Chapter 5

Turned out Grant was the kind of "old friend" you needed to watch out for.

He took me on a work trip to Chicago not long after. Slipped something into my drink. Got me back to a hotel room before I even understood what was happening.

I came out of it just enough, just barely, to fight him off before it went any further. Got out of that room somehow, half out of my mind, and called the police the second I made it back to my own hotel room. They opened a criminal investigation that same night.

Cassian showed up not long after. Pulled me straight into his arms, my whole body shaking, his chin resting on the top of my head, his hand moving over my back in slow, steady circles. There was so much in his face. Real fear. Real relief.

"You're okay now, Maren."

"I'll make sure he pays for this."

I curled into him, into that warmth I hadn't let myself want in years, and something in my chest, something I thought had gone cold for good, softened.

And to be fair, he followed through, at least on paper. Got me the best lawyers in the city, filed a civil suit on top of the police investigation, the kind that could get me damages even if the criminal case dragged.

Which, as it turned out, it did. The DA's office was still "gathering evidence" months later, no charges filed, no real movement. So the civil suit became the only track that actually seemed to be going anywhere.

Atlas even played the concerned little man of the house, telling me not to be scared, that he and his dad would be right there with me the whole way through.

Then the trial date came.

And the two of them quietly packed up and flew to St. Moritz. With Blair.

"She couldn't handle it, finding out someone she trusted could do something like that."

"She's been crying for days. We had to take her somewhere to decompress."

Cassian said it over the phone.

I didn't say anything back. Just looked down and let out a laugh that had nothing funny in it.

In court, the judge asked me to produce the original file for my evidence, a voice memo I'd managed to start recording on my phone the second I realized something was wrong, tucked in my bag the whole time it happened.

I pulled out my phone. The file was gone. Deleted.

The judge's expression didn't soften.

"Without the original recording, the evidentiary weight of your claim is significantly limited."

"This court can only make a discretionary finding on the matter."

"Do you understand?"

My face went bloodless. "I understand."

After the hearing, I called Cassian. He and Atlas were the only two people who'd had access to my phone that week.

"I deleted it."

"Aunt Blair was so sad about it. Every time she thought about her friend doing something so bad, she'd cry."

"I couldn't stand seeing her upset, so I got rid of the recording. That way nobody could use it to get him in trouble."

"Besides, you didn't actually get hurt, right, Mom?"

Atlas's voice on the other end, small and untroubled, said it like he was explaining why he'd finished someone else's snack.

I stood outside the courthouse holding the phone. June sun beating straight down on my scalp, and somehow, I felt ice cold straight through.

Six years of something burning quietly in my chest just went out.

And I remember thinking, clear as anything:

I don't actually need either of them.