Virelux Internal Memo
To: All Senior Staff
From: Executive Office
Subject: Temporary Executive Realignment
Effective immediately, CEO Cassian Dorne will step back from select duties during a period of internal realignment and strategic consolidation. Day-to-day operations will continue under existing senior directives. This measure is preemptive and temporary.
Please direct inquiries through formal channels.
Executive Liaison
---
Cassian's POV – Executive Suite, Afternoon
The wording was clean. Just enough opacity to avoid direct questions. Just enough finality to suggest control.
He didn't attend the senior call that followed. Theo handled it.
Letizia, however, showed up unannounced. Wrapped in a dark coat, sunglasses still on indoors.
"You look like a man who just handed over his crown," she said, walking past him into his office like it was hers.
"I didn't hand it over."
"No," she agreed, glancing at the internal memo on his screen. "You're anchoring it. Clever. But it won't hold forever."
He didn't answer.
She dropped her bag on the sofa, pulled out a red notebook.
"This is what I propose," she said, flipping to a marked page. "If it breaks in the press, you've already moved. If it stays internal, we maintain control."
He raised an eyebrow. "And the personal fallout?"
Letizia didn't blink. "Control the story, or someone else will rewrite it."
He leaned back, nodding once.
"Cassian," she added, gentler now. "You're not hiding a scandal. You're protecting a future. Start acting like it."
---
Talia's POV – Breakroom, After Hours
Talia stirred her tea too long, then drank it cold.
Theo slid into the chair across from her like he'd been summoned by instinct. Maybe he had.
"You look like someone who's already burned the building down in her head," he said.
"I've drafted three versions," she replied. "Only two end in arson."
Theo slid a folder toward her. Not thick. But not light either.
"What's this?"
"Legal backup. Contingencies. Clauses I hope we never use."
She opened it, brows narrowing. "Cassian gave you this?"
"Not directly. But he didn't stop me either."
Talia looked up. "So you believe in him now?"
Theo shook his head. "I believe in her. And she chose him."
Talia stared at the folder. Then sighed. "Fine. What's the plan?"
"We stall. We shield. And we make sure no one gets to her without going through us first."
Talia raised her tea. "To gatekeeping."
Theo tapped his own cup to hers. "To survival."
---
Lyra's POV – Apartment, Evening
She had the window cracked open. The city was restless. She wasn't.
Remote work had its advantages. Quiet. Time. Space to think.
She didn't miss the strategic floor. But she missed walking past him.
Still, her inbox filled with purpose, briefings, updates, quiet assignments with Cassian's initials in the corner.
And every night, the same message.
> C: Eat something warm. I'm sending soup.
Or
> C: How was today? Mine was chaos. I miss you in the war room.
Sometimes, she replied right away. Sometimes, she just stared at the screen, touched her stomach, and breathed in the silence of not being hunted, yet.
Her belly hadn't fully changed shape. But it was beginning to feel like a presence, not just a symptom.
She pressed a hand there, and whispered: "We're not hiding. Not forever."
---
Cassian's POV – Penthouse, Night
He didn't check the news. Letizia would do that for him.
He read the file Theo sent again. Protection protocols, fallback clauses, ways to shield Lyra without naming her.
But all the legal defenses in the world couldn't cover what he wanted to do next.
So instead, he made space. In his schedule. In his life.
He added a name to the penthouse security list.
He pulled her earring case out of the drawer again, not to stare at it this time. But to call the restoration jeweler and say: "Finish it. No delay."
He thought about strategy.
And then he thought about her face the night she walked through rain just to say, I can't do this to you.
No one had ever chosen him that way. Not for power. Not for position.
Just for who he was when everything else fell away.