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Trial by fire
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2025-07-06 05:07:39Cassian Wexley never turned down an invitation to be seen.
So naturally, the night after Rowan Maddox entered his world like a walking threat in black boots and bad moods, Cassian decided it was the perfect time to cause a scene.
He didn’t tell Rowan where they were going only that he was expected. When Rowan stepped out of the penthouse lobby to find Cassian straddling a red Ducati in leather pants and mirrored sunglasses, he considered turning around.
“You’re driving that?” Rowan asked, flat.
Cassian smirked. “Wouldn’t trust me behind the wheel?”
“I don’t trust you on the wheel.”
“Then I guess tonight’s your first test, Maddox.”
Cassian tossed him a helmet. “Hang on tight. Or don’t. I like danger.”
Rowan gritted his teeth and mounted behind him, hands firm at Cassian’s waist impersonal, but solid. Cassian leaned back just enough to feel it.
“Mm,” he said. “You’re not the talking type, are you?”
“No.”
“I’ll change that.”
The club was called VOLT a neon jungle carved into the Manhattan skyline, complete with rooftop views, body glitter, and too much bass to think.
Cassian breezed through the velvet rope like a prince returning to his kingdom.
Rowan trailed behind, all storm and shadow.
The second they entered, cameras flashed. Phones lifted. Whispers curled around Cassian’s name like smoke.
Rowan scanned everything. Exits. Angles. Faces.
Cassian, meanwhile, embraced the chaos.
“Cassy!” a voice shrieked. A shirtless bartender with glitter in his hair flung his arms around him. “You’re alive!”
Cassian grinned. “Barely. But still prettier than most.”
A drag queen nearby gasped and fanned herself. “Who’s the brooding giant behind you?”
Cassian turned, full smirk. “That’s Rowan. My new… disciplinarian.”
Rowan didn’t blink. He simply stepped closer, subtly blocking the nearest camera’s view of Cassian’s face.
Cassian raised a brow. “Careful, Maddox. If you keep doing your job that well, I might start misbehaving on purpose.”
“Try it,” Rowan said quietly. “See what happens.”
Cassian blinked. There was no flirt in that voice only steel.
He liked it.
Too much.
In the VIP lounge, Cassian drank quickly. Too quickly. The laughter around him rang hollow, like rehearsed lines in a bad play.
Rowan stood against the wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp. Unmoving.
Cassian’s gaze flicked to him again and again. Eventually, he got up liquor-swaggered and approached.
“You’re ruining the vibe.”
“I’m not here to vibe.”
Cassian got closer. Close enough that his breath brushed Rowan’s jaw.
“Why are you here, really?” he asked. “Because I know men like you. You don’t do this kind of gig unless you’re desperate. Or hiding.”
Rowan’s expression didn’t change, but his jaw ticked.
Cassian smiled. “Ah. Got under the skin, didn’t I?”
“You want to test me?” Rowan said. “Fine. Just know I hit back.”
Cassian took another step. “Do you always growl at your clients, or am I just special?”
Rowan stepped into his space, voice low and cold. “You keep pushing like this, and one day, I won’t pull back. So unless you want to see what happens when I snap”
Cassian’s pupils flared.
“sit your ass down.”
The tension between them sparked like a match. Something electric passed between their bodies anger laced with something unspoken. Lust? Maybe. Or maybe just the thrill of someone finally not playing Cassian’s game.
Cassian held the stare.
Then, surprisingly, he backed off.
But not without muttering, “You’d be hot if you weren’t such a cop.”
Fifteen minutes later, Rowan noticed the guy. Slick hair. Narrow eyes. Too focused on Cassian.
He closed in at the bar, brushing up against him deliberately. Cassian leaned away, annoyed.
“Hey, you ghosted me last week,” the man hissed.
Cassian turned, expression sour. “Because you were clingy and boring.”
“You think you’re better than me, you little”
Rowan was there in an instant.
His hand came between them, shoving the guy back without breaking stride.
“That’s enough.”
The man squared up. “Who the f*ck are you?”
Rowan’s voice was like ice. “The last person you want to make a scene with.”
The man huffed, tried to step around him.
Rowan didn’t move. “Touch him again and I’ll snap your wrist so clean your chiropractor will feel it.”
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a promise.
The guy backed off.
Cassian said nothing just took a drink and stared into the bottom of the glass.
Rowan looked at him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Cassian snapped, “What do you care? You’re not here to care, remember?”
Rowan stared at him, face unreadable.
But his voice was quiet. “I care because you keep putting yourself in danger. And that either means you think you’re invincible… or you don’t care if you live.”
Cassian froze.
The music thudded on, the crowd danced around them, but he stood there like he’d been slapped.
He said nothing more the rest of the night.
Back at the penthouse, the silence between them was heavier than any bassline.
Cassian peeled off his jacket and tossed it across a chair. Rowan leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed.
“Don’t worry,” Cassian muttered. “I didn’t bring anyone home tonight. You don’t have to stand guard by the bedroom.”
“I wasn’t worried about that.”
Cassian looked over, surprised.
“You think you know everything,” he said.
“I don’t. But I know pain when I see it.”
That hit too close. Cassian turned away, pacing.
“You want the truth?” he muttered. “Fine. I drink because it quiets my head. I party because it proves I’m still wanted. And I push people like you because I’m sick of being handled like a PR fire.”
Rowan said nothing. Just watched.
“I’ve spent my whole life being told to be less,” Cassian added. “Less loud, less gay, less embarrassing. So yeah. Maybe I’m trying to burn it all down.”
Rowan stepped closer.
“You don’t have to burn, Cassian,” he said softly. “You can rebuild.”
Cassian turned slowly. “You talk like you’ve done it.”
“I have.”
Their eyes met. The air between them buzzed.
Cassian took a step forward barefoot, tense. “You gonna rebuild me, Maddox?”
Rowan didn’t flinch. “Not my job.”
“Then why are you still here?”
A long silence.
Then Rowan answered, voice low: “Because I see something in you worth protecting.”
Cassian’s breath hitched.
For a second, the tension shifted. From sharp to soft. The space between them thinned.
But Cassian backed away first.
“Good night, bodyguard,” he said quietly. “Try not to dream about me.”
Rowan didn’t respond.
But he didn’t look away, either.
Bab terbaru
The Bodyguards boy HOLLOW GRAVE
The rain hadn’t stopped since dawn.It came down in soft sheets that blurred the skyline and soaked through umbrellas, turning the city into a gray watercolor. The cemetery sat on a low hill, flanked by stone angels darkened by weather and time. Every inch of ground shimmered with rainwater puddles pooling between graves, the mud sucking at polished shoes.Dozens of black umbrellas dotted the field like bruises.The Wesley family stood beneath the largest one, their silhouettes neat and composed for the cameras lingering at the gate.Cassian’s framed photo rested beside the coffin smiling, charming, the version the world preferred to remember. His eyes in the picture caught the light, alive in a way that twisted something deep inside Rowan’s chest.He stayed back from the main crowd, half-hidden beneath the shadow of a drooping oak. His umbrella tilted slightly, the rain dripping steadily from its edges. His black suit clung damply to his shoulders, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want
The Bodyguards boy Ghosts of the Living
The Wesley estate sat at the edge of the city like a monument to wealth and denial three floors of glass and silence, sprawling gardens, and gates tall enough to keep the world out.Rowan’s car slowed as the iron gates swung open, creaking like something ancient that didn’t want to move. The headlights cut across the rain-slick driveway, glinting off marble statues and manicured hedges trimmed into impossible perfection. The place looked more like a museum than a home a monument to appearances, built to be admired but never touched.He drove through the gates, gravel crunching beneath the tires, and for a moment, he could almost feel the weight of Cassian’s absence pressing against the windshield. The estate had always felt cold, but tonight, it felt hollow as if the grief inside had finally swallowed what little life remained.The guards at the front didn’t stop him. They knew who he was by now the man who kept showing up when everyone else had retreated behind press statements and c
The Bodyguards boy Fractures
Rowan hadn’t slept in two days.He stood at the penthouse windows, the city stretched wide below, lights flickering like a pulse that wouldn’t slow. His reflection was a hollow version of himself jaw sharp, dark circles carved under his eyes, and the faintest twitch in his fingers whenever he reached for his phone. He’d already scoured traffic cams, hacked his way through old Wesley files, even retraced Cassian’s last public appearances. All the trails bled into smoke.The world had written Cassian Wesley’s obituary. Rowan refused.Every instinct he had, honed by years of violence and vigilance, screamed the same thing: Cassian wasn’t gone. He was somewhere, waiting, hurting. Maybe worse. But alive. Rowan clung to that belief like a blade. If he let it go, he’d collapse.Behind him, Lennox’s laughter cut through the silence. Too loud. Too casual. He was sprawled on Cassian’s couch, feet up, scrolling his phone with the ease of someone who hadn’t been hollowed out by grief.“You’re goi
The Bodyguards boy Stop Digging
The night pressed in around Rowan like a weight. He had been moving through it for hours, the city’s lights slipping past the windshield of his car, unregistered, meaningless. He wasn’t heading anywhere specific, not yet, but if he stayed still, if he sat long enough in the penthouse where Cassian’s scent still lingered, he would go mad. Movement kept him sharp. Movement kept him from drowning in the thought that Cassian might already be gone.Every lead so far was a thread, half-cut, leading into shadows that didn’t want to give answers. He had turned the still photo of the car over in his mind until the pixels burned into him. He had memorized the blood-stained wristband he’d found, even the faint metallic smell of it when he’d pressed it to his nose. Ghosts of evidence. And then there was the corrupted feed from the hotel, a deliberate erasure if ever there was one. Whoever had touched that footage knew what they were doing.Rowan’s gut churned with a certainty he couldn’t shake: C
The Bodyguards boy Echo’s in the dark
The city never really slept, but tonight it felt like it was mourning. Headlines flickered across glowing screens on every corner:CASSIAN WESLEY PRESUMED DEAD IN COASTAL HIGHWAY EXPLOSION.A neat, devastating line for the tabloids to chew on. A scandal ended. A tragedy reborn. But Rowan Maddox couldn’t accept a single word of it. Not when his chest still burned with the memory of Cassian’s voice, not when his instincts screamed louder than every headline combined. Not when his gut told him Cassian Wesley was still alive.He didn’t go home that night. He couldn’t. The thought of stepping into his apartment quiet, dark, filled with nothing but his own reflection was unbearable. Instead, Rowan returned to the Wesley penthouse.The space was heavy with absence. Curtains drawn tight, city lights leaking in like broken glass. The faint smell of Cassian cologne still hung in the air. Champagne had dried sticky on the counter. Cassian’s robe, white and carelessly draped, lay abandoned over t
The Bodyguards boy The Ashes They Claimed
Morning broke like shattered glass.The city’s skyline was gray, muted, veiled by smoke that still lingered from the night before. The headlines hit before the sun had fully risen:CASSIAN WESLEY DEAD IN FIERY CRASH.Wesley heir perishes in midnight explosion.Highway inferno claims another life of privilege.Screens blared the story. Phones buzzed with alerts. Paparazzi swarmed outside the Wesley tower, their lenses pointed at every window, every door, hungry for the shot of a grieving mother or an enraged father.Inside, grief clung to the penthouse like smoke.Rowan hadn’t slept. He sat in the corner of Cassian’s living room, the leather couch creaking beneath him whenever he shifted, though he barely moved. His hands still smelled faintly of smoke, though he’d scrubbed them raw. His shirt clung damply to his back, his hair mussed from dragging his hands through it over and over.In his head, he replayed the same loop: Cassian his voice sharp Fall for me? Admit you already have?”An
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