For two days, I avoided Cassian.
It was easier than avoiding the truth.
The Aldridge estate became the center of a legal investigation almost overnight.
Charles Aldridge was questioned by federal financial investigators.
Margaret hired three attorneys.
Several business accounts were frozen.
Evelyn remained hidden under Cassian’s protection while negotiating her own cooperation agreement.
And I sat in Mom’s cottage staring at twenty-one-year-old documents concerning my father’s death.
His name had been Samuel Carter.
Everyone called him Sam.
He had big hands, a loud laugh, and a habit of bringing home broken things because he was convinced he could repair them.
Toasters.
Radios.
Chairs.
Once, a lawn mower that belonged to someone else.
I remembered him coming through the door covered in sawdust.
I remembered sitting on his shoulders at the county fair.
I remembered the police officer who came to our house.
After that, memory became fragments.
Mom crying.
Black clothes.
Casseroles from neighbors.
A funeral I barely understood.
Then Margaret Aldridge appearing with promises.
Work.
Security.
Help.
I had spent twenty-one years believing the Aldridges rescued us after tragedy.
Now I wondered whether they had simply made sure we remained dependent enough to stay quiet.
Cassian’s investigator uncovered more.
Dad had filed a written safety complaint about defective scaffolding connectors.
The complaint vanished before the official investigation.
A maintenance supervisor who supported Dad’s claims was fired three weeks later.
The Aldridge company paid my mother a private settlement, but the document had been presented to her as standard insurance paperwork.
She had signed without a lawyer.
It contained a confidentiality clause she never understood.
“They buried him twice,” I said.
Mom looked up from the sofa.
“What?”
“Once in the ground. Once on paper.”
She reached for my hand.
“Lydia.”
I pulled away.
Not because I blamed her.
Because if she touched me, I might start crying again.
My phone buzzed.
CASSIAN.
I watched it ring.
Mom watched me.
“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually.”
“No, I’m not.”
“He helped uncover this.”
“That doesn’t mean I owe him a conversation.”
“No.”
She folded the blanket across her knees.
“But you’ve checked your phone six times in ten minutes.”
I glared at her.
She smiled.
“Heart condition. Not blindness.”
I answered.
“What?”
Cassian was silent for half a second.
“Good afternoon to you too.”
“I’m having a bad week.”
“I noticed.”
“What do you need?”
“To speak with you.”
“You are.”
“In person.”
“No.”
“Lydia.”
“Cassian.”
He exhaled.
“I have information about your father’s case.”
My anger disappeared.
“What information?”
“I’d rather show you.”
“Why?”
“Because pieces of it concern me.”
That was unexpected.
“What do you mean?”
“Come to my house.”
“No.”
“I’ll send Daniel.”
“Still no.”
“You can bring your mother.”
“She hates you.”
“I’m aware.”
“She threatened you.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll do it again.”
“Probably.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Why your house?”
“Because the documents are there.”
“You don’t have an office?”
“I do.”
“Then why your house?”
A pause.
“Because you asked me about my six wives.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“What does that have to do with my father?”
“Nothing.”
“Then—”
“I’m answering both questions.”
I looked at Mom.
She raised an eyebrow.
Two hours later, I stood outside the Vale estate.
It was nothing like I expected.
I had imagined a fortress.
Stone walls.
Men with rifles.
Maybe gargoyles.
Instead, the house sat on thirty acres near Bedford, surrounded by woods and rolling lawns.
Large, yes.
Expensive, obviously.
But warm golden light filled the windows.
There were books visible through the library windows.
A dog asleep near the entrance.
A black Labrador, not some terrifying attack animal.
Mom leaned on her cane.
“This is disappointing.”
“What?”
“I expected a moat.”
I laughed despite myself.
Cassian opened the door personally.
No butler.
No armed escort.
He wore dark pants and a charcoal sweater with the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms.
That was when I noticed the tattoos.
Black ink covered part of one arm.
Not random designs.
Dates.
Names.
Small symbols.
Mom noticed too.
“So you do look like a criminal.”
“Mom.”
Cassian glanced at his arm.
“I’ve been told.”
Mom marched past him.
“Where are the documents?”
He looked at me.
“Good to see you too.”
I stepped inside.
“You invited her.”
“I did.”
“That was brave.”
“That remains to be seen.”
He led us into a library.
A fire burned in the fireplace.
Three folders waited on a table.
So did tea.
Mom immediately noticed.
“Chamomile?”
Cassian nodded.
“Daniel said you don’t drink coffee after four.”
Mom looked impressed against her will.
I noticed.
“So you investigate everyone?”
Cassian met my gaze.
“Only people who enter situations where information keeps them alive.”
There it was again.
That world.
His world.
I sat.
“Show me.”
He opened the first folder.
Documents concerning Dad.
Nothing dramatically new, but enough to support reopening questions about negligence and falsified safety records.
“The statute for some civil claims is complicated,” Cassian said, “but Daniel knows attorneys who specialize in this.”
“Why are you helping?”
“Because Charles Aldridge tried to make me part of his crime.”
“That’s not why.”
He looked at me.
“No.”
Mom leaned back.
“At least he knows when not to lie.”
Cassian ignored her.
“Your father deserved better.”
I stared at the old photocopy.
“Did you know him?”
“No.”
“Then why do you care?”
His eyes moved toward the fire.
“My father died because men with money believed other people’s lives were cheaper than fixing a problem.”
That silenced me.
“How?”
“Warehouse fire.”
“When?”
“I was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
“So am I.”
For the first time, Cassian Vale stopped being a name.
He became a person.
I didn’t know whether that made things better or more dangerous.
He reached for the second folder.
“The Aldridge records.”
Inside were charts showing companies, loans, transfers, signatures.
I understood maybe half of it.
Cassian explained carefully.
Charles had hidden debt inside subsidiary companies.
The marriage contract would have linked several Aldridge assets with Vale-controlled businesses.
Once completed, losses could be shifted in ways that might implicate Cassian.
“Why would you agree to marry Evelyn without meeting her?”
Mom asked the question before I could.
Cassian leaned back.
“That brings us to the six wives.”
I sat straighter.
He looked almost annoyed by the subject.
“My first marriage happened when I was twenty-seven.”
“To whom?”
“Anna Bellini.”
“The one in California?”
“Yes.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Because she loved someone else.”
That answer surprised me.
Cassian continued.
“Her father had promised her to me during a business dispute. She told me the night before the ceremony.”
“And you married her anyway?”
“For eleven days.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“To give her time to leave safely with the man she wanted.”
Mom’s eyebrows rose.
Cassian looked at me.
“She needed her father to believe the agreement had been honored. Once the immediate conflict passed, we annulled it. She moved to California.”
I remembered the rumors.
One fled.
One moved overseas.
“What about wife two?”
“Marisol Vega. Her family needed my protection after her brother testified against traffickers. We married on paper. She later moved to Madrid.”
“Three?”
“Celeste Romano.”
“The sealed divorce?”
“She was gay.”
I blinked.
Mom coughed into her tea.
Cassian remained expressionless.
“Her family would have destroyed her if they knew. The marriage gave her time to establish financial independence.”
I stared at him.
“Four?”
“Rebecca Sloan. Similar arrangement. Different problem.”
“Five?”
“Naomi Price.”
“What happened?”
“Her husband had died owing money to men who intended to collect from her. Marriage transferred certain property rights and discouraged them.”
“And six?”
He hesitated.
“The barefoot woman?”
His mouth tightened.
“Isabella Moreau.”
I waited.
“She did run out of this house barefoot in winter.”
“Why?”
“She threw a shoe at me first.”
Mom set down her cup.
“I like her already.”
I almost laughed.
“What happened?”
Cassian rubbed one hand across his jaw.
“Isabella was addicted to prescription medication when we married. Her brother believed marriage to me would straighten her out.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was.”
“You agreed?”
“My mistake.”
His voice hardened with self-reproach.
“I thought I could protect her.”
“And?”
“You can’t protect someone by deciding what their life should look like.”
That sentence stayed with me.
“What happened the night she ran?”
“She wanted pills. I refused to give her access to medication after her doctor warned she might overdose. She became angry. She threw a shoe. Then a lamp. Then she ran outside.”
“Barefoot.”
“Yes.”
“In snow.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I followed her carrying boots.”
I covered my mouth.
Mom laughed.
Cassian looked offended.
“It wasn’t funny.”
“It is a little funny,” I said.
“She bit me.”
That made me laugh harder.
He stared at me.
Then something happened.
Cassian smiled.
Not the faint amusement I had heard on the phone.
A real smile.
It changed his entire face.
For half a second, I understood why six marriage rumors had survived eleven years.
Not because women feared him.
Because nobody actually knew him.
“What happened to Isabella?”
“She entered treatment. She’s been sober four years. She’s married to a teacher in Vermont.”
“So none of them were really your wives.”
“They were legally my wives.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Why did people say you drove them away?”
He shrugged.
“Fear creates better stories than paperwork.”
Mom studied him.
“And Evelyn?”
Cassian’s smile disappeared.
“That marriage was supposed to be business.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He closed the second folder.
“Because I stopped expecting anything else.”
For some reason, that answer hurt.
I looked toward the shelves.
Six marriages.
Six arrangements.
Six women he had helped, protected, or unsuccessfully tried to save.
Not a love story among them.
“You never loved any of them?”
“No.”
“Did any love you?”
“No.”
The word landed softly.
Mom cleared her throat.
“I think I’d like to see the garden.”
I looked at her.
“It’s dark.”
“I have excellent imagination.”
“Mom.”
Cassian stood.
“I’ll have someone show you the conservatory.”
She picked up her cane.
“I can find a conservatory.”
When she left, I stared after her.
“She’s obvious.”
“Extremely.”
Cassian sat again.
I noticed the third folder.
“What’s that?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Cassian?”
He pushed it toward me.
Inside were photographs.
Me.
Leaving the grocery store.
Driving Mom to the doctor.
Walking from the Aldridge servants’ entrance.
My stomach dropped.
“What is this?”
“Someone has been watching you.”
I flipped through them.
Some photographs were months old.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My hands began trembling.
“Why?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
I looked at him.
“Is this because of the Aldridges?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“There is another possibility.”
“What?”
“The person photographing you may have believed you knew something about your father’s records.”
“I didn’t.”
“They may not know that.”
I pushed the folder away.
“I don’t want this.”
“I know.”
“I want my mother safe. I want the Aldridges gone. I want to find a new job and forget any of this happened.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“Then make it stop.”
Something shifted in his expression.
“I can’t promise that.”
Anger rose instantly.
“Of course not.”
“I can promise something else.”
“What?”
“Nobody gets to use you again.”
The words were quiet.
Certain.
I stood.
“That sounds dangerously close to you deciding what my life should look like.”
He went still.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
That surprised me.
He stood too.
“I can offer security. You decide whether to accept it.”
I searched his face.
“No conditions?”
“No.”
“No marriage?”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“Definitely no surprise wedding.”
I smiled despite myself.
Then I noticed something through the library window.
A reflection.
A tiny flash beyond the trees.
I frowned.
Cassian saw my expression change.
“What?”
“There.”
He turned.
Another flash.
His entire body changed.
The relaxed man disappeared.
“Down.”
He pulled me behind the stone wall beside the fireplace.
A sharp crack shattered the window.
Glass exploded across the room.
Someone screamed in the hallway.
Cassian covered me with his body as another impact struck the far wall.
Then his security flooded the room.
“East woods!”
“Move!”
“Lock the house!”
I could hear Mom shouting my name.
“I’m okay!” I yelled.
Cassian lifted his head.
A thin line of blood ran along his cheek from flying glass.
“You’re hurt.”
“Nothing.”
He looked at me.
For the first time since I met him, I saw fear on his face.
Not for himself.
For me.
One of his men rushed over.
“Boss, shooter’s moving.”
Cassian’s voice turned cold.
“Find him.”
He looked toward the shattered window.
Then back at me.
And I understood.
Whatever had begun with Evelyn’s missing wedding had just become something far more dangerous.