MasukCASSIAN'S POV The phone line beeped for a second before Sylas answered.“Hello.” “Hey brother.” I moved away from the spot where I stood. “Miss me?”“Cassian.” His voice turned icy.“No need to sound so grumpy, it’ll make you age fast…”“You have Vera, don't you?” He cut me off.I exhaled deeply. “You're boring, I can't even have one straight conversation with you.”“Do you have my wife?!” His voice echoed through the cell line.“Hang on a second.” I walked over to the far end of the room where Vera had been tied up.On my signal, Sarah tore off the clothe tied to her mouth.“It's your husband,” i whispered, moving the phone closer to her ear.“Babe?” She called in a cracked voice.“Vera, are you alright? Did they hurt you?” “I…”I didn't give her time to speak before pulling the phone back. “Time up.”“Cassian, you're going too far this time.” Sylas grunted.“Am I?” I turned towards the window with a smirk. “I'm the one you have issues with, why drag my wife into it?” His anger
SYLA’S POV “Boss, we've set a new trail, we should be able to get to his new location soon.” Elias said over the phone.I mumbled in reply before hanging up the call.Cassian had fooled me. He had purposely set such a stupid trap and I fell into it blindly.It should've struck me the moment they got his location without much struggle, he wasn't dumb to get caught so easily.I gritted my teeth in anger as I stared outside the car window. This would be the last time I would let him get away with anything.I headed straight to my bedroom when I got home. I had to keep Vera updated on what happened, I needed to make new plans to ensure her safety because Cassian was getting more cunning by the minute.“Babe.” I called, heading down the stairs again. She wasn't in the bedroom, nor had she come to acknowledge my return. “Vera.” I called, hurrying into the kitchen. She still wasn't there.I dialed her number on my phone, and only then did I realise that she had left me a few missed calls
VERA’S POVA lump formed in my throat as the men approached the car. At that moment, every instinct screamed at me to run, to find a way out of this goddamn situation. But I failed to move even a muscle.“Sarah..” I turned to her again, but before I could say a word, the men yanked out of the car aggressively and dragged towards the warehouse.“Help!” I screamed, desperately trying to wriggle myself from their grip. “Somebody help me!” “Shut your hole.” Sarah snapped behind me.I didn't listen to her, I had no intentions to. I kept screaming my lungs out, even though I observed that the area was isolated.The men hurled me into a dark room. I ran behind them as soon as they did, and because I had a slim figure, I was able to slip out and past them.“Hey!” The men pursued me from behind while I ran with every ounce of energy in my body.I had mapped the area when they first dragged me past, even though I had been screaming.There was an open exit at the fence area, if I could get o
Vera's POVI woke up that morning with no idea the word had already gone out to begin."Where's Marta?"The maid who usually brought my tea at ten sharp was nowhere in the kitchen, and neither was the second girl who normally trailed behind her. I stood in the doorway with my robe still tied loose at the waist, looking at an empty counter where a tray should have been sitting."She was let go, ma'am." One of the newer guards, a man I didn't recognize, answered without quite meeting my eyes. "Reassignment, I believe.""Reassigned where?"He didn't answer that one. He just gave a small nod and walked off toward the east hallway, leaving me standing there with a question I couldn't shake loose.I told myself it didn't mean anything. Staff came and went, especially with Sylas tightening security every other week since Cassian showed his face again. But Marta had been with the estate longer than I had. She wasn't the kind of person you reassigned without warning.I tried Sylas's phone for
Cassian's POVWord of the raid reached me before Sylas had even finished counting the guns he'd found."Have they found the factory yet?"I asked it without looking up from the whiskey I was pouring, that was because I already knew the answer. My phone buzzed against the counter, a single text from a man I paid too well to ever be late with an update popped up."They're inside, nothing is there."I smiled and took a sip.Sylas was a lot of things. Ruthless and smart, in the way rich men are smart when other people do the actual thinking for them. But predictable, that was the word for it. Predictable in a way that made all of this almost too easy to carry out.He'd spent weeks chasing a building I hadn't set foot in since I bled a hole through it on purpose. Torn wiring, forged shipping logs, and a laptop left open with just enough on it to send him into a panic. I built that factory to be found. I built it to be believed.My father used to say I never finished anything. Funny, consid
Sylas' POV"Vault 7 is locked down," Lance said through the radio, his voice sharp against the static. "But boss, whoever got in has already got out."I didn't answer him right away, my eyes were fixed on the laptop which was still glowing on the desk in front of me, the email about the vault burning itself into my memory. Cassian hadn't just walked into my company, he had walked into the one place I had never told him existed before."Keep the sweep going," I finally said. "I want every room in this building checked before we leave.""Copy that."I left the office and moved down the corridor with Marcus and two others behind me, my flashlight cutting through the dark in sharp, restless arcs. The deeper we went, the more the place started to feel less like an abandoned building and more like a nest someone had only just crawled out of.We found the first room behind a stack of rusted shelving that didn't match the rest of the factory. Marcus noticed it before I did, the way the shelf
The pain from his betrayal was already wrecking me apart before the sound of the slap reached me,A sharp and completely brutal crack split the air apart, and for a full heartbeat, I stood there in confusion, not understanding what had just happened.My head snapped to the side, my vision blurred,
The next few minutes were a blur.I don’t remember driving home, nor do I remember how my trembling hands were able to clench the steering wheel, or how my legs even managed to reach the pedal.The only thing I could recall was Evan calling Lyra’s voice, but not mine.By the time I drove into the p
I was dumb and in love, so I made a mistake I should not have ever made. I followed him out.I should not have grabbed my keys out of my purse with trembling hands, rushed to my car and driven blindly across the city following my fiancée with a shattered heart and a vision now clouded by humiliatio
Vera’s POV:I pushed the front door open with a fluttering heart and a grin on my face.Today was our anniversary, and I was sure Evan had planned a surprise party for me. He had tried to hide it, but over the past few weeks, I had seen him sneaking off to take calls, and watched him meet with even







