Cassian stepped off the elevator and onto the executive floor, still wearing his travel jacket.
His luggage was somewhere downstairs with the driver.
He’d planned to go home first, shower, maybe grab clean clothes, but Jaxon’s messages had sent him straight here.
Call me when you land.
Something happened.
It’s about Aurora.
He’d read them right on the tarmac.
The whole drive over, he’d tried to guess what kind of trouble she was in this time.
It annoyed him.
She’d been at the company only three weeks.
Three weeks, and she’d managed to invade his thoughts more than anybody he’d ever hired.
The floor was way too quiet for a Tuesday.
A few employees glanced at him and quickly ducked their heads—like they knew something he didn’t.
He was halfway to his office when a conference room door opened.
Aurora stepped out.
She looked awful.
Not her usual pissed-off, ready-to-punch-someone kind of awful—this was different.
She was pale, her eyes shadowed, shoulders curled in like she was carrying a boulder.
There was a thin bandage on her right wrist, glaring against her skin.
She didn’t see him at first, focused on a folder in her hands, her jaw clenched tight.
Then she noticed him, and their eyes locked.
Her face flickered—surprise, relief, maybe something in between.
They stood frozen for a moment.
Aurora broke the eye contact first, she looked away, and breezed past him without a word.
Her heels clicked on the floor.
She disappeared into her office, closing the door with a soft click.
Cassian stood there, caught off guard.
He shook himself out of it and walked to his own office.
Jaxon was waiting inside.
Before Cassian could say anything, Jaxon closed the door, his face serious.
“What happened?” Cassian tossed his bag on the chair and turned to face him.
Jaxon got straight to the point.
“The New York proposal went in with wrong numbers. The costs were inflated, and the supporting document vanished. Silas gave Aurora till end of day to fix it or she’d be removed from the project.”
Cassian scowled.
“I thought you said she was handling it well?”
“She was. But there’s more.” Jaxon hesitated.
“Before you go barging in, you should know something else. Zachary cornered her in the lobby last weekend. He grabbed her wrist, hard enough to leave bruises. I stopped him before he could do anyting else.”
Silence filled the room.
Cassian’s expression didn’t change but his eyes did.
“Let me guess, she didn’t report it.”
“No. She refused. Said a complaint would give Savannah ammo to come for her.”
Jaxon watched him, waiting for any reaction but Cassian stayed stone-faced.
“Pull the security footage from the Cameras outside her office,” Cassian said.
Jaxon took out his phone, typed, and paused.
His jaw went tight.
“there’s a Problem. The cameras outside her office were down for maintenance—from six PM till eight AM.”
Cassian’s voice was flat.
“How Convenient.”
“Yeah.”
“Find out who scheduled that maintenance. And get me everything else—access logs, version histories, anyone who touched the file after she saved it.”
Jaxon nodded and left.
Cassian stood alone, staring at the city through the window.
He didn’t know the full picture yet.
But he knew Zachary was arrogant, reckless, always leaving someone else to clean up his messes.
He knew Savannah, too, always hungry for control, willing to throw her own son into the fight.
And yeah, he knew Aurora Bennett.
Stubborn.
Proud.
Impossible.
She’d slapped him in front of his father, locked him out on a balcony, refused his help when she needed it most.
She would never sabotage her own work.
Cassian picked up his phone and texted Jaxon: Check Zachary’s credentials.
Quietly.
Across the hall, Aurora was already at her computer.
She’d spent the last hour picking through the proposal, comparing the submitted version with what she remembered.
It didn’t take long to find the messed-up numbers.
Acquisition costs had jumped almost twenty percent.
One document she’d attached straight-up vanished.
The formatting was off too, the alignment, the font, not her usual work.
Someone had rushed edits.
She pulled up the version history.
Her mouse hovered over a late-night timestamp—11:47 PM, the night before.
Someone opened the file after she’d left, after she’d saved the final version.
The credentials?
They were hers.
But she hadn’t been there.
At 11:47 PM, she was home, lying in bed, trying not to obsess about Cassian Black.
She hadn’t touched her laptop or logged in.
Someone used her account.
Someone wanted the blame to land on her.
She reached for her phone to call Rhett, then stopped.
If she reported this, she’d have to explain how she knew that exact timestamp was wrong.
Because she’d also sent the spreadsheet to Amber.
Which was confidential documents.
She leaned back in her chair, heart thumping.
She could prove the file was changed.
But proving it might ruin her.
Her phone buzzed.
Jaxon: Cassian wants to see you.
His office.
Now.
She stared at the words.
Then stood, smoothed her blouse, and walked out.
The hallways were empty and quiet.
Through the glass, she saw Cassian by the window, his back to the door.
She knocked once and went inside.
“You wanted to see me,” she said.
He turned.
His face unreadable. cold and guarded, like he always was when he was pissed off or worried or maybe both.
“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”
Aurora stood her ground.
“I don’t know all that happened. But I know someone changed my file after I saved it. I know the cameras were down for those hours. And I know your stepbrother’s been waiting for a chance to ruin me since I first showed up here.”
Cassian studied her.
“Who did you tell?”
“Rhett. Before I came.”
“Good.”
She blinked, surprised.
“Good?”
“Rhett will take it to my father. There will be an official audit investigation and no one can sweep it under the rug.”
“And if the audit clears Zachary?”
“It won’t.”
“How are you so sure?”
Cassian didn’t answer.
He just looked at her, steady, confident and something shifted inside her.
“Be careful. Zachary’s not the only one who wants you gone.” he finally said.
“I know.”
“Then don’t give them a reason.”
The next morning, the audit results landed.
Aurora got called to the conference room at nine.
Silas sat at the head, with the audit report displayed on the screen before them.
Rhett stood by the door, Savannah took a seat beside Silas, her hands folded with an expression icy.
Zachary sat next to her, pale and restless whileCassian watched from the far end.
Aurora sat across from Zachary not glancing his way once.
Silas glanced up.
“The audit’s conclusive,” he said.
“Zachary’s credentials were used to access and alter the New York proposal at 11:47 PM.”
Zachary went pale.
“That’s not—” He stopped.
Swallowed.
“She gave me permission, she asked me to review the numbers. I was just trying to help.”
Aurora didn’t raise her voice.
She pulled out the training schedule she’d given Zachary on day one.
Slid it across to Silas.
“That’s the schedule I gave him. Page three, section two. He wasn’t authorized to touch the New York proposal, he also signed and dated it.”
Silas flipped the pages.
His face didn’t change.
He looked at Zachary.
“Is that your signature?”
Zachary stared at the paper.
Jaw clenched.
“She’s lying. She set me up, she hates me because of her brother. She’s wanted me fired since day one.”
Cassian leaned forward.
“Did you sign the schedule or not?”
“I did, but—”
“Then it wasn’t a setup.” Cassian’s voice didn’t budge.
“You changed the file, used her credentials and Tried to dump the blame.”
“I was trying to help!”
“By jacking up costs by twenty percent? By deleting a document?” Cassian shook his head.
“Do we look stupid to you?”
Zachary turned to Savannah, desperate.
“Mom, tell them—”
Savannah ignored him, staring at Silas, face cold.
Silas closed the folder, looking at Zachary like he was sizing him up.
“For the next month, you’ll be personally supervised by me. Every assignment, every meeting, every file. One more slip-up and you’re out. No exceptions.”
Zachary opened his mouth, then shut it.
Silas looked at Aurora.
“You’re cleared of deliberately messing up the figures. The corrected proposal’s already gone out. But you get an official warning for sending company documents to an outsider. Don’t let it happen again.”
Aurora nodded.
“I understand.”
Savannah shoved her chair back, eyes furious, face flushed.
She looked at Cassian, at Silas, at Aurora.
Didn’t say anything.
Stood and walked out.
Zachary followed.
The door slammed.
Silas looked at Aurora.
“You did well. But watch yourself. Savannah doesn’t lose quietly.”
Aurora left, hands still shaking, and went back to her desk.
She sat and stared at her screen.
Through her office glass, she saw Zachary in the hallway.
He stopped, stared right at her, cold, calculating, like he was already planning revenge.
Then he walked away.
Aurora watched him go.
She knew this wasn’t over.
Not even close.