Chapter 7 Possession Gone Mad

# Chapter 7: Possession Gone Mad

The safe house Cassian took me to wasn't like the cabin in the woods. This was a penthouse in the heart of the city, hidden in plain sight—a property owned through so many shell corporations that even Noah, with his financial acumen, would struggle to trace it.

"No one knows about this place," Cassian explained as we entered the sleek, minimalist space. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city lights, the world we were hiding from spread out beneath us like a glittering carpet.

I moved to the window, watching news vans gathering outside the Thorne mansion in the distance. "How long can we stay here?"

"As long as necessary." Cassian shrugged off his jacket, the movement causing him to wince slightly—his wound from the cabin attack still healing.

"And then what?" I turned to face him. "We can't hide forever."

He approached slowly, stopping just short of touching me. "We're not hiding. We're regrouping."

My laugh was hollow. "Is that what we're calling it?"

Rather than answering, Cassian moved to a hidden panel in the wall, revealing a sophisticated communications system. "I need to make some calls."

I watched as he methodically contacted key players—his lawyer, his most trusted board members, even a senator whose name I recognized from news headlines. Each conversation was brief, precise, and conducted with the cold efficiency that had made him a business legend.

When he finally set the phone down, I asked, "What's the plan?"

"In the short term? Damage control." He loosened his tie, his movements betraying the first signs of fatigue I'd seen from him. "In the long term? We take back what's ours."

"We don't share anything," I reminded him.

His eyes met mine. "Don't we?"

The question hung between us, charged with all the unspoken complexities of our relationship. Before I could formulate a response, his phone buzzed again.

"It's Noah," he said, frowning at the screen.

"Are you going to answer it?"

After a moment's hesitation, he did, putting it on speaker.

"Where the hell are you?" Noah's voice was tight with tension. "Mother's gone nuclear. She's called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning to have you declared mentally unfit. She's saying you've been compromised by—" he paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully, "—by your relationship with Maeve."

Cassian's expression didn't change. "And what do you think, brother?"

"I think you're obsessed, not insane. There's a difference." Noah sighed audibly. "Look, I don't know what's going on between you two, but you need to get ahead of this story. The media's painting her as a calculating con artist and you as her delusional victim."

I flinched at the description. Cassian's hand found mine, squeezing gently.

"What would you suggest?" he asked Noah, his thumb tracing circles on my palm.

"Come clean. All of it. Your father's crimes, your protection of the real Elise, your knowledge of Maeve's identity from the beginning. Frame it as a long game you've been playing to expose the corruption within the company."

I looked at Cassian in surprise. It was essentially the plan he'd mentioned earlier—the one Helena had derailed.

"And if I don't want to play it that way?" Cassian's voice was dangerously soft.

Noah's silence spoke volumes. Finally, he said, "Then you'll lose everything. The company, your reputation, possibly your freedom if Mother pushes fraud charges against Maeve. Is that what you want?"

Cassian's eyes never left mine as he replied, "If that's what it takes."

"Jesus Christ," Noah muttered. "You really are gone on her, aren't you? Cassian, think about what you're saying. Think about everything you've built."

"I know exactly what I'm saying." Cassian's voice was steel. "And everything I've built means nothing compared to what's at stake now."

After Noah hung up, promising reluctantly to delay the board meeting if possible, I pulled my hand from Cassian's grip.

"This is insanity," I said, pacing the length of the window. "You're willing to let your mother destroy you? For what? For me? A woman who came into your life to ruin you?"

Cassian watched me with unsettling calm. "Yes."

The simplicity of his answer stopped me in my tracks. "Why?"

"Because you're all that matters." He said it as if it were the most obvious truth in the world. "The company, the money, the power—it's all just scaffolding. You're the foundation."

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

"I know everything about you." He moved toward me, each step deliberate. "I know you were raised in St. Catherine's Home for Girls after your mother died. I know you graduated top of your class despite working two jobs. I know you spent three years training with ex-military specialists to learn the skills you'd need to infiltrate my security."

My blood ran cold. "You've been watching me."

"Protecting you," he corrected. "From the moment I discovered what my father did to your mother, I've been watching over you."

The implications hit me like a physical blow. "All this time... my entire adult life... you've been there?"

"Not directly. But yes, I've been aware of you." His expression softened. "I tried to help where I could. The scholarship that paid for your college? The job offer that came out of nowhere? The apartment that mysteriously became available just when you needed it?"

Memories cascaded through my mind—strokes of "luck" that had seemed too good to be true. Because they were.

"You manipulated my entire life," I whispered, horror dawning. "You controlled everything."

"I gave you opportunities," he countered. "What you did with them was all you. Your intelligence, your determination, your strength—those are yours alone."

I backed away from him, suddenly seeing our entire relationship in a new, disturbing light. "This is sick, Cassian. You've been playing god with my life."

"I've been atoning for my family's sins the only way I knew how."

"By stalking me?" My voice rose. "By letting me think I was choosing my own path when really I was following breadcrumbs you left for me?"

Cassian didn't deny it. Instead, he said quietly, "I never expected to feel this way about you. That wasn't part of the plan."

"And what was the plan? What did you think would happen when I finally came for you?"

"I thought I'd give you the evidence against my father. Help you clear your mother's name. Offer you financial compensation." His eyes held mine. "And then I thought you'd leave, and that would be the end of it."

"But it wasn't."

"No." His voice dropped to a near whisper. "Because the moment I saw you standing in my study, pretending to be my sister, something changed. I didn't want you to leave. Ever."

The raw honesty in his voice should have frightened me. Instead, it awakened something equally raw within me—a recognition that beneath my veneer of righteous anger lay something darker, something that responded to his obsession with an intensity that terrified me.

"This isn't love," I said, as much to convince myself as him. "This is possession. Obsession."

"Call it what you want." He closed the distance between us, backing me against the window. "But don't pretend you don't feel it too."

His proximity was overwhelming—the heat of his body, the scent of his skin, the intensity in his eyes that seemed to see through all my defenses.

"I came here to destroy you," I reminded him, my voice barely audible.

"And instead?" His hand came up to cup my face, his touch achingly gentle.

The truth tore from my throat before I could stop it. "Instead, I'm destroying myself."

His kiss was different this time—not demanding or possessive, but questioning, almost tentative. As if he was giving me a choice.

I knew I should push him away. Everything about this situation was wrong—the power imbalance, the years of manipulation, the tangled web of revenge and atonement that had brought us together.

Instead, I found myself responding with a hunger that matched his own, my hands fisting in his shirt to pull him closer. In that moment, nothing else mattered—not my mother's memory, not his family's crimes, not the media circus waiting to devour us both.

Just this. Just us.

The sound of his phone ringing broke the spell. Cassian pulled away reluctantly, his breathing as uneven as my own.

The call was brief, his expression darkening with each word from the other end. When he hung up, his face was a mask of cold fury.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Helena has released a statement. She's claiming I've had a psychotic break, that I've been manipulated by a cunning impostor." His laugh held no humor. "She's painted quite the picture—the grieving brother so desperate to recover his lost sister that he fell prey to a con artist's scheme."

My stomach knotted. "And the media?"

"Is eating it up." He tossed the phone onto a nearby table. "By morning, you'll be the most hated woman in America, and I'll be its most pitiful victim."

"We need to fight back," I said, surprising myself with my use of "we" instead of "you."

Cassian's smile was grim. "Oh, we will."

He moved back to the communications panel, typing rapidly on a keyboard I hadn't noticed before. Screens lit up around the room, displaying news feeds, social media metrics, and what appeared to be internal Thorne Industries communications.

"What are you doing?" I asked, moving to his side.

"Taking control of the narrative." His fingers flew across the keys. "Helena thinks she can use the media against us? Let's see how she likes having her own secrets exposed."

I watched in growing astonishment as he systematically released document after document—financial records showing Helena's complicity in corporate espionage, emails revealing her knowledge of my father's crimes, even security footage of her threatening a young maid who bore a striking resemblance to my mother.

"You're destroying your own mother," I said quietly.

Cassian didn't look up from his work. "She made her choice."

"And what about the company? This will tank Thorne Industries' stock."

"Let it burn." His voice was cold. "I'll rebuild from the ashes."

As the night wore on, we watched the narrative shift in real time. Helena's credibility crumbled as journalists pounced on the leaked documents. By dawn, the story had transformed—no longer about a delusional son and a cunning impostor, but about a corrupt matriarch whose sins were finally catching up to her.

When Cassian finally stepped away from the screens, exhaustion lined his face. I guided him to the couch, where he collapsed, pulling me down beside him.

"Why did you do that?" I asked, my head resting on his shoulder. "You could have salvaged your reputation, blamed everything on me. Instead, you've potentially destroyed your entire family legacy."

His arm tightened around me. "Because some things matter more than legacy."

"What happens now?"

Cassian's eyes met mine, the intensity in them stealing my breath. "Now we go on the offensive. Tomorrow morning, I'll hold a press conference. I'll tell the world exactly who you are, why you came into my life, and what my family did to your mother."

Fear spiked through me. "And then?"

His smile held a hint of madness that should have terrified me. Instead, it sent a shiver of something like anticipation down my spine.

"And then," he said softly, "I'll tell them you're not my sister—you're going to be my wife."