Chapter 2

The hospital room was painfully white.

My mother had only just opened her eyes when she turned toward me and asked, in a voice so weak I had to lean closer to hear it,

“Who is he?”

I lowered my gaze and bit the inside of my lip.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I let you down.”

She watched me for a long moment, then closed her eyes again. When she spoke, her voice was steadier, but only just.

“If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t force you. But you will not attend the graduation ceremony. Finish your defense next week, and after that, you leave. I want you abroad before anyone has time to say your name again.”

I nodded. “Alright.”

That should have been the end of it, but standing there beside her bed, I kept seeing him anyway.

The first time I met Cassian, I was nineteen and standing in the rain outside the institute, trying not to panic.

My mother had sent me to deliver an original manuscript to a private trustees’ dinner that night, and I had left the document tube across the city in the restoration studio. Traffic was frozen, the driver was nowhere near me, and I could already imagine my mother’s face when I failed to arrive with it.

A motorcycle pulled up at the curb.

The rider lifted his visor, looked at me once, and asked, “Where?”

I told him.

He said, “Get on.”

I did.

We cut through traffic, crossed half the city in minutes, and made it back before the dinner began. By the time I stepped off the bike, clutching the recovered manuscript to my chest, I was too shaken to ask his name.

The second time I saw him, he was standing in the front hall of our house, newly brought onto my father’s private security detail. Within months, he had become the man my father trusted most.

I noticed him immediately.

After that, he seemed to be everywhere.

He took me places my life had never made room for. Rooftops after midnight. Empty roads outside the city. Private clubs I would never have entered on my own. With him, everything felt louder, faster, less controlled. I mistook that feeling for freedom.

Now I knew better.

What had looked like recklessness was patience. What had felt like love was revenge.

My phone vibrated in my hand.

Cassian.

I stared at the name before opening the message.

Aria, someone got hold of private footage and played it at the event. I’m going to find out who did it. I’m worried about you. Where are you? I’m coming to get you.

The words were perfect. Concerned. Urgent. Protective.

If I hadn’t heard him at Ravencrest House, I might have believed every one of them.

Instead, I locked my phone and left the room.

I went straight back to the lab.

I stayed there until security turned off half the floor lights. I recalibrated instruments, reran data, corrected graphs, revised the last pages of my dissertation—anything that kept my hands moving. I didn’t turn my phone back on.

Two days later, I walked into my defense and saw a face I didn’t recognize at the far end of the review table.

One of the others leaned toward me and whispered, almost cheerfully, “That’s Linnea Shaw. She did all three degrees here. You’re lucky—she has a reputation for being fair.”

Lucky.

I gave my presentation, answered the first round of questions, and for a few minutes I thought I might get through it cleanly. Most of the panel looked satisfied. One of them was already writing notes that looked like approval.

Then Linnea looked up from my dissertation and said, “I think this work may be plagiarized.”

The room went still.

I opened my folder at once and pushed forward my materials. “It isn’t. I brought the raw files, the timestamps, and the full testing videos.”

She barely glanced at them.

“None of that proves the work is original,” she said. “Data can be cleaned. Footage can be staged.”

A few people on the panel shifted in their seats. One reached for the printouts. Another frowned and looked back at me. I felt the mood change before anyone else spoke.

Then Linnea leaned back and added, almost lightly, “Three years ago, Professor Vale had no difficulty deciding someone else’s work was fraudulent. I don’t see why scrutiny should offend you now.”

My hands went cold.

There it was.

Not a concern about the work. Not a scholarly challenge. A grudge.

I heard myself say, “My dissertation is original. I can prove that.”

“Then prove it,” she said.

Something turned sharply in my stomach. I barely managed an apology before leaving the room.

I made it to the washroom on instinct, caught the edge of the sink with both hands, and gagged hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Water was running somewhere behind me. A stall door opened.