Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Bestie’s Mom, My Obsession: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

The receipt sat like a bomb on Ethan’s screen.Whitlock’s name.A check-in timestamp from two months ago.A small boutique hotel just outside town.And, beneath it, in black ink:Cassandra Rowen’s signature.Not forged.Not blurred.Clear. Smooth. Familiar.His breath caught. His chest tightened.He wanted to delete it. Pretend it hadn’t appeared. Pretend it wasn’t possible.But questions were already clawing at him.Why would she have signed anything under Whitlock’s name?Why hadn’t she mentioned it?Was this leverage?A setup?Or something she’d never planned to tell him?He didn’t sleep that night.Cassandra did.Peacefully, beside him.As if the world outside hadn’t shifted.As if she wasn’t carrying a truth she hadn’t shared.As if trust wasn’t a thread he could feel fraying with every breath.Morning came quietly.Jason was already up, pacing the kitchen with a cup of coffee and his laptop open. Delilah was on the couch, scrolling through survivor forums, looking for another gi

The plane touched down in Denver just after 9 p.m., the city lights glittering like a net of buried stars.Ethan barely spoke during the flight. Jason didn’t either.Between them sat silence and a single photograph: Cassandra at sixteen, awkward and bright-eyed, standing beside a man with sharp features and a too-wide smile, her uncle, Randall.Claire had made the arrangements.They were to visit a woman who once worked with Randall and had gone dark after Cassandra cut ties with that part of her family. She might know something about Whitlock. Or the leverage he claimed to have.What they didn’t expect was who would open the door.Her name was Tina Blake.Late 30s. Dark curls. Quiet eyes. She welcomed them into a modest duplex near the edge of Glendale, locking the door immediately behind them.“I don’t talk to Randall anymore,” she said. “Haven’t in years. Not since I found out what he was doing.”Jason’s jaw clenched. “Doing to who?”Tina looked at Ethan.Then said:“To her.”The s

The cassette had become evidence. By dawn, Claire was on the phone with her contact at the FBI. The audio was clear enough. The timestamp verifiable. And the implications… Explosive. “There’s a network,” Claire repeated. “He wasn’t just a predator, he was a gatekeeper.” The agent on the other end agreed to escalate. They were coming. Within 48 hours. In the meantime, Cassandra was moved to a secure location. Not a bunker. Not a safehouse. But a quiet country home owned by Claire’s late sister. It sat just outside town, past a stretch of pine trees and unmarked roads. Unlisted. Undisclosed. Perfect. Ethan went with her. Of course. On the first night there, Cassandra barely unpacked. She walked the house instead. Room to room. Looking at nothing in particular. Touching door frames. Brushing fingers over the wooden countertops. Breathing deeply like the walls themselves might carry peace. Ethan watched her from the porch, arms crossed. When she fina

00:00:01The timer froze.Then blinked.And disappeared.For a full minute, the livestream went black.Claire sat beside Ethan and Cassandra in the safehouse’s small study, breath caught in her throat, laptop open, surveillance feed running.Jason stood at the window.The silence was louder than any scream.Then the screen flashed.A single image appeared.Cassandra’s handwriting.A scanned journal page. One of the private entries she had written at nineteen. Then another. Then dozens.They were real.But altered.Spliced.Some lines highlighted out of context.Others clearly forged.The effect was staggering.“I loved him once, didn’t I?”“He made me feel like I was worth something.”“Maybe I asked for it.”“Maybe I enjoyed it.”Cassandra gasped and covered her mouth.Ethan pulled her closer, one hand gripping her shoulder.Claire scrolled furiously, but the damage was already spiraling online.#RowenConfessions#TheLiarJournal#SheKnewJason looked up from his phone.“Reddit. Twitte

Ethan didn’t tell Cassandra about the message.Not that night.Not the next morning.He told himself it was protection, shielding her from Whitlock’s poison.But as the hours stretched, it became something else.Doubt.Not in her.In himself.Because the voice in the recording hadn’t just taunted him. It had cut, deep, precise, calculated.“That sound was mine first.”A lie, yes.But lies had weight when laced with memory.Cassandra noticed his silence by midday.They sat in the kitchen over lukewarm tea.Claire had gone into town to meet with investigators. Jason was pouring over the files from Chicago upstairs.Cassandra watched Ethan for a long time before speaking.“You’re not here,” she said quietly.He looked up.Felt the exhaustion in his eyes. The anger in his spine.“I’m just tired.”She touched his hand.Soft. Tentative.“Don’t let him inside you,” she said. “He lives in enough of us already.”Ethan nodded.But the words clung like thorns.By late afternoon, Claire returned