Chapter 55. The Confrontation

The hallway smelled like dust and heat.

Every step Lia took toward his door sounded too loud in the narrow space, her boots striking the old floorboards with the weight of something final.

She could still turn around.

She almost did.

But the journal in her bag felt like an anchor—black cover soft at the edges, his handwriting still ghosting through her fingers.

The lights overhead buzzed. The radiator down the hall hissed in rhythm.

She knocked once.

Nothing.

Another knock. Louder.

Inside, something shifted—the scrape of a chair leg, the slow creak of floorboards. Then his voice, hoarse, tired.

“Door’s open.”

She pushed it. The hinges complained.

The apartment looked smaller than she remembered. The whiskey bottle was gone, the table cleared except for a stack of files and one old poster pinned to the wall. The air smelled like rain and antiseptic.

Cassian was sitting on the floor again, back against the c