NOAH
The dinner service was winding down, the heavy silver replaced by delicate dessert plates, but the air in the room had curdled into something thick and suffocating. Across the sea of tuxedos and shimmering gowns, my eyes found Cassian's one last time.
It was a loaded, electric moment. The noise of the room, the clinking of crystal, the polite laughter, seemed to mute itself. Cassian looked at me with an expression I couldn't decipher; it was heavy with unspoken words, a dark gravity that pulled at the very center of my chest. He was with another man.
This man was well-dressed, his suit impeccable, but he radiated a cold, ominous energy that made the hair on my arms stand up.
He looked composed, yet there was a predatory stillness to him. I watched Cassian's face shift. He went guarded, wary, and then, most disturbingly, resigned. It wasn't the look of a man greeting a business associate; it was the look of a man walking into a storm he knew he couldn't avoid.
