Chapter 4 I Swallow

# Chapter 4: I Swallow

I'd come to destroy Cassian Thorne, but with each passing day, my resolve wavered. Two months into my deception, the lines between my mission and my emotions had begun to blur dangerously.

Since the night Cassian had visited my bedroom—since he'd called me by my real name—something fundamental had shifted between us. He never mentioned it again, never explicitly acknowledged that he knew my true identity. Instead, he drew closer, his presence in my life expanding until I could barely remember what it was like before him.

I continued my charade, playing the recovering sister while secretly searching for leverage against him. But my heart wasn't in it anymore. Each new discovery about Cassian complicated my hatred rather than reinforcing it.

One rainy afternoon, I was leaving a café when a black SUV screeched to a halt beside me. The door flew open, revealing a man with a knife.

"Get in," he snarled, lunging for my arm.

Before he could touch me, a shot rang out. My would-be attacker crumpled, blood blooming across his shoulder. Standing across the street, gun still raised, was Cassian.

He crossed to me in three long strides, his face a mask of cold fury. Without a word, he pulled me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other still gripped the gun.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice rough as he scanned my face.

I shook my head, too shocked to speak.

Cassian's security team materialized, surrounding us as he guided me toward his car. Behind us, I heard them dealing with my attacker and the gathering crowd.

"Who was that?" I asked once we were inside the car, my voice steadier than I felt.

"Someone who won't make the same mistake twice." Cassian's eyes were dark with rage. He pulled out his phone, barking orders: "Lock down her residence. Triple the security. No one gets within a hundred feet of her without my personal clearance."

As the city blurred past the windows, I studied his profile—the hard line of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders. "You shot him. You could have killed him."

Cassian's gaze shifted to mine, something primal in his eyes. "I would have. Without hesitation."

We didn't go back to my brownstone. Instead, Cassian took me to a cabin I didn't know existed—a modernist structure of glass and steel nestled deep in the woods, hours from the city.

"No one knows about this place," he explained as we entered. "Not my family, not my security team. Just us."

The "us" hung in the air between us, charged with meaning.

"Why did you bring me here?" I asked, watching him move around the space with familiar ease.

He turned to face me, his expression unreadable. "Because they found you once. They might find you again."

"Who? Who's trying to hurt me?"

Cassian's laugh was bitter. "You tell me, Maeve."

My name—my real name—on his lips sent a shiver down my spine. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you?" He moved closer, backing me against the wall. "Someone knows who you really are. Someone knows why you came into my life."

I swallowed hard. "Cassian—"

"I don't care," he interrupted, his voice fierce. "I don't care who sent you or why. I only care that you're here now."

His hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my lower lip. The gesture was tender, possessive, dangerous.

"You should hate me," I whispered, the truth finally spilling out. "If you know who I am, what I planned—"

"Hate you?" Cassian's eyes burned into mine. "I've spent every day since you appeared trying not to love you."

Before I could process his words, his mouth was on mine, hard and demanding. I should have pushed him away. Instead, my hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer.

The kiss was nothing like I'd imagined—and I had imagined it, in the dark corners of my mind I refused to acknowledge. It was rage and need and something deeper, something that felt terrifyingly like belonging.

When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, I whispered, "This is wrong."

"Is it?" His forehead rested against mine. "Or is it the only thing that makes sense?"

We stayed at the cabin for three days, cut off from the world. Cassian never left my side, his attention focused entirely on me with an intensity that should have frightened me. Instead, I found myself opening to him, sharing pieces of my past I'd never told anyone—my childhood in the orphanage, the loneliness, the dreams that kept me going.

I didn't tell him about my mother, about his family's role in her destruction. That was the one line I couldn't yet cross.

On the third night, we sat before the fire, my head resting on his shoulder. The silence between us was comfortable, intimate in a way I'd never experienced.

"We have to go back tomorrow," Cassian said, his fingers idly stroking my arm. "People are looking for us."

I nodded, a strange sadness settling in my chest at the thought of returning to reality. "What happens when we go back?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "That depends on you."

"On me?"

Cassian shifted to face me, his expression serious. "I know you came into my life with an agenda, Maeve. I'm not a fool."

My heart raced. "Then why am I still here? Why didn't you expose me?"

"Because from the moment I saw you, nothing else mattered." His voice was low, intense. "Not your lies, not your motives. Just you."

"You don't even know me," I whispered.

His smile was sad. "I know enough. I know you're running from something—or toward something. I know you're stronger than you pretend to be. And I know that when I touch you—" his hand slid up my arm, "—you forget to pretend."

He was right, and that terrified me more than anything else.

"When we go back," he continued, "you have a choice. You can continue whatever game you're playing, or you can trust me with the truth."

I looked away. "The truth might destroy us both."

"Then let it." His fingers caught my chin, turning my face back to his. "But let it be our choice."

That night, lying beside him in the darkness, I made my decision. Come morning, I would leave—slip away while he slept, disappear before I could fall any deeper under his spell. My mother deserved justice, and I couldn't betray her memory, not even for the unexpected sanctuary I'd found in Cassian's arms.

But fate had other plans.

Dawn broke with the sound of breaking glass and shouted commands. Armed men swarmed the cabin, their faces masked. Cassian was on his feet instantly, pushing me behind him.

"Stay back," he ordered, reaching for something under the bed—a gun.

Bullets splintered the headboard above us. Cassian returned fire, his body shielding mine as we crawled toward the bathroom.

"There's a passage," he said urgently, pushing aside the shower wall to reveal a hidden door. "It leads to a bunker. Go. Now!"

"Not without you," I insisted, gripping his arm.

His eyes met mine, fierce and determined. "I'll be right behind you. I promise."

I believed him—that was my first mistake.

As I slipped into the passage, I looked back to see Cassian facing the doorway, gun raised. A shadow appeared in the doorframe. Cassian fired. The shadow staggered but didn't fall. Instead, a knife flashed in the dim light, arcing toward Cassian's chest.

"No!" I screamed, lunging forward.

Cassian pivoted at the last second. The knife meant for his heart sliced across his ribs instead. With a grunt of pain, he fired again. This time, his attacker dropped.

"Go!" Cassian shoved me into the passage, blood seeping through his shirt.

The next hours were a blur of terror and adrenaline. Cassian, despite his wound, led us through underground tunnels to a hidden garage where another vehicle waited. By nightfall, we were in a different safehouse, this one even more remote than the first.

As I cleaned and bandaged his wound—a deep gash that would leave yet another scar on his already marked body—I finally asked the question I'd been avoiding.

"Who were they?"

Cassian's eyes, clouded with pain, met mine. "Your past catching up with you, I imagine."

"My past?" I frowned. "Those men weren't after me."

"Weren't they?" He winced as I applied antiseptic. "Think, Maeve. Who knows why you came into my life? Who might want to stop whatever you're planning?"

The implications hit me like a physical blow. Someone knew who I was, knew about my connection to Cassian's family. Someone wanted to eliminate me before I could complete my mission.

But who? And why now?

As if reading my thoughts, Cassian caught my wrist, his grip gentle but unyielding. "It's time for truth, Maeve. All of it."

I looked into his eyes—eyes that had watched me through cameras, eyes that had darkened with desire and softened with something like love. Eyes that now demanded the one thing I wasn't sure I could give: honesty.

Slowly, deliberately, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his—not in passion this time, but in surrender.

"Tomorrow," I promised. "I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

But as he pulled me against him, careful of his wound, I knew with devastating clarity that tomorrow would change everything. Either I would betray my mother's memory for a chance at something I never thought I'd have, or I would lose Cassian forever.

What I didn't know was that Cassian had already made his choice—and that choice would bind us together in ways neither of us could escape.