Jonas’s face hardened.
There he was.
The man beneath the charm.
“You always were dramatic.”
Cassian moved.
Not much.
Only one step.
Jonas went pale.
Elara touched Cassian’s sleeve.
“No,” she said quietly. “Mine.”
Cassian stopped.
Jonas saw it.
So did everyone nearby.
Elara leaned closer to Jonas.
“You should run,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “From you?”
“Yes.”
He laughed under his breath.
Elara smiled.
“Because when I find out exactly what you helped steal from me, I won’t ask my husband to ruin you.”
She stepped closer.
“I’ll do it myself.”
For the first time since she had known him, Jonas looked afraid of her.
Not Cassian.
Her.
It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Then the lights went out.
The entire museum plunged into darkness.
A woman screamed.
Cassian’s hand found Elara’s instantly.
“Down,” he ordered.
This time, she obeyed.
Glass shattered somewhere above them.
Gunfire cracked through the dark.
People screamed and scattered.
Cassian pulled Elara behind a marble installation as security shouted into radios. His body shielded hers, but his grip did not trap her. Even in chaos, he left her room to move.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Elara’s pulse roared.
Across the room, she saw Jonas running.
Not toward the exit.
Toward the restricted gallery.
“He’s going for something,” she gasped.
Cassian followed her gaze.
His face turned cold.
“The drive.”
“You brought it here?”
“No,” he said. “I brought a fake.”
Elara stared. “You used the gala as bait?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
His silence was answer enough.
Rage cut through her fear.
But there was no time for it.
A masked man appeared at the end of the gallery corridor.
He raised a gun.
Cassian moved in front of her.
Elara saw the shot before it happened.
She shoved him.
The bullet struck the marble behind them instead of his chest.
Cassian caught her as they fell.
For one stunned second, his control shattered.
“Elara.”
She had never heard fear in his voice before.
It terrified her more than the gun.
“I’m fine,” she said.
His hand touched her cheek, stopped, withdrew like he had remembered the rules even while shaking.
Security tackled the shooter.
The museum erupted into sirens.
Jonas disappeared.
But as Elara sat on the cold floor in her emerald dress, Cassian crouched before her with blood on his sleeve from broken glass, she understood something with absolute clarity.
The terrifying thing waiting for her had not been marriage to Cassian Thorn.
It had not been the truth about her mother.
It had not even been the men hunting the trust.
The terrifying thing was this:
For the first time in her life, someone dangerous had stepped between her and a bullet.
And she had pushed him out of the way.
They fought in the car.
Not loudly.
That would have been easier.
Cassian’s fury was quiet, brutal, locked behind clenched hands and a jaw hard enough to crack stone.
“You should not have done that,” he said.
Elara stared out at the rain-blurred city. “You’re welcome.”
“You could have been killed.”
“So could you.”
“I am replaceable.”
The words hit harder than she expected.
She turned. “Don’t say that.”
“It is true.”
“No, it’s convenient. There’s a difference.”
His eyes flashed. “You do not understand what my death would cost.”
“Do you understand what mine would?”
He went silent.
Elara leaned toward him.
“You dragged me into a public war without telling me the gala was a trap.”
“I calculated the risk.”
“You calculated my risk.”
His face tightened.
She saw the guilt then.
Real.
Ugly.
Hidden too late.
“You’re right,” he said.
Again, that stunned her.
Cassian Thorn should not have been a man who admitted fault. Men like him built entire legal departments to avoid it.
“I wanted Jonas exposed,” he continued. “I wanted the men behind him to panic. I thought if you knew, you would refuse to attend.”
“I might have.”
“Yes.”
“So you took the choice.”
“Yes.”
The honesty did not soften the betrayal.
But it gave her somewhere to place the knife.
“If you ever do that again,” she said, “I walk.”
Cassian looked at her.
“No money. No protection. No revenge. I walk away from all of it before I let another man turn my life into a chessboard.”
Rain whispered against the windows.
Cassian’s voice was low.
“Understood.”
She believed him.
That angered her too.
Back at Thorn House, Miriam met them in the foyer, took one look at their faces, and sent everyone else away.
“Neither of you is bleeding badly,” she said. “Good. Then you may continue being idiots after tea.”
“Miriam,” Cassian warned.
She ignored him.
“Elara, library. Cassian, clean your arm before you drip on the Persian rug. Your father bought it, and I dislike having reasons to preserve his taste.”