Chapter 2
The room froze in an agonizing, breathless silence. The hum of the estate’s ventilation was the only sound as Cassian took a single, unhurried step into the dining room. His polished leather shoes clicked with heavy, rhythmic finality against the floor.
Lavinia’s laughter died in her throat. Her fingers instinctively twitched, but she did not drop the leash, frozen by the sudden appearance of a husband who was supposed to be three states away. Brennan went dead pale, his hand hovering over his waistband before slowly dropping to his side.
Estelle slowly raised her head from the floorboards. Her frail frame was shaking violently, her weathered hands raw and scraped from the fall. When she saw the silhouette standing in the doorway, her cloudy eyes welled with tears that spilled over her hollow cheeks.
“Cassian…” Estelle whispered, her cracked voice barely holding together. “Cassian… please don’t leave me with them again.”
The words were an iron dagger driven straight through the heart of the Morretti house.
Cassian did not roar. He did not curse. The stillness that settled over his chiseled face was far more terrifying than any rage. He walked forward, his presence parting the space between Brennan and Lavinia like an icebreaker through frozen water.
He reached down, his large, calloused fingers closing gently around the leather leash. With effortless power, he slid the loop up and over his mother’s frail head. He tossed the strap onto the mahogany dining table, where it landed with a dull, sickening thud beside the crystal wine flutes.
Cassian sank to one knee, uncaring of the broth soaking into his tailored trousers. He slipped his powerful arms beneath Estelle’s shoulders and waist, lifting the seventy-nine-year-old matriarch effortlessly from the floor. He steadied her on her feet, keeping one arm wrapped securely around her waist to support her trembling knees.
Greta rushed forward, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks as she positioned herself at Estelle’s other side, wrapping a clean wool shawl around the old woman’s shivering shoulders.
“Greta,” Cassian spoke, his baritone remarkably low, deep, and measured. “Tell me what happened in my house.”
Greta looked at Brennan, then at Lavinia, her fear evaporating beneath a surging wave of righteous fury.
“They locked her in the disused root cellar the moment your private jet took off on Tuesday,” Greta said, her voice shaking with rage. “They took her medication. They told the kitchen staff she was on a medical fast. Mr. Morretti… they’ve been starving her for three days.”
Lavinia gasped, backing away a step. “That’s a lie! She refused to eat! The dementia is getting worse, Cassian, you know how paranoid she gets—”
Brennan’s face twisted into desperate panic. Realizing the house was lost if Greta continued to speak, the younger brother lunged across the floor, his fist clenched to strike the housekeeper.
“Shut your lying mouth, bitch!” Brennan roared.
Cassian didn't even turn his whole body.
With blinding speed, Cassian’s left hand shot out like an iron claw, catching the lapel of Brennan’s bespoke suit jacket. With a single, devastating twist of his torso, Cassian hurled his forty-year-old brother backward into the center of the room. Brennan stumbled, flailing for balance, but before he could right himself, Cassian closed the distance.
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Cassian drove a piston-like right cross directly into Brennan’s jaw.
The crack of bone echoed like a gunshot off the plaster ceiling. Brennan’s head snapped sideways, his teeth spraying blood as his body collapsed heavily onto the parquet floor, knocking an upholstered dining chair clean off its legs.
