There were names that carried weight, and then there were names that commanded silence.
Drevault was the kind that made boardrooms pause, made governments listen, and made enemies reconsider their lives.
Cassian had been born into it—groomed for it, shaped by it. The legacy wasn't a crown; it was a religion.
And in this family, women were not merely respected.
They were revered.
Drevault women were sculpted into myth—elegant, untouchable, with minds sharper than daggers and spines carved from gold.
Mothers. Wives. Daughters.
As long as the bloodline ran through them—or they married into it—they were placed on pedestals no man dared question.
Because the Drevault men weren't raised to dominate women.
They were raised to protect, to serve, to worship.
And more than anything else—they were raised to never, ever hurt the woman they love.
But it was also why outsiders were… filtered. Scrutinized.
Because if you weren't born Drevault or chosen by them—you weren't family.
And family was sacred.
---
Cassian sat alone on the top floor of the Drevault estate, in a room carved from shadow and glass. The entire building breathed wealth—cool marble veins, digital silence, and a view that made the world look small.
He stared out the window like it had wronged him.
Beneath the clean lines of his jaw and the calm in his dark eyes, something unspoken lived. A quiet pull. A thought that didn't leave.
His life was precision.
His heart? Not so much.
Because three years ago, everything shifted.
---
Three Years Ago —
The sky above the city was bruised in velvet — a bleeding dusk fading into ink.
Below, the Grand Viremont Hotel glowed like a golden wound — all glass and performance.
Inside, the ballroom pulsed with curated extravagance. Men in suits shaking hands like rituals. Women in couture laughing through champagne teeth. Every movement choreographed, every smile weaponized.
Cassian stood near the edge of it all, hands in his pockets, black suit tailored within an inch of sin. He looked like power wrapped in silence.
He hated these nights.
They felt like traps lined with glitter.
Then—
A moment.
A misstep.
A girl collided with him, sharp and breathless.
The glass in her hand snapped. Red wine spilled like blood down his chest.
And her eyes—wild, horrified—met his.
> "Shit—oh my God—I'm so sorry!"
Her voice cracked with honesty. No polish. No agenda.
Just panic.
Cassian blinked, still.
She was trying to clean him with napkins she fumbled from a tray, hands shaking, mouth moving faster than her thoughts.
He caught her wrist.
> "Stop."
It wasn't cruel. Just... steady. Grounding.
Their eyes locked.
And something ancient moved inside him.
She was nothing like the women he knew.
No gloss. No perfection.
Just skin flushed with heat, a dress that didn't fit like it should, and a heart that clearly beat too fast.
She looked like she accidentally wandered into this world.
> "I'll pay for it," she whispered, eyes on the ruined suit.
> "It's fine," he said.
But it wasn't.
Not really.
Because even as she backed away—muttering apologies, cheeks on fire, vanishing into the crowd like a ghost—
Cassian didn't move.
Not for minutes.
Not for hours.
Not for the months that followed.
He kept remembering the way her eyes found his.
How unguarded she was.
How... real.
Her name?
Ziva.
A stranger.
A mistake.
A moment that slipped through his fingers—
—and never really left.
---