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Chapter Twelve: A Dead Man
publish date:
2026-07-16 19:41:14
Latest chapter
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Sixteen: Obsession.....
Lucien ValeI told her I'd send a car.Instead, I drove myself.The Camaro ate up the miles between the penthouse and the hospital in record time, the city lights blurring past as my grip tightened on the steering wheel. That phone call in her broken voice saying "I'll do it" had done something dangerous to me. I couldn't sit still. Couldn't send someone else to collect her. Not when I knew she was breaking apart in that sterile room, surrounded by machines that beeped out her sister's fragile heartbeat.I needed to see her.Not the version of her I'd constructed in my head the sharp-tongued girl from the university quad who'd publicly humiliated me, the one who'd thrown my reputation back in my face with those cutting emerald eyes. I needed to see this Ariana. The one crumbling under the weight of a world that kept taking from her.The Camaro's tires squealed as I took the exit too fast. Rain had started falling, thin and cold, turning the windshield into a smear of neon and streetli
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Fifteen: Emotionally Drained.
Ariana Cross The hospital smelled of bleach, stale coffee, and fear. I hadn’t moved from the stiff plastic chair in what felt like forever. My back ached, my eyes burned, and grease from the shop still clung to my skin like a second layer of failure. Lena lay in the bed looking impossibly small, her chest rising and falling in shallow, pained breaths. The monitors painted her face in cold blue and green light. Every beep felt like a countdown. Mia sat glued to my side, her arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. She hadn’t said much in the last hour and just held me while I tried not to fall apart completely. Elias arrived a few minutes later, still in his grease-stained coveralls from the workshop. The moment he stepped into the room, the tension in his broad shoulders eased slightly at the sight of us, but his warm brown eyes filled with worry when they landed on Lena. “God, kiddo…” he murmured, setting down a bag of food no one would eat. He crouched in front of me, one b
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Fourteen: The Devil's Bargain.
Ariana CrossThe hospital room was too quiet except for the steady, mechanical beeping of monitors. I had been sitting in the same hard plastic chair for what felt like hours, my body aching from the long shift at the shop followed by this endless night. Grease still stained my hands and clothes. I hadn’t even had time to change.Lena lay in the bed looking heartbreakingly small and fragile. Her once-bright emerald eyes were dull with pain, her dark hair matted against the pillow. This lupus flare was vicious. The doctor’s words kept circling in my head like vultures: Aggressive treatment needed immediately to prevent kidney and heart involvement. The initial round will cost tens of thousands…Money we didn’t have. Money I could never pull together in time no matter how many extra jobs I took.Mia sat beside me, her shoulder pressed firmly against mine, offering what little comfort she could. Her blonde curls were messy from running her hands through them in worry, and her hazel eyes
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Thirteen: Clara's Fury
Lucien ValeClara stormed through the bay doors like she owned the entire compound. Silver hair pulled into a severe knot, she wore it like armor, her suit still crisp despite the desert heat, her heels hitting the concrete with sharp, furious precision. I stayed where I was, blood drying on my knuckles.She didn’t even wait to reach me before unloading.“You absolute child,” she bit out. “You walked out of that university auditorium in the middle of the panel. No heads-up to me. No word to security. You left the moderator standing there like an idiot while the press smelled fresh chaos. I had to invent some bullshit about an urgent mechanical issue with the car. Do you have any idea how that played out?”I flexed my injured hand, feeling the sting travel up my arm. It grounded me. Barely. “I had somewhere I needed to be.”“Somewhere you needed to be,” she repeated, her voice laced with disbelief and exhaustion. She let out a short, bitter laugh. “That’s rich, Lucien. The entire point
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Twelve: A Dead Man
Lucien Vale The desert night air was still warm when I pulled into the Vale Racing Compound. Forty acres of concrete, glass, and controlled chaos under the stars. The garages never truly slept, hydrogen lines hissed softly, test engines occasionally screamed in the distance but something felt wrong the second the gates closed behind me.Marcus was waiting inside Bay Three. No tablet. No briefing folder. Just his solid frame standing under the harsh overhead lights, hands loose at his sides. I’d seen that posture before.I killed the engine and stepped out, boots echoing on stained concrete. “What happened?”Marcus didn’t soften it. He never did.“We caught the man from your lobby. The suspect on the security footage who planted the drugs.”I stopped a few feet away. The words didn’t compute. “What man?”Marcus exhaled slowly. “Mid-thirties. Nothing remarkable. We traced him through three shell identities and a burner phone to a studio apartment in West Philly. My team moved in at 4:3
Fuel For Obsession: A Race Chapter Eleven: Who's watching?
Ariana Cross"I don't sit outside your apartment."The words landed wrong and completely unbelievable. I stared at him, this man who'd followed me from a university auditorium to my sister's hospital, who'd watched me scream at Elias like it was entertainment, who now stood in a fluorescent-lit corridor telling me he hadn't been the shadow in that black sedan."You're lying," I said."I'm not." His jaw tightened. Yes "I've sat outside your apartment but just once. I laughed. It came out broken, edged with something dangerous. " I stepped toward him, not away, close enough to see his unreadable eyes, close enough to see the sleeplessness carved into his face. "Try again, Vale. Because whoever was in that car knew my schedule. Knew when I left for class. Knew when I got home from the nightclub. They were there when I walked Lena to her appointment last Tuesday. They were there when I came back alone at midnight.His expression shifted. Something dark moved behind his eyes."I swear th
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