All Chapters of Step Brother's Deadly Obsession : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Naomi’s Pov; The storm had followed us back to the compound. By morning, the world outside was gray again, wet streets, dripping trees, that heavy smell of rain that always made the air feel colder than it was. Cassian hadn’t slept. I could tell by the way his shoulders were set, how his coffee went untouched on the desk. He’d spent half the night in the control room, replaying footage of the ambush, searching for faces, cars, anything that might explain how they knew where we’d be. Mara had told him to rest. He didn’t. He never did. I tried to do the same, act like everything was fine but my body wouldn’t stop shaking. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the bullets again. The sound of the metal pinging off the crates. The warmth of his blood under my hands. By afternoon, the shaking turned into pain. Not fear. Actual pain. I was sitting on my bed when I noticed the gash along my side, a thin, angry line from where a splintered crate had caught me in the fight. It wasn’t dee

Naomi’s Pov; It started like any other mission. Simple drop, quick in-and-out. That’s what Cassian said. But nothing was simple anymore, not when we could barely look at each other without feeling the ground shift beneath us. We drove through the back roads outside the city, a cold wind cutting through the cracked window. Cassian was behind the wheel, eyes fixed on the road. His jaw worked, the muscle ticking every few seconds. He hadn’t spoken to me since the hallway. Not a word. Mara was on comms, giving updates from the compound. “No movement on scanners. You’re clear.” Cassian’s answer was short. “Copy that.” Silence again. I watched the blur of lights on the wet pavement, trying to steady the beat of my heart. Every breath felt heavier than it should. The air between us was thick with everything we hadn’t said since that night on the balcony. Finally, I broke first. “Why do you keep doing this?” His hands tightened on the wheel. “Doing what?” “Pretending you d

Naomi’s Pov; The days after the mission felt like walking through smoke. Everything looked normal on the surface, but underneath, nothing was the same. Cassian and I went back to the same rhythm, meetings, training, planning but every word between us carried a weight it didn’t before. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t even come too close. But when our eyes met across the room, the world seemed to narrow to just that space between us. Everyone noticed, I think. Mara said nothing, but her eyes said enough. Marcus, always observant, started giving us more room during briefings, like he could feel the tension radiating from the both of us. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t silence. It was something else that sharp quiet that comes before something breaks. We were in the north wing that afternoon, going over new intel from the docks. The Syndicate was moving again, shipments, false manifests, names that didn’t belong to the living anymore. Cassian stood by the table, flipping through the files

Naomi’s Pov The house felt different that night. Not dangerous. Not loud. Just… hollow. Like the walls were breathing slower, like even the air had calmed itself so it wouldn’t make noise. Maybe it was me. Maybe I was the one who felt hollow. Ever since the shootout at the docks, something inside me wouldn’t sit still. Not fear. Not confusion. Something else. Something that felt like I’d walked right up to a line I didn’t even know was there, and now every step felt like I was walking along the edge. After we got back, Cassian went straight to his office. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look back. He just disappeared into that dark room of his, where every shadow looked like a thought he didn’t want anyone to see. I showered, changed, tried to pretend the water washing down my arms could rinse off the sound of gunfire still ringing in my skull. I tried to pretend my hands didn’t shake when I touched my own hair. But the truth was simple: I wasn’t shaking from the bullets.

Naomi’s Pov There’s a strange kind of tiredness that comes from not sleeping because you’re afraid of what you’ll dream. I’d been living in that kind of tiredness for weeks, the kind that makes your bones ache and your thoughts splinter. The base felt like a place of borrowed time; everyone moved like they were pretending nothing would change tomorrow. I woke up with the taste of metal in my mouth. Not blood, just the metallic tang that memories leave behind. I made coffee because the motion steadied me: grind, scoop, water, wait. The simple things hold you together when everything else wants to fall apart. Cassian wasn’t in the war room yet. He’d left a note tacked to the board: Sweep the northern route with Mara. Recheck the old docks. No lone moves. His handwriting was clean, no flourish, like he’d written it twice and erased the parts that sounded soft. He didn’t trust soft, I reminded myself. He refused it. But sometimes the part of him that refused was also the part that sc