Chapter 295: The Note She Left
Cassandra woke to thirty-seven missed calls and hundreds of direct messages. News alerts kept piling up as she scrolled through the list.
She reviewed the names before leaving bed. Her senior assistants had called first, followed by legal counsel, public relations, the accountants handling the Night Espresso company, and executives from several of her other businesses. Unknown numbers filled the rest of the list.
The headlines needed only a glance.
[THE COLD BUSINESSWOMAN’S FIRST PUBLIC COLLAPSE]
[FROM BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR TO CONDEMNED]
[DID CASSANDRA SELFMORE CONTROL BOTH SIDES OF CASCADE VALLEY?]
[NIGHT ESPRESSO FAILS FOREST HIDDEN AND DISBANDS]
Cassandra’s reputation had survived hostile negotiations, failed investments, and years of attacks from people who built careers around predicting her downfall. For several years, she had denied them a failure large enough to celebrate. Now they had a failed academy project, an unclaimed territory, a dissolved guild, and the black marker beneath her character name.
They intended to enjoy every part of it.
Cassandra crossed the penthouse in a dark silk nightshirt and started the coffee maker. Gray morning light filled the glass-walled space. Family photographs in plain wooden frames lined the shelf beside the windows.
She was about to set her phone on the counter when one message preview caught her eye.
[Martin Ross: You promised there wouldn’t be another wall.]
She dismissed the alerts without opening his conversation.
The private elevator carried her down to the lobby. A car waited outside, and security had to clear a path through the crowd gathered near the entrance. Reporters shouted questions as Cassandra walked to the car.
"Did Night Espresso have any connection to the restricted laboratory in Mountain Risen?"
"What did you do to receive the Condemned marker?"
"Were you working with Victoria?"
"Are your other companies in danger?"
Cassandra entered the car and reviewed her calendar while the driver pulled away. None of the reporters knew enough to ask what she had ordered Raze to do to Ashy.
The legal team added three people at the last minute, pushing her first meeting seven minutes behind schedule. Cassandra took her usual seat at the head of the table, opened the prepared documents, and waited for the room to quiet.
"The in-game Night Espresso Guild has disbanded," she said. "The shared-material claim window remains open for thirty days. The real-world company has not dissolved, and its existing contracts and shareholdings remain in force."
One attorney looked down at his notes. "Do you intend to offer Martin Ross a voluntary buyout now that his in-game role is gone?"
"No."
"His position in the company was built around Night Espresso."
"His shares are not an in-game rank. Mr. Ross remains a shareholder until he chooses otherwise or a lawful agreement changes that status."
Cassandra moved to the next item before anyone could suggest protecting her from the man she had asked to stand beside her.
The scandal changed little about the rest of her schedule. Cassandra rejected an acquisition because the revised terms shifted too much liability onto her company, then took a supplier dispute off an assistant’s agenda and handled it herself. By afternoon, her staff had stopped asking whether she wanted routine calls delegated. They watched her more closely instead, waiting for her to lose her temper or make a mistake worth discussing afterward.
Between meetings, her assistants drafted statements she never released. One denied any operational connection between Cassandra and Just Die, but she refused to authorize a lie and offered no replacement.
Commentators called her silence arrogant. Former admirers decided every past success had been luck, while strangers who had learned her name that morning promised to boycott companies they could not identify.
Two banking partners asked for reassurance that the game’s judgment could not reach Cassandra’s other holdings. A board member wanted to postpone an expansion until the coverage cooled. Cassandra answered every concern with the relevant records and the names of those responsible for the next step. No one withdrew. To them, the scandal was another risk to calculate.
[She finally found something money couldn’t fix.]
[Imagine destroying an entire guild because you wanted to play mastermind.]
[Just Die is having more fun after exile than Night Espresso ever had under her.]
[If she was connected to Victoria, every company she owns should be investigated.]
[Condemned in the game. Condemned in real life next.]
Cassandra read until she understood where the coverage was going, then closed it. Strangers could create security problems and financial risk. Their hatred meant nothing to her personally, and most would move on as soon as someone more entertaining failed.
Martin’s messages remained at the top of her private notifications all day.
She moved three meetings into the evening and took two calls an assistant could have handled. Whenever a gap appeared in her schedule, she filled it.
By the time Cassandra returned to the penthouse, city lights had replaced the gray morning beyond the windows. She sat where Annie usually cornered her with personal questions, but the empty couch offered no distraction from Martin’s unanswered messages.
Cassandra logged into Monster Hunter Academy Online and opened the private channel that had survived Night Espresso’s disbandment. Martin, Alexandra, Elisebeth, Katherine, and Rias were still there.
She began with an apology, deleted it, and tried a factual account. By the third line, she had already named Victoria, so she erased that version too.
There was no safe way to explain the truth. If she admitted that she was Victoria, they would ask why she had secretly led Just Die. Ashy’s death would come next, along with the order she still could not admit to Martin.
Nearly an hour passed before Cassandra managed to finish a version she could send.
[Cassandra Selfmore: Just Die was an asset I believed I could control. I intended to turn Beastslayer progression into a market I could direct and contain. I was wrong. I authorized the project and lost control of it. Forest Hidden’s development failed, and Night Espresso paid for my decisions. My plans failed. Do not wait for me. Rebuild without me.]
She logged out before anyone responded.