Page 96 of Cruel Deception
My mind reeled. Vincent? He was here? Why the hell would he do something like that?
By the time we got back to his penthouse, silence had swallowed the car whole. When we entered, he didn’t wait. He dropped his keys and said coldly, “I need to be alone.”
Then he vanished into one of the back rooms.
I stared after him, shaken.
He was hurting.
And it wasn’t just about the bike. It was about what it meant.
He named her after his grandmother.
What kind of bond did he have with her? What kind of boy names a machine after his grandmother? A boy who worshiped her. A boy who lost her too young. A boy who never healed.
I sat on the bed, my chest burned with a sadness I couldn’t shake. Today should’ve been triumphant. Instead, it felt like everything cracked open.
Anger surged.
I snatched my phone and called Vincent. “Why the fuck would you destroy his bike?”
This wasn’t the sweet big sister voice I usually gave him. This was fury. Real. Raw.
“He’s locking you up and torturing you,” Vincent snapped. “If I had the chance, I’d kill him.”
“You’re not helping me like this, Vincent. You’re just making things worse.”
“You think?” he snapped back. “I overheard Dad and Luca. Cassian has our mother. He’s keeping her somewhere. She’s alive—and he’s hurting her. Every day.”
The words hit like acid in my veins.
“What?” I choked.
“He’s a psycho, Charlotte. You think Luca’s bad? Cassian’s just better at hiding it. He’s keeping her prisoner. I swear it.”
My mind reeled, spinning backward—back to the night he locked me in a cell. I remembered a voice. A woman’s voice. Screaming. Begging.Free me...
That wasn’t a hallucination.
I straightened. “Vincent. The night he locked me up... there was a woman next door. Screaming. I thought I imagined it.”
“That’s her. It has to be her.”
“No—no, wait—”
“Kill him,” he said. “Tonight. While he’s asleep. For her. She means everything to us.”
“I can’t kill him.”
“Then I’ll hate you forever,” he growled. “Don’t call me again.”
“Wait—”
“If you’re scared, use a gun. Two bullets to the forehead. Easy. Do it for our mother.”
The line went dead.
I sat there, stunned. My mind is spinning. The idea of killing Cassian looped in my brain, loud and insistent. I tried to shove it away—but it kept clawing back in.
