All Chapters of The War Between Us: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Alexander Li ChenMy office was quiet in the way only places built for control ever were.No music. No men. Just glass, steel, and the city stretched out beneath me like something I owned. As I gazed out the window, jacket forgotten over my chair, I observed the slow traffic below. As I watched the world continue on without me, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was the one truly in control.I asked Rayven to do a full sweep on Milena.Family. Financials. Education. Every shadow that doesn't show up on a clean résumé.He hesitated. I could hear it in his voice, that slight pause like a skipped heartbeat. "That's your therapist," he said, the words hanging in the static between us.I snapped at him then. Too fast. Too sharp.My voice cut through the air like a blade, the kind of reaction that usually meant I'd already thought the thing I was denying, already tasted the doubt on my tongue.Now I was sitting in my office, waiting. The leather chair creaked beneath me with every slight s

Milena DragovicAria convinced us to go out Saturday night.She didn’t ask, really. She announced it like a psychologist announces diagnostic results. Like it was already decided for you.“You’ve been brooding,” she said, tossing a dress onto my bed. “That’s illegal. We’re fixing it.”She handed me the dress, a piece of black fabric that plunged into a deep V, held together by nothing but a delicate silver chain. One wrong move and Saturday night would know more about me than my therapist did.Stella nodded from the doorway with the gentle but insistent energy of a sheepdog, her perfectly winged liner and long nails clicking against the phone she rarely put down.“Club,” she said.“Drinks. Dancing. No therapy talk. You’re not allowed to analyze anything tonight. I’ll tase you if you even try.”“I don’t brood,” I protested. It was an old script between the three of us, this push and pull. Aria grinned and tilted her head, a dare in the arch of her eyebrow.They both stared at me.Stell

Milena DragovicAt first, I thought the room had doubled.Four Arias. Four Stellas. All of them moving toward me at once, their faces blurred at the edges, expressions overlapping like a bad reflection.“Why are there two of you?” I asked, frowning. “And also… why are there four?”I heard Alexander scoff softly beside me.“That’s not reassuring,” I added.“There you are,” Aria said, her voice sharp with relief as she reached me. “We turned around and you were gone.”Before I could answer, Alexander spoke.“She’s leaving.”Both of them turned toward him at the same time.“With you?” Stella asked, her tone neutral but alert.“I started this,” he said evenly. “I’m finishing it. I’ll get her home.”Aria and Stella exchanged a look. The kind that carried a full conversation without a single word.“She okay?” Aria asked quietly. Her voice was soft now. Careful.“No,” Alexander replied. “She’s not.”The words settled heavier than I expected.I tried to explain, but my thoughts kept slipping

Alexander Li ChenI questioned my decision to take them home for most of the drive. Logically, I knew she would have been fine in a taxi or an Uber. Probably safer, even. Fewer variables. Less attention. But logic had stopped being the only factor the moment I saw she was being tailed. The moment I intervened inside the club. The moment I put her on the watch list. Once that happened, letting her walk away alone stopped being an option. Responsibility has a way of feeling like a trap you set for yourself. I gripped the wheel, mentally retracing each decision since leaving the club, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I’d stopped being cautious and started being controlling. Beside me, Milena started to drift. I felt it before I saw it. The subtle shift in her breathing. The way her posture softened, her head tipping just slightly toward the window. Even half-asleep, she was still watching. Observing my face the way she always did, like she was cataloging details she pretend

Alexander Li ChenI started the engine.The tail followed.I didn' t need to check the mirror to know that. I felt it the way you feel a storm before the clouds break. That electric prickle across the back of your neck. Pressure shifting. Air thickening. The silver sedan with tinted windows pulled out of the diner lot exactly 3 seconds after I did, tires crunching softly over loose gravel, never accelerating enough to draw attention, maintaining precisely four car lengths.Professional.“Seatbelts,” I said, not looking back.Stella laughed, mouth already full. “You sound like a flight attendant.”"Humor him," Aria said, quieter, her reflection in my rearview showing eyes that darted nervously to the windows. The belts clicked into place, three metallic snaps in rapid succession.Milena didn’t move right away.I waited. Counted to three, feeling each second like a heartbeat.Then the faint scrape of fabric against leather. The soft click as she complied, her slender fingers releasing t