Page 78 of Cruel Deception
That silence unsettled me more than any slap would have.
Just because he hadn’t laid his hands on me yet didn’t mean he wouldn’t. Men like him and Luca... I struggled to see the difference. They were both monsters in tailored suits. One dealt pain through fists. The other through control. And sometimes, that quiet, calculated cruelty—the kind that could kill without blinking—was far worse.
He didn’t respond.
So I kept going, my voice trembling but sharp, like a knife trying to cut through armor. “You locked me up for days. With spiders. You knew my phobia. You left me to scream until I passed out. Repeatedly. I could’ve died down there, Cassian.”
His expression didn’t shift.
“I regret honoring my grandfather’s wish,” I added bitterly.
“Three days,” he said, voice flat.
I blinked. “What?”
“You were in that cell for three days,” he said calmly. “I didn’t come back that night because I was shot. Ambushed. I blacked out and woke up on the third day. Came straight back. Found you unconscious.”
His words lacked emotion. But something about the truth—how precise, how clear it was—stabbed the breath from my chest.
He hadn’t meant to leave me there.
He wasn’t trying to break me like that. Not that time.
He leaned back slightly. “If I hadn’t passed out, I’d have let you out after a few hours.”
I stared at the floor, my anger folding in on itself like dying embers.
“I don’t hit women,” he said next.
It wasn’t a declaration. It was a statement of fact.
I looked up. “But you hurt them.”
“I ruin the ones I have grudges against,” he replied. Honest. Unflinching.
My heart squeezed painfully. “That woman you have locked up... I know you’ve seen me check on her through your cameras. I—I know you watch everything.”
A flicker passed through his eyes. Barely there. But I saw it.
“Please,” I whispered. “Let her go. She’s suffering.”
“Stop going there,” he said instead. “From today henceforth.”
My chest tightened. “Please—”
“Don’t say that word,” he cut in sharply. “I hate hearing it.”
I flinched, swallowing the word that wanted to come again.
But then, softly—fragile, from the core—I said, “You said you know where my mother is.”
He didn’t respond.
My voice cracked. “Help me see her. Even once. Cassian, I’m begging you. My chest—my heart—it hurts. I’ve lived ten years not knowing. The guilt, the dreams... she’s the only reason I kept going.”
He leaned forward slowly, eyes like ice over fire.
“No,” he said.
