Chapter 23

• Leila's POV
• I pressed my cheek against the cold car window, staring at the blurred outline of my face in the tinted glass. The dress Lucas had forced me into earlier that evening cinched too tight at the waist, a gilded cage for a bird already half-dead. The night outside swallowed the world, leaving only the hum of the engine and the weight of two men I barely trusted.
• "Where are we going?" Cassius snapped, his voice a blade slicing through the silence. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, caught Darren's in the rearview mirror.