Page 57 of Cruel Deception
I finally looked up.
He walked over.
“I need names, Charlotte,” he said, his voice calm, but something was tightening beneath it.
“I don’t know,” I snapped, sobbing now. “I didn’t know them! Just faceless monsters who vanished like shadows.”
“What do you remember?” he asked again, this time slower. “Anything. Any mark. Accent. Ring. Tattoo?”
I sniffed hard. My entire body felt like it was being torn open. “A tattoo,” I whispered. “One of them had one. I remember that.”
He nodded once, like it was enough. He moved to the side table, pulled out his iPad and handed it to me, unlocking the stylus.
“Draw it,” he said.
My hand shook as I took it. The image was scorched into my mind—I’d tried so hard to forget it, but now it poured out in black strokes: the serpent eating its own tail, the crest beneath it.
When I finished, I handed it back.
He stared at it, face unreadable, but his other hand clenched into a tight fist.
That’s when the door burst open.
Two officers—one male, one female—stepped in, uniforms sharp, guns holstered.
“Mrs. Charlotte Grayson?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” I said quickly, sitting up in bed. Hope rushed into my chest like oxygen. They were here. I was getting out. Finally.
They started walking toward me, but then their eyes shifted—to Cassian.
Everything stopped.
They froze.
Then...saluted.
I stared.
Cassian didn’t even blink. “She’s my wife,” he said, tone like crushed glass. “You’re dismissed.”
The officers stiffened.
“Understood, sir,” the male cop said. And just like that—they left. No hesitation. No question.
My stomach dropped. What the hell just happened?
It felt like I was watching a movie. A nightmare. A trap with no exit.
Cassian turned, walked back to the stool in the corner, and sat. The room fell into silence. Heavy, choking silence.
For nearly two hours, neither of us spoke. I lay there, trying to sleep, but the ghosts of my birthday were louder now. They sat on my chest and whispered.
Eventually, I turned my head. “You can go,” I muttered. “It’s not like I can run.”
He didn’t move.
“I said go. You’re suffocating me.”
