chest ached from betrayal and then, without thinking, I pulled out my phone.

Cassian had told me not to go to him unless it was necessary.

This was necessary.

I typed the message with shaking fingers:

[Come get me. Please.]

The second I hit send, I felt it.

The shift.

Like the city itself inhaled.

Like something ancient and brutal had just awakened.

The air changed and as I lifted my head, Sienna's piercing eyes cut through me like a blade. Her stare was fiery and unflinching as her eyes blazed with fire with every step she took closer to me.

—-

~CASSIAN’S POV~

The screen went black.

I didn’t breathe.

“Reconnect that feed!” I barked.

No response.

Static hissed in my earpiece. White noise. Interference.

“Shadow Team Prime… do you copy?”

More static. Then a flicker.

“…Sir, we’ve lost visual. Alley cameras are unresponsive. Target is no longer in line of sight.”

Just then my phone lit up. It was Aria. She sent a message:

[Come get me. Please.]

Rage crawled up my spine like wildfire.

I shoved my foot down. The engine growled as the car surged forward through a narrow turn, ignoring traffic lights and honking civilians. I didn’t care if I scraped a dozen bumpers on the way - none of it mattered.

Aria had walked into a trap, and I was stuck in this moving cage, seconds stretching into eternity.

“She should never have gone alone,” I muttered under my breath.

But that was a lie.

I should never have let her.

I knew she’d gotten that message. I watched the moment she typed back, “3pm. I’ll be there.” I knew the moment she decided to keep it from me.

And I had let her walk out the gates, thinking she had a shadow of freedom.

Because I wanted to believe she still trusted someone.

Even if it wasn’t me.

I switched channels.

“Team Two, reroute to the alley. I want eyes on that back corridor now.”

“Copy that. ETA: Three minutes.”

“Make it two.”

The sun was low in the sky now. The shadows stretched long across the windshield like claws.

My pulse was a war drum in my throat. A hard, heavy beat that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with fury.

Aria was mine.

Not in the romantic sense people waxed poetic about. Not even in the way I was supposed to care.

She was mine because I claimed her… because I chose her.

And no one steals from me.

No one.

I took the next turn hard, tires shrieking against the asphalt. The alley was three blocks away now.

My wrist console blinked.

ALERT: Primary Feed Re-established – 34% Stability

I pressed into the command stream. The footage came back, grainy. Lagging. But it showed enough.

Sienna.

She was in the alley, back turned to the camera.

And in front of her, Aria.

Alone.

The angle was off, but I caught the hesitation in Aria’s body language, the slight stumble backward.

My throat dried.

They weren’t alone.

A second figure appeared from the shadows behind the dumpster. A tall male with a flash of something metallic in his hand.

Then a third, holding something small.

A phone.

No, a camera.

I slammed the brakes as I reached the edge of the block, heart thudding so violently it echoed in my ears.

They were going to finish what Malik had started.

This wasn’t just an ambush.

It was a recording.

A setup.

Again.

And this time, there’d be no rescue unless I made it in time.

“Team Two, where the hell are you?”

“Thirty seconds out.”

“Too long.”

I threw the door open and sprinted.

Not waiting.

Not commanding.

Just moving.

The café blurred past me, a startled server dropping a tray as I stormed through the alley’s mouth.

A scream cut through the silence… then nothing.

A flash of light.

Footsteps.

Someone running.

I reached for the holster at my side.

Turned the corner and stopped dead.

The alley was empty.

The door at the far end swinging shut.

A phone lay on the ground - Aria’s. The screen cracked, a single unread message glowing at the top.

UNKNOWN SENDER: “Did you really think he could protect you?”

My chest burned. My vision tunneled.

Because I was too late.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t know if I was going to get her back whole or at all.