Chapter Five

Isla

Sleep had abandoned me.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard his voice again. Low. Implacable. Dangerous.

Marry me, and we’ll end him.

I told myself it wasn’t real. That Cassian Valtore wasn’t serious, that it was a cruel joke meant to corner me. But by morning, the world had already run ahead of me.

The headlines made his proposition flesh.

Cassian Valtore Claims His Son’s Ex-Fiancée?

From Betrayed Bride to Billionaire’s Bride.

Isla Marquez: Scandal’s Darling.

Every paper, every gossip site, every whisper in Manhattan seemed to echo the same chorus. The photographs were worse. Shots of me storming into Cassian’s office, eyes ablaze. Shots of me leaving, jaw tight, Cassian’s silhouette in the glass behind me. They didn’t need facts. They didn’t need my voice. They could weave a marriage out of shadows and smoke and sell it by the thousands.

And the world believed them. They always believed the worst of me.

By mid-morning, my phone was a graveyard of missed calls — my mother’s panicked voice, old colleagues asking for statements, journalists offering “friendly” interviews that would gut me in print.

I didn’t answer any of them.

Instead, I wandered. Hours passed in a blur of streets and sidewalks, the city pressing in on me like a living thing. I ducked into a bookstore to breathe, inhaling dust and ink and paper, the scent of everything I used to be. Once, I had wanted to teach. Once, I had been the girl who believed books could save the world.

Then Ronan happened.

The memory slammed into me unbidden. His hand on my back the night of the charity gala, his smile carved for the cameras. The way he whispered you’re my future into my ear while his other hand signed contracts that would brand me a thief.

I could still see the police lights reflecting off glass, feel the burn of handcuffs against my wrists, the suffocating shame as my life collapsed in a single night. And in the courtroom, Ronan’s eyes never wavered from mine — not once — as he swore I had embezzled from his company. His father sat in the back row, stone-faced, silent, watching.

That was the night I stopped believing in saviors.

And now the devil himself was offering me protection.

---

I almost laughed when Cassian’s assistant appeared at the bookstore, elegant and polished in a sharp black suit.

“Mr. Valtore requests your presence this evening,” she said smoothly, as though summoning me were as natural as ordering wine at dinner.

Requests. Not asks. Not invites. Requests.

“I’m not one of his employees,” I muttered.

Her polite smile didn’t falter. “He’ll expect you at seven.”

And that was that.

I told myself I wouldn’t go. That I’d cling to the last fragments of defiance left to me. But by dusk, I was in the back of a black car, the city sliding past in violet haze, heading toward a tower of glass and steel that pierced the clouds.

---

Cassian’s penthouse wasn’t a home. It was an empire suspended above the city.

The elevator opened to marble floors polished to a mirror’s sheen. A wall of glass wrapped around the space, the skyline stretched out in every direction, New York reduced to glitter at his feet. The furniture was dark, clean, sharp-edged, every piece chosen to intimidate rather than comfort.

And at the window, as though the city itself were his throne, stood Cassian Valtore.

He didn’t turn when I entered. “You came,” he said, his voice a quiet verdict.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

Now he turned. Slowly. Deliberately. That unreadable face, sculpted and merciless, eyes cold as steel. A faint curve of his mouth that could have been amusement or disdain.

“There’s always a choice, Isla.” He stepped closer, each movement deliberate, as though he owned even the air I breathed. “You came because you’ve started to understand the truth.”

I folded my arms, holding myself together. “And what truth is that?”

“That Ronan won’t stop until he ruins you. Unless we ruin him first.”

He crossed the room until he was only inches away, his presence too much, his shadow swallowing me whole.

“And marrying you does what?” I asked, forcing my voice steady.

“It binds us,” he said without hesitation. “It puts you under my protection in a way Ronan can’t touch. It gives you teeth, Isla. Sharp enough to draw blood.”

A laugh tore out of me — bitter, ugly, the sound of disbelief. “You make it sound so simple. As if marriage is just a… a business deal.”

“It is,” he said flatly. Then his gaze softened — not with warmth, but with dangerous honesty. “But don’t mistake business for lack of intensity. A marriage with me would be binding. Irrevocable. You would carry my name, my power. And you’d wield it. If you had the courage.”

Something in my chest tightened, traitorous.

“Do you always talk to women like this?” I tried for mockery, for distance.

“No,” he said, and the weight of his gaze pinned me. “Only the ones strong enough to stand in my fire.”

The silence stretched, alive, suffocating. Behind him, the skyline blurred into rivers of gold and silver, but all I could feel was him — the sharp edge of his offer, the way it cut through every shield I thought I had left.

I should have walked away. I should have spat in his face and told him I’d never sell myself, not even for revenge.

But Ronan’s voice wouldn’t leave me. You’re my future.

The memory of cold metal against my wrists burned hotter than Cassian’s nearness.

And suddenly, for the first time in years, I wasn’t ashamed of wanting blood.

When I finally spoke, my voice was quiet but steady. “If I marry you… I want more than protection. I want to burn him to the ground.”

Cassian’s glass was forgotten on the table. His gaze sharpened, dangerous and satisfied.

“Good,” he said softly, almost like a promise. “Because that’s exactly what I intend.”