"What are you going to do?" she asked, and there was something in her voice just a thread of fear beneath all that composure. That was the one thing Cassian actually appreciated about Mireya. One small thing was always enough to remind her to be careful. You didn't want a younger sibling going around performing fearlessness and power."Don't answer any calls for the next hour except mine. I'll reach out. And stay away from Rowan for now — we don't know what Lombard might be planning.""Alright. I'm going to say some prayers."He ended the call as his car came to a stop in front of the hotel.He still didn't know the full picture of what had happened inside. But the mention of Lombard was enough. Whatever it was, that man had bitten off considerably more than he could chew.All his men had climbed out of their vehicles and formed up around him immediately, waiting."We go in. One person needs to come out of there safely. You all know Rowan's father?" He looked around for confirmation.

The boss walked in slow circles around the men. They were intimidated. He was supposed to be fighting. Why wasn't he? Then two of Cassian's men hit the floor. The speed at which it happened rattled everyone in the room. They swung into action immediately — but it was already too late. The boss had the upper hand before anyone had processed that the fight had even started. He had taken them all by shock, which was exactly what he had intended. In two minutes, all of Cassian's men were on the ground. The ones who had come with the other group tried to move in. Those ones were taught a lesson they would carry in their bones for a very long time. A humiliating sound filled the room as the minutes ticked by — by the five-minute mark, nearly every man was clutching something, screaming, or doing both at once. Cassian started backing toward the wall. He was built for confrontation — he had always been. But not this. Not whatever this was. His head hit the wall before he could find the

Everything had looked like a joke to Cassian while the car was moving. He was in considerable pain, but he was still trying to talk. Trying to remind these men who they were dealing with. Because in his experience, men like this — rough, dramatic, chain-wearing — eventually remembered who they were speaking to and adjusted their behaviour accordingly. It usually just took a little time. None of these men adjusted. They had even taken his phone. His phone. He kept waiting for the moment this would start feeling like a bad dream he could wake up from. It didn't come. Then the car pulled up in front of a gate. Even from outside, Cassian could tell that whatever was on the other side of that gate was not somewhere he should be. And the fact that he was here at all was entirely because of that old man. He watched through the window as they dragged Rowan's father out of the car. The man looked finished. Cassian knew he did not want to look like that. "You know what?" he finally dropp

Rowan had been in the hospital for the last ten hours, and every single one of those hours had been a personal insult. The nurses kept offering things they called sedatives and pain relievers, arriving at regular intervals with the cheerful efficiency of people who had decided that their job was to lie to him. Because as far as Rowan was concerned, whatever they were administering was doing absolutely nothing. Either the medication was fake or the staff had a personal grievance with him that they were working out through careful inaction. Both were possible. It was already five in the morning. He had not heard back from his father, who had last communicated something about getting Lombard dealt with. He had not heard from Cassian either, who had mentioned wanting to have dinner with his father at some point during the evening. And he had heard nothing from Mireya since the previous night, which was the part that sat worst with him. He could tolerate silence from everyone else. But

He gripped the handle. Twisted it. Twisted it again. He turned back toward Rowan, and what he saw made a sound come out of his throat that he had never heard from himself before — a raw, involuntary cry of pure terror. Fire. Moving directly from Rowan's eyes. Flowing toward him like something deliberate and patient, in no hurry at all. The doctor kept twisting the handle, kept pressing himself against the door, his whole body trying to find somewhere that wasn't in the path of what was coming. He didn't find it in time. The fire reached his head. In the same moment, the door swung open. He fell out into the corridor, hitting the floor on his hands and knees. Two patients nearby scattered immediately. He was on his feet again in seconds, screaming. "Get him! Someone get him!" Is he hallucinating? someone asked. The corridor had erupted into low-grade panic — some people pressing themselves against the walls, others heading quickly for the exits. The ones who had watched too ma