Page 43 of Cruel Deception
I pulled out the slim folder Luca had handed me and gave it to him. “He wants me to divorce you.”
Cassian opened it, skimmed the contents, then tore it clean down the middle. His eyes didn’t even flicker.
“Where’s your signature?” he asked.
“I’m not ready to divorce you,” I said. I’d already made up my mind—I’d give this marriage one year, see what truth it would reveal.
“Even if you were, it wouldn’t matter,” he said, voice like ice. “This ends when I say it does.”
He dropped the shredded document on a nearby table.
“Repeat the two rules.”
“I... I can’t leave the estate without informing you. I can’t speak or talk to Luca again,” I echoed.
He turned to a wall filled with knives—torture tools. Serrated, hooked, clean blades. A pair of handcuffs. A branding iron.
“Good girl,” he said.
Something in me stilled.
He called me good girl.
I hated how much that simple phrase unspooled something inside me.
The worst part? I felt it. Deep in my chest. In my stomach. In the place no one was supposed to reach.
“You’ll learn self-defense,” he continued, turning back toward the gun wall. “Can you shoot?”
“I’ve never fired a gun before.”
He stepped forward, picked up a throwing knife, and with no hesitation, hurled it at the far wall. It hit the red center of a target I hadn’t even noticed until now. He threw three more—each perfect.
“If you want to survive in this world, you’ll learn.”
He walked toward me again and stretched out a hand.
“Get up.”
I hesitated, then slipped my hand into his. Electricity ran through my body at the contact. It was just skin against skin, but it felt like he lit a fuse inside me.
He let go, turned, and tossed me a lighter pistol. I barely caught it.
“This is a Glock 43. Lighter. Easier to control.”
He stepped behind me—close. Too close. I could feel the heat of him at my back, his breath brushing my ear as he adjusted my grip.
“Straighten your arms. Lock your elbows. Breathe steady.”
I tried to follow his instructions, but I could barely focus with him pressed so close.
“Point it there,” he said, gesturing toward a small red dot across the room. “Fire.”
I steadied my grip. My finger hovered above the trigger.
“Go on,” Cassian murmured, still behind me. “Fire.”
I squeezed.
