Chapter 1 The Threat That Wore a Suit

"Sign it".

Cassian Vale didn't raise his voice.

He didn't need to.

The command slid across the polished conference table like a blade, slicing through the sterile air and every fragile illusion I had left.

Forty floors above Aurelion City, the glass walls caged us in a panoramic view of power steel skyscrapers, golden sunlight, and a world that bowed to the name Vale. Inside this room, however, was only cold calculation and the slow execution of my career.

My fingers tightened around the silver pen. The contract lay before me like a death sentence, resignation notice already typed, my name aligned neatly beneath the heading, as though my fate had been decided long before I ever walked in.

I swallowed hard.

"Sir, please... I only need one more month"

The room held its breath.

Cassian Vale finally looked up.

Storm-grey eyes. Merciless. Devastatingly beautiful in the way lightning destroys the sky before rain ever dares to heal it. He didn't look at me like a woman. Or an employee. Or even a human being.

He looked at me like a flaw he intended to erase.

"You had your chance, Miss Ashford," he said, voice smooth with lethal restraint. "Vale Dominion does not tolerate inefficiency."

The lie burned like acid.

I had worked harder than anyone in this department. Skipped meals. Stayed long after midnight. Swallowed every insult and smiled through every whisper. I knew the figures. I knew the projections. I knew the clients who only trusted me with their delicate accounts.

But none of that mattered when the board began murmuring that I was a visual liability.

Because scars make people uncomfortable.

My gaze dropped instinctively as his eyes flicked just once to the right side of my face. The faint distortion beneath the foundation. The mark I tried so desperately to hide beneath makeup, strategic angles, and silence.

Still, he saw it.

The humiliation clung to my skin like frost.

Around us, executives sat rigid, eyes averted, pretending they weren't witnesses to a slow public dismantling. No one dared interrupt the king while he issued judgment.

"Sign," he repeated.

The word struck deeper this time. Final. Absolute.

My hand shook as I lowered the pen. With a slow, aching stroke, I signed my name over the ghost of everything I had tried to rebuild. When the ink bled into the paper, something inside me cracked with it.

That was when the door burst open.

Sharp heels echoed across marble. Perfume bloomed through the clinical air. Confidence wrapped in silk and poison.

"Cassian! I've been trying to reach you for hours. Your assistant is impossible to locate. Honestly, you need better staffing." Selene Montclair's voice flowed like honey laced with venom as she swept inside without permission.

Platinum hair. Diamond shine. Perfection personified.

Her eyes found mine.

And sharpened.

A slow smile curved her lips too sweet, too deliberate. Then she turned to Cassian, draping herself casually beside him as if the space already belonged to her.

"You promised lunch. Some of us still matter," she added lightly.

His posture shifted. Subtle. Almost imperceptible.

"This is a business meeting, Selene," he replied, yet his tone lacked the severity reserved for me.

She brushed invisible lint from his sleeve with possessive intimacy before flicking her gaze back to me. "Is she still here?"

He didn't respond.

But he didn't defend me either.

Shame seeped deep into my bones. I tried to straighten my shoulders, refusing to shrink refusing to let her see the wreckage she so desperately wanted to confirm.

Then her eyes sparkled with sudden mischief.

"You know, Cassian..." she said, voice softening with theatrical curiosity. "It's almost strange that the girl who saved you would ever look so... ordinary."

The air froze.

Every breath in the room vanished.

Cassian's head snapped toward her. "What did you say?"

She laughed delicately, convincingly, lethal. "The playground incident.

The brave little heroine, remember? The only person who ever stood up for you when everyone else mocked you." She cocked her head thoughtfully. "You always said you would find her again."

My pulse thundered violently in my ears.

She turned back toward me.

"You already did."

The world tilted.

Her finger lifted slowly.

Pointing.

At me.

Everything shattered at once.

My lungs refused to function. My heartbeat spiraled into panic. Every memory, every scar, every night I spent reliving that childhood moment collided violently with the impossible present.

Cassian's gaze scorched me now searching, dissecting, stripping bare the years I had spent hiding him inside my heart.

Suspicion flared behind his eyes. Something dangerous. Something wounded.

"Don't joke with things you don't understand," he snapped, the edge in his voice razor sharp.

"I'm not joking," Selene murmured smoothly. "Look at her, Cassian. Same eyes. Same quiet way she watches the world. She just hides her face now."

Silence fell like judgment upon my soul.

If he looked closer...

If he truly saw me...

He would know.

He would remember.

But instead of stepping forward, instead of questioning, instead of letting curiosity fracture his certainty, he chose distance.

"Leave the room, Miss Ashford," he said coldly.

No wonder.

No recognition.

No compassion.

Just dismissal.

I straightened slowly, every nerve trembling as I gathered the remnants of my dignity.

My legs moved mechanically toward the door, even as my heart burned with memories he no longer carried.

As my hand closed around the handle, Selene's whisper slid after me with calculated cruelty.

"Don't worry," she breathed. "He never likes broken things anyway."

The words pierced deeper than any blade.

The door closed behind me with a soft final click.

And there, in the hallway where power muffled pain and marble reflected my fractured image, one terrifying truth took root.

I had returned to the man I once saved...

And now he was the one destroying me.

I didn't know which haunted me more.

The man who no longer remembered me...

Or the woman who just stole my soul.