Chapter 2 - The Trap Closes
Harley jerked her arm backward with every ounce of strength she possessed.
Cassian’s arm did not budge a single millimeter. He remained rooted to the marble floor like an immovable oak tree.
“Let go of me,” she hissed, her voice vibrating with a sudden, dangerous fury.
The initial shock of the ruined wedding and the public humiliation was rapidly burning away inside her chest, clearing the ash to expose something much harder, much sharper underneath.
Pure, unadulterated anger.
Cassian glanced down at her trapped wrist for a split second, evaluating her struggle, and then returned his dark gaze directly to her blazing eyes.
“No.”
It was not spoken as a threat or an aggressive shout.
It sounded like a statement of physical law, as inevitable as gravity.
“I am not a piece of property,” Harley snapped, her voice trembling now—not from fear, but from the searing rush of pure adrenaline flooding her veins. “I don’t know anything about his stupid debts! I don’t know who you are! You cannot just walk into a church and take a person like a sack of grain!”
“I just did,” Cassian replied smoothly, his tone terrifyingly casual.
Harley whipped her head around, looking frantically toward the side exit where her cowardly fiancé had disappeared.
“Peter! Tell him! Tell this lunatic I have absolutely nothing to do with whatever illegal nonsense you were running behind my back!”
Peter stood frozen just outside the side doorway, his face pale, his eyes wide and bloodshot with absolute terror.
His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish on a beach.
Not a single word came out.
He looked frantically from Harley’s furious face to Cassian’s cold, dead eyes.
Then, without a shred of human decency left, he turned and ran.
Peter scrambled awkwardly across the wooden legs of a terrified bridesmaid, bursting through the side exit and slamming the heavy oak door shut behind him with a resounding boom that shook the stained glass windows.
Harley stared blankly at the empty space where her fiancé had stood just seconds ago.
A bitter, acidic laugh clawed its way up her throat.
Three years.
Three years of endless compromise, dull Friday night movie marathons, coupon clipping, and convincing herself that a safe, predictable, boring life was infinitely better than a volatile one.
Safe and boring had just sold her out to the criminal underworld to cover gambling debts and vanished through a side door like a whipped rat.
“He’s a rat,” Cassian noted quietly, his eyes following Peter’s hasty retreat. “And rats always run when the ship takes on water.”
Harley turned her furious glare back up at him, her chest heaving beneath the rigid lace.
“And what does that make you? A glorified debt collector with a ridiculous flair for dramatic entrances?”
Something flickered deep within Cassian’s dark eyes.
Perhaps it was fleeting amusement.
Perhaps it was sheer, unadulterated surprise that a woman abandoned at the altar was chewing him out instead of weeping into his lapel.
“I’m the man who owns your life until that two-and-a-half million dollars is completely recouped,” Cassian stated flatly.
Harley let out a sharp, incredulous breath.
“Are you insane? I make fifty-five thousand dollars a year managing a regional logistics warehouse in Queens! At that rate, it will take me forty-five years to pay off your debt—assuming I never eat, never sleep, and never pay rent!”
“You won’t be paying it off with a salary, Ms. Vance.”
Harley froze. “How do you know my last name?”
“I know the shoe size, blood type, and credit score of every person Peter has ever spoken to in the last three years,” Cassian replied without blinking. “Do you honestly think I entered this blind?”
Before Harley could formulate a blistering response, her mother shoved her way past the front row of pews, her face flushed crimson, her hands trembling as she clutched a beaded handbag like a weapon.
“Unhand my daughter right now, you—you criminal!” Mrs. Vance shrieked, raising her purse as if to strike Cassian across the face.
Before the handbag could even arc downward, one of Cassian’s armed associates—a towering man in a dark trench coat standing quietly by the baptismal font—stepped forward with terrifying speed, his hand resting casually inside his jacket.
Cassian raised a single, gloved hand, stopping his man instantly with a subtle twitch of his fingers.
“Mrs. Vance,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a smooth, dangerously polite register that chilled the air. “Your prospective son-in-law embezzled funds from my shipping terminals to fund his high-stakes poker addiction. Legally, I own everything he touches. That includes this church, the reception hall, the catering deposit, and technically, the contract of marriage he just defaulted on.”
Mrs. Vance paled so drastically she looked as though she might faint. She grabbed the edge of a wooden pew to steady herself. “Take the reception hall! Take the car! Just leave my daughter alone!”
“I’m afraid collateral doesn't work that way,” Cassian said softly.
He turned his attention back to Harley, his strong fingers tightening fractionally around her wrist.
“You’re coming with me, Harley.”
“I am not going anywhere with you!” she hissed, digging her heels firmly into the marble step, her satin shoes slipping slightly against the polished stone. “Call the police! Somebody call 911!”
She looked out toward the two hundred guests packed into the pews.
Every single head was ducked down. Nobody reached for a phone. Nobody shouted a protest. The high-powered lawyers, wealthy cousins, and timid neighbors sat in frozen, cowardly silence, terrified of drawing the monster’s gaze toward themselves.
The realization hit Harley with the force of a physical blow: she was entirely, utterly on her own.
“The police are currently busy investigating a warehouse fire in the industrial district,” Cassian remarked dryly. “They won’t be arriving for quite some time.”
Without waiting for her agreement, Cassian gave her wrist a firm, irresistible tug.
Harley stumbled forward, losing her footing on the slick altar steps. Her expensive, overly tight heels betrayed her, and she pitched directly forward.
Instead of hitting the hard marble floor, she collided squarely against Cassian’s solid, unyielding chest.
His free arm came around her waist with lightning speed, scooping her effortlessly off her feet as if she weighed nothing at all.
“Put me down!” she yelled, pounding her fists ineffectually against his broad shoulders, the stiff lace of her wedding dress catching awkwardly on his lapel. “You kidnapper! Let me go!”
Cassian ignored her entirely. Carrying the furious, veil-wearing bride cradled against his side like a sack of grain, he turned and began striding down the long red carpet toward the heavy oak exit doors.
The guests parted before him like the Red Sea, shrinking back against the pews with averted eyes.
May you like
As they passed the threshold into the glaring, unfiltered afternoon sunlight, Harley caught a final, humiliating glimpse of her mother weeping into a lace handkerchief while the organist nervously played an off-key jazz chord in the background.
Then the heavy wooden doors swung shut, sealing her fate behind them.
