Page 61 of Crushed Vow

We turned. Light flickered beyond the metal door. Safety.

“Only two can pass,” Cassian said, chest heaving. “One more body and it’ll collapse. It was designed that way.”

“Go!” I shouted. “Cassian—go with Ethan. Please, just go! You’re hurt—”

“Hell no.” He dragged me toward the door instead, forcing my hand into Ethan’s. “Keep her safe,” he barked. “If I don’t make it, you better make sure she lives.”

“Cassian, stop it!” I yelled, fighting him. “I’m not leaving you here!”

“You are. I’d die for you a thousand times over.”

The flames surged again.

A second blast rocked the ceiling.

A beam came down—right behind him—and fire caught his back. He screamed.

“Cassian!” I shrieked, reaching for him as smoke engulfed him. “CASSIAN!”

But Ethan grabbed me.

“No—NO! Let me go!” I thrashed, nails clawing at Ethan’s iron grip, my screams tearing through the smoke-choked air.

But he dragged me forward, his strength unyielding as the house burned behind us. Flames roared, my feet stumbled over debris, and Ethan yanked me into a dark tunnel—the metal vault door hissing shut with a final, deafening clang.

My knees buckled. My screams turned to sobs.

I turned back, but there was no door. No window. No sound.

Just fire on the other side.

“Cassian...” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Cassian...”

Ethan slumped beside me, his breath ragged, blood seeping through the makeshift bandages on his back and thigh. “Is he...gone?” he rasped, his voice barely audible over the pounding in my ears.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, collapsing against the wall. “God, I don’t know.”

My chest cracked open, grief and guilt spilling like blood. Sobs shook me, burning like ash in my lungs.

He came for me. After I’d divorced him, after I’d shattered his heart and walked away, Cassian had still stormed into this war, this inferno, for me. And I’d left him behind.

Was he alive? Was he burning? Was he screaming my name as the flames consumed him?

The thought was a knife, twisting deeper with every heartbeat. I’d never forgive myself—not for leaving, not for the divorce papers, not for loving him only when it was too late.

Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the soot and blood on my skin. I was crying so hard I couldn’t even see where we were going. My fingers shook with every step.

Cassian was gone.

That kiss. That last kiss.

The way he cupped my face like he knew it would be the last time.

The way I tasted smoke and blood and everything I still hadn’t said.

I would carry it like a wound.

We found a door at the end of the vault—a small steel exit that led out the back of the estate into the woods. Ethan collapsed beside a tree, panting, clutching his stitched-up side. He needed a hospital. Not painkillers or pressure pads.