All Chapters of My Dark Obsession for My Best Friend's Dad : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

After the gala, Sameer changed.Not abruptly. Not in a way that could be easily pointed at and named. The shift was subtle so subtle that Elena almost convinced herself she was imagining it. Almost.It began with vigilance.Sameer started waking before her, already dressed, already scanning the street below their apartment window like a sentry. He refreshed news feeds constantly, jaw tightening every time Julian Vance’s name appeared even when the articles weren’t about her.“Still nothing,” he muttered one morning, tossing his phone onto the couch. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”At first, Elena was grateful. The city felt hostile now every glance loaded, every stranger a potential witness or judge. Having someone stand between her and the world felt… relieving.For a few days.Then vigilance turned into planning.“You shouldn’t go to campus today,” Sameer said one morning, standing squarely in front of the door, keys already in his pocket. “The reporters are still lingering. I’ll br

The war between men paused for something far less theatrical.Reality. Richard Paige, Elena's father collapsed between Aisle 6 and the frozen foods section at 3:17 p.m.Elena wasn’t there when it happened. She was in Sameer’s apartment, rereading the same paragraph for the fourth time, when her phone rang. It was her mother’s number.She answered on the second ring.“Beta,” Priya’s voice was unrecognizable. Thin. Shaking. “Your father he fell. They took him to the hospital. They’re saying… they’re saying his heart”The rest dissolved into sobbing.The world narrowed instantly.Hospitals did not feel like drama.They felt like fluorescent lighting and plastic chairs and vending machines humming too loudly. They felt like paperwork. Signatures. Forms that required boxes to be checked while your hands shook.Elena arrived to find her mother small and folded in a hard-backed chair in the hallway.Priya looked up at her daughter and broke.“They won’t let me see him,” she whispered. “They

10:47 PM.The city moved like nothing was breaking.Taxi horns. Steam rising from grates. Laughter spilling from rooftop bars. Manhattan glittered, indifferent to daughters forced into impossible arithmetic.Elena stood on the sidewalk beneath the shadow of Vance Global and tried to breathe.One hour and thirteen minutes.She didn’t go home.She went to the hospital.Sameer was halfway through a chart when she found him in the corridor. He looked exhausted dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up.“Elena?” Surprise flickered across his face. Then worry. “What happened?”She didn’t ease into it.“Julian knows about my father.”Sameer’s expression hardened instantly.“Of course he does.”“He funded the diagnostic panel. Through his foundation.”The silence between them thickened.Sameer exhaled slowly. “That’s how he works. Nothing touches his orbit without him tagging it.”“He has surgeons on standby in Switzerland,” she said. “A private clinic. A jet

Dinner at the Vance estate had once been ceremonial.Crystal. Silver. Silence.Now it was warfare served on porcelain.Elena sat to Julian’s right.The platinum cuff was back on her wrist.He had relocked it himself the moment she stepped across the threshold.No theatrics. No explanation.Just a soft click.A reminder.It wasn’t chained to anything.But it didn’t need to be.Across from them, Chloe looked like a rebellion incarnate.Gone was the beach house girl with salt-streaked mascara. Tonight she wore a red dress cut high on the thigh and low at the neckline not elegant, not tasteful.Weaponized.Her makeup was sharp. Contoured like armor. Her lips painted the color of fresh blood.She cut into her steak with unnecessary force.“So, Elena,” Chloe said lightly, without looking up. “How does it feel?”The knife scraped against porcelain.“To know that your father’s heartbeat is literally being billed to my father’s Amex?”The words were delivered sweetly.“It must be so romantic.”

While the war raged inside the Vance estate, Sameer Kapoor was unraveling in the dark.The suspension notice had arrived first.“Pending internal investigation.”Then the termination.“Contractual violations.”Then the eviction.“Failure to meet residency compliance standards.”Each letter bore institutional language so polished it almost looked compassionate.He knew better.Julian hadn’t needed to destroy him loudly.Just thoroughly.Now Sameer sat on the edge of a motel bed off Route 17, the floral comforter smelling faintly of bleach and something older. The room hummed with a flickering fluorescent light he hadn’t bothered to turn off.His phone lay face-up beside him.No messages.No calls.Elena’s last text stared back at him.I’m sorry.He replayed the image in his head on a loop:Her suitcase by the door.Her avoiding his eyes.The way she didn’t fight when he said, “If you leave, don’t come back.”He had expected her to argue.To cry.To choose him.Instead, she had gone sti