The words hung in the air like a bad joke. She froze, waiting for mockery, wishing to sew her mouth shut. Instead, she thought about it for a moment and then decided—fine, frankness was better than dying of heatstroke.
"I can't sleep wearing this," she muttered, tugging at the bathrobe with visible distaste. "It's thick and uncomfortable. Like being buried alive in cotton."
Despite the crippling pain in her body—the poison gnawing at her veins, the fever frying her thoughts—Cassandra Bolton's mind refused to care about survival. No. She was far too preoccupied with the tragedy of her sleepwear. Because why die agonizingly when you could die comfortably dressed?
Theodore Bolton stood nearby, golden lashes lowered, lips twitching in a way that suggested a storm contained only by his willpower. He tilted his head to the ceiling, jaw tight, air around him growing warmer, heavier, like lightning waiting to strike.
Then, decisively, he stripped off his black shirt and flung it at her.
Nope, threw it at her face.
Cassandra Bolton froze. His broad shoulders, lean waist, and honey-gold skin came into view, marked with scars like a ledger of battles survived—and secrets kept. Some old, some fresh, some old and covered by new ones. He looked less like a brother and more like a living weapon, polished, lethal, and impossible to read.
"Wear it," he said, flat and cold, turning his back.
Cassandra Bolton quickly shrugged off the suffocating bathrobe and pulled the oversized shirt over her frail frame. It draped over her like a dress, brushing just above her knees. Her gaze drifted to her own body, small, fragile, scrawny and malnourished, almost embarrassingly human.
And then it hit her—the nagging question that had haunted her since the beginning : why had Cassandra Bolton never been trained like the other Boltons? Why was she left weak, defenseless, almost ordinary in a family of predators?
Her eyes flicked toward Theodore Bolton. He turned, his dark sapphire eyes catching hers as the oversized shirt hung on her scrawny body.
He watched her like a puppet on strings, as he played the puppeteer. Amusement and mirth in his cold calculating eyes.
For a heartbeat, something subtle shifted in him—a twitch of recognition, a flicker of calculation. His lips twitched, not in anger, not in disgust, but in the faintest shadow of amusement.
Cassandra Bolton felt a chill. That twitch was not random. Theodore Bolton had seen it—the truth she had barely dared to acknowledge. He knew. The truth behind her circumstances.
And yet he said nothing. His silence was heavy, deliberate. The kind of silence that carries the weight of understanding something dangerous—and deliciously ironic.
Cassandra Bolton hugged the shirt closer, inhaling the scent of wood, leather, and gunpowder. Masculine. Dangerous. The scent of the Crown Prince of the underworld.
The heir of the mafia empire.
For a fleeting moment, it felt less like a shirt and more like a warning. A puzzle. A revelation.
Because Cassandra Bolton was fragile. She shouldn't have been. And Theodore Bolton—cold, sharp, and far too amused—might be considering just how dangerous that weakness could be… and how entertaining it was to finally realize why.
The dark, unspoken thought lingered in the air: maybe her weakness wasn't an accident. Maybe it was meant to be… and now Theodore Bolton knew. And he's toying with the secret even as he watched Cassandra Bolton like a mindless puppet on strings.
"The body of yours is still so underdeveloped for a seventeen-year-old. You're too short," Theodore Bolton remarked flatly, his deep baritone filling the quiet room. His cold eyes scanned the scrawny little figure in front of him—bare little feet peeking out, long hair tumbling down, swallowed up in an oversized men's shirt that made her look even smaller, like a child playing dress-up.
Cassandra Bolton's cheeks puffed instantly. "I'll grow tall in a few years. Hmph!" she muttered, lips pursed in a pout. Her watery eyes glared at him as if his words had personally betrayed her future. She was still in her growth spurt—why did her cheap, mean brother have to bully her about it?!
But a heartbeat later, her brain caught up to his words. Underdeveloped? Her face turned scarlet. Her thin little hands shot up to cover her chest as if shielding herself, and the memory of her earlier mistake—the clinging, see-through dress in the bathroom—hit her like a lightning strike.
"B-Big Brother!!" Cassandra squeaked, the sound shooting out of her throat in a mix between a roar and a wail. She dove under the blanket like a frightened squirrel into its burrow, rolling herself into a ball.
No matter how cold or indifferent she acted, she was still a girl after all. And for a man—even her brother—to make such a comment about her lack of feminine features … her whole body burned with shame.
Theodore Bolton froze, his brows twitching ever so slightly as he stared at the suspiciously wiggling lump under the covers.