Page 23 of Intrigue (Dark Syndicate #4)

“You’re mine! Not Cassian’s but mine!” Sandro’s voice snarls in my head as the orgasm slams through me, and I scream his name, the pleasure ripping from my clit to my belly to my chest. I moan his name as I finish.

I can feel him slightly pull back but I’m too lost in the euphoria, emptying myself in Cassian’s mouth, a flood of wet heat he drinks down.

Then the haze clears.

Cassian rises from the floor and takes a step backward, looking torn, gutted. I crash back to earth when my eyes catch his, because I know I’ve done the worst thing on earth, betrayed him with a ghost.

“You called his name,” he tells me, voice flat, like I don’t already feel the knife of it.

Then he turns around, flips on the faucet in the kitchen sink, and splashes water on his face, hands shaking.

He breathes heavily with his back turned against me as he says again, “You just came with his name on the tip of your tongue, Selene.”

Looking at him now, I realize I have a choice to make—a choice I need to make right now or risk losing my sanity to this festering, twisted rot eating me alive.

Cassian’s back stiffens at the sink. My thighs still tremble, slick with his spit and my shame, the island cold under me. I scramble for my shorts, pulling them up. Guilt drowns everything else, choking me with what I’ve done.

I ought to say something—anything—but what words could undo this?

“You called his name,” he says again, quieter now, like he’s testing the wound. He turns, eyes red-rimmed, blazing. “Say it, again.” His voice is eerily calm, but I hear the fracture beneath, the tight coil waiting to snap.

I shake my head. “Cassian, I—”

“Say his name. You had no problem moaning it while I had my mouth on you. What’s stopping you now?”

Shame scorches through me, but anger shows too, rising like bile. “It was a mistake.” I grab my shirt from the floor, hastily dragging it over my head. “I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t mean to say it? Or didn’t mean to think of him while my tongue was inside you?

” Cassian steps forward, closing the space between us in a heartbeat.

“Because we both know the truth.” His voice drops.

“He’s the reason, isn’t he? The reason why you haven’t let me touch you since.

Why you keep saying you’re tired or that we should wait for the wedding. ”

“Cass...”

“You’re in love with him.”

I step toward him. “Cassian, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t.” He jerks back, hands slamming the counter. “Don’t you dare lie to me. You screamed for him while I was on my knees for you.” His voice cracks. “What the hell, Selene. What am I to you? Some stand-in while you cry for him?”

My chest caves. “You’re not. I swear, you’re not. I just…” I falter, words crumbling. How do I explain this?

Cassian scoffs. “There it is. No denial. No argument. Just the truth, sitting ugly between us.”

I glare at him, not sure why I am getting angry.

“And what do you want me to say, Cassian? That I don’t dream of him?

That I don’t hear his voice in my head every goddamn day?

That I haven’t spent every second trying to erase him?

I wanted to forget him! I wanted you to be the one!

But he’s in my fucking blood, and I can’t rip him out no matter how hard I try! ”

He laughs, bitter, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Oh, I see how hard you’ve been trying,” he says, his tone dripping in sarcasm. “You have not in any way been showing that you’re still hung up on that bastard.” He steps closer. “Tell me you don’t want him. Look me in the face and say it.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes. My throat burns, eyes stinging. “I don’t know what I want,” I whisper, honestly. “I tried to hate him, Cassian. I tried so much it hurts, but he’s… he’s everywhere.”

His face twists. “Then why the hell am I here? Why’d you let me touch you if he’s all you see?” He grabs my arms, fingers digging in, not hard enough to bruise but enough to rattle me. “I’ve fallen so deeply in love with you, Selene. And you’re killing me.”

Tears spill hot down my cheeks. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying—I’m trying to let him go. You’re good, Cassian. You’re too good for me.”

“Good?” He shoves away, pacing now, hands raking through his hair. “I don’t want to be good. I want to be enough. But I’m not, am I? Not next to him.”

“Stop it,” I snap, voice rising. “This isn’t about you not being enough. It’s about me being a wreck. I came back here thinking he and I were over. But he’s in my head, under my skin—”

“Then get him out!” Cassian whirls, fist pounding the counter so hard a glass topples and shatters. “Or tell me to walk away, Selene. Right now. Because I’m not competing with him.”

I freeze, breath hitching. “I don’t want you to go,” I say. “I care a lot about you. I do.”

He stares at me, chest heaving, eyes wet. “You care about me? Or you need me to fix you? To heal you from loving him?”

Cassian catches my wrists, his grip bruising.

His hazel eyes flash with something dark, something I’ve never seen before.

“You want me to make you forget about him, right?” He leans in, voice thick with resentment.

“You want me to be bad and wicked like he is, right? Treat you like shit. Break you like your father did. That’s what you like, isn’t it? ”

My breath catches as he pulls me closer, his breath hot, against my skin. For a second, I think he might kiss me, that maybe he’ll try to reclaim what’s slipping through his fingers. But then—

BZZT. BZZT.

My phone vibrates on the counter, the sound slicing through the air like a knife.

Cassian tenses, then moves before I do, snatching it up with lightning-fast reflexes. My stomach twists into a knot. I already know who it is.

Sandro.

Cassian stares at the screen, jaw clenched so tightly I swear I hear his teeth grind. Then, with slow deliberation, he swipes across the screen and plays the voice message aloud.

He must have fast-forwarded it, looking for something to prove his point, because my world cracks open in the space of three words.

“I loved you.”

The voice spills into the kitchen, rich and aching, a sound I haven’t heard in so long it feels like it's stepping into my skin, breathing my air, wrapping itself around my ribs until I can’t tell if I’m trembling from rage or something far, far worse.

Cassian’s face twists as he stares down at my phone, his knuckles white around it. “I loved you then, Selene,” Sandro’s voice continues. “Christ, I love you now, more than ever.”

I lunge for the phone, but Cassian jerks it out of reach, holding it high as the message keeps playing.

Every word hits harder the next.

Every lie, every cruel word that night, it was all for you. I’d do it all again, even if it destroys me.

I can’t breathe.

No. No, no, no.

This isn’t happening.

The kitchen tilts, the walls pressing too close, Cassian’s breath coming fast and loudly from his body rigid beside me. The message crackles on, unstoppable, dragging us both into the past, into a place I swore I’d never return to.

“I can’t give you all the details now, time isn’t on my side, but this—this is the real me, Selene. This is me fighting for you, coming for you, even if it’s too late.”

The words strangle me.

The last ones are softer, but they hit the hardest.

Even if you never hear this, even if you never believe me, I need you to know…

The message cuts off.

Silence.

Cassian exhales and tilts his head back like he’s trying to catch his balance, like he’s reeling just as much as I am. Then, his hand drops, and his eyes meet mine.

And I know.

I know the exact second the betrayal takes root.

His eyes go dark. His lips curl. And when he speaks, his voice is quiet. Too quiet.

“Gosh. How could I have been so blind. That’s why you’ve been acting weird since we got back. It’s been going on even before we met, hasn’t it? You were fucking your brother?”

A single, sharp breath leaves me.

“It’s not like that...” My throat is sandpaper.

Cassian lets out a choked laugh, a sound so broken, so bitter, it slices through me worse than a scream.

“That’s what you wanted me to believe, isn’t it?

That he was like a brother to you? That’s what you’ve always told me.

That’s what everyone says.” His nostrils flare, his whole body trembling.

“And yet he’s here, spilling his fucking soul to you.

Telling you he loves you. Telling you he’s coming for you. ”

I shake my head. “Cassian, stop.”

“Oh, I think I finally get it.” He steps forward, close enough that I can feel his breath, his fury curling into the space between us like smoke.

“All those years, all those fucking times I told myself I was imagining things. That you just weren’t the type to love out loud.

That it was nothing and you’d come around.

But it only became worse when we got here.

” His voice drops. “I bet you laughed at me, huh? While you were sneaking around with him? While you were in bed with me, you were thinking of him?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

Cassian’s face crumples, his hands trembling at his sides. “Then tell me what it was, Selene.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Because I don’t have an answer.

Because how do I explain the mess inside me, the years of love and hate and longing so tangled I don’t even know where one feeling ends and another begins? How do I explain the ache that’s never left me, the way Sandro’s voice still has the power to unravel me, even now, even after everything?

Cassian watches me struggle. Watches the silence eat me alive.

And something inside him shatters.

His expression smooths, his fury slipping into something colder, something I haven’t even seen on him before. “You can’t, can you?” His voice is a whisper. “Because you still want him.”

“Cassian—”

“I should’ve known.” He sighs. “You were never really mine. You’re his, aren’t you? Always have been.”

“I—”

He moves before I can finish.

His hand flies, cracking against my cheek.

Pain explodes through my skull. And I stumble, vision blurring as my head hits the island’s edge.

The world spins.

I don’t even have time to react before the floor rushes up to meet me.

Then— everything goes black.