All Chapters of unmasked desire : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Elias almost turned back.It wasn’t fear exactly. fear would have been easier to name, easier to rationalize. This was heavier. Quieter. A pressure that settled deep in his chest as he stood across the street from the unmarked building, hands buried in the pockets of his coat, heart thudding with an unsteady rhythm.Three days.Three days since his first visit, and not a single moment had passed without the memory resurfacing. The room. The voice. The way the guide had looked at him as if Elias were something fragile and worth handling carefully. He had tried to return to normal—breakfasts at the mansion, empty conversations, hours lost to distractions that never quite worked—but everything felt slightly misaligned, as though he had been shifted out of place and could not quite settle back into the person he had been before.He crossed the street before his courage could evaporate.Inside, the process was familiar now, though no less intimidating. Verification. The quiet professionali

Marcus noticed it before Elias did.That was always how it worked between them.They sat across from each other in their usual café small, tucked between a bookstore and a florist, the kind of place that smelled like burnt espresso and comfort. It was late morning, the crowd thin, sunlight slanting through the windows in lazy bands.Elias wrapped his hands around his mug, not drinking. He’d been staring into it for several minutes now, lost somewhere Marcus couldn’t see.“You’re doing it again,” Marcus said mildly.Elias blinked. “Doing what?”“Leaving the room.” Marcus stirred his coffee, eyes sharp but gentle. “You’ve been gone all week.”Elias huffed out a soft laugh. “I’ve been busy.”“That’s not what I said.”Marcus leaned back in his chair, studying him openly now. Elias felt it, the quiet assessment, the way Marcus always seemed to see past whatever version of himself Elias tried to present.Something had changed. Elias knew that much. He felt different in his body, like the vo

By the time Elias returned to the club for the third time, fear had become familiar. It greeted him the way an old ache did sharp at first, then dulling into something he could carry without flinching. His hands still trembled as he passed through verification, as he surrendered his phone and signed his name beneath rules he now knew by heart. But the panic no longer urged him to run. Instead, it urged him forward. The halls seemed quieter tonight. Or maybe he was quieter inside himself, his thoughts no longer racing quite as wildly. He moved with hesitant purpose, following the attendant until he reached the same private room he’d been led to before. The door closed softly behind him. The lighting was low, amber and gentle, designed to soften edges rather than obscure them. The air smelled faintly of something clean and grounding cedar, perhaps, or citrus. Elias stood where he was, heart thudding, every sense alert. He didn’t have to wait long. The guide entered without ceremo

Something had shifted in Elias.He noticed it in small ways at first, how he no longer shrank quite as much when his mother’s questions veered too close to personal territory, how silence no longer felt like the safest answer by default. The club hadn’t given him certainty, not exactly, but it had given him something just as dangerous: the sense that he was allowed to ask.At dinner, the Vale dining room looked the same as it always did. Polished wood table, immaculate place settings, food arranged with aesthetic precision rather than warmth. Appearances mattered here. They always had.Elias sat in his usual seat, posture straight, hands folded loosely in his lap. Across from him, Alexander arrived late, as expected, sliding into his chair with an ease that suggested nothing weighed on him at all. He looked flawless tailored jacket, relaxed smile, the effortless confidence of a man who knew exactly how he was perceived.And yet Elias saw something else now.A tension beneath the surfa

Elias wasn’t snooping.That was the thought he repeated to himself as he stood alone in Alexander’s study, sunlight slanting through the tall windows and striping the shelves with gold. He had come in looking for a book one of the older hardbacks Alexander liked to collect, the kind with annotations in the margins and brittle pages that smelled faintly of dust and ink.Alexander had mentioned it once, casually. Elias remembered details like that now.The room itself was immaculate in a way that felt intentional rather than sterile. Everything had its place. Desk cleared. Papers stacked with precision. The faint scent of something dark and expensive lingering in the air wood, spice, something almost smoky.Elias ran a finger along the spines, scanning titles.History. Economics. Philosophy.Control disguised as curiosity, he thought absently.He crouched to reach the lower shelf, pulling out one book, then another. When he straightened, his elbow brushed the desk.Something slid.He ca