The bar is darker than you expected—low ceiling, scratched tables, the smell of damp concrete and old cigarettes hanging in the air. You slip in quietly, shoulder brushing the edge of the doorway. No one notices. They’re all watching him.

You recognise him instantly.

Cassian Vale.

Not just the face—sharp features, intense eyes, black coat half unzipped—but the voice. It’s the same one you read in those underground papers, the ones you kept hidden between novels in your room. The ones that made your chest ache with something you couldn’t name.

Now, that voice cuts through the crowd.

“While they toast to quarterly profits in polished offices,” he says, calm but electric, “our boys suffocate underground. You know the mines I’m talking about—Cresley Shaft, Rigdon Line. Gas leaks every week. No safety valves. No compensation.”

You freeze.

Cresley. Your father’s company owns that.

“They call it ‘business,’” he says, and his mouth twists into something sharp. “But let’s be honest. It’s murder with a margin.”

The crowd shifts. You feel it—not just anger, but grief. Real, personal grief. You want to look away, but you don’t.

“Sixteen dead last month. Most of them younger than me-”

His eyes scan the room like he’s searching for someone to challenge him.

And then—he sees you.

You didn’t plan to speak. You came to listen. To see the voice behind the writing that’s been stuck in your head for weeks.

But as he talks—raw, intense—you feel something twist in your chest. The way he speaks about “them.” About your world. Your father’s world.

“They know,” Cassian says, voice steady. “They all know. They profit while people suffocate underground. You think they care? They count on silence.”

You feel your hand lift before you even know what you’re doing.

“How can you be so sure they know?”

His voice cuts off.

Every head in the bar turns.

“If they needed to see a boy’s lungs collapse in real time to care… maybe they were never worth trusting in the first place.”, he answered slowly

You open your mouth to reply, but no words come. And for the first time in your life… you don’t know if your faith in the people you love is enough to argue back.