All Chapters of Accidentally Became His : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The alcohol sank deeper into Daniel’s body with each minute that passed, softening the sharp points of his thoughts but never quite making them disappear. Everything just became fuzzy, like looking through a window that was dirty. Nothing was clear, but it was all still there.His fingers wrapped loosely around the glass in front of him. The cold felt a little bit on his skin. He couldn’t remember how many drinks he’d had. It didn’t matter. The burning in his throat felt normal now, almost nice because it was always the same.It was easier to think about that than the ache in his chest.The sounds of voices around him went up and down, blending into a soft noise that felt far away, like it was happening in another room. Laughter came out in sudden bursts. Glasses hit against glasses. Chairs scraped a little on the floor.Life was still moving. But his life wasn’t.Daniel let out a quiet breath, his head dropping a little as he stared at the drink in front of him. The liquid moved when

Morning came softly, without anyone telling it to, creeping into the room through the thin crack in the curtains. The light was pale at first, gentle, and slowly spread across the floor, then climbed up the side of the bed where Daniel was sleeping.Daniel moved a little in his sleep, his body feeling heavy, his mind slow to wake up. There was warmth around him, a comforting feeling that wrapped around him before his thoughts could catch up. He breathed evenly, his face relaxed, not like it had been the night before.It felt… safe.He moved a bit more, his hand touching something warm next to him. He felt it faintly, but not enough to fully wake him. Instead, he leaned into it without thinking, wanting the comfort without asking why it was there.Then his memory started to come back.Not all at once.Not easily.But in pieces.A place where people drank.A drink.A voice.A room.A man.Daniel’s eyes flew open.For just a second, he didn’t move. His eyes stayed unfocused, looking at n

The city changed as they drove.Daniel noticed it slowly, the way you notice a shift in weather before you can name what is different. The streets got wider. The buildings spread further apart, no longer pressing against each other the way they did in the middle of Red City. The noise thinned out. The people disappeared. And the further they went from everything familiar, the more Daniel felt the distance settle into him like something permanent.He had stopped watching the window after a while. There was only so long you could stare at a city moving away from you before it started to feel like grief.He focused on his coffee instead. It had gone slightly cool but he held it anyway, both hands wrapped around the cup, needing something solid.Leo hadn’t spoken much since the breakfast stop. He drove with the same relaxed ease he seemed to carry everywhere, one hand on the wheel, his eyes forward. The two men who had been in the hallway at the hotel were following in a separate car behi

Lunch was served in a room Daniel hadn’t been in yet.It was smaller than the dining room he had passed on his first walk through the house, which he was grateful for. That room with its long table and its twelve chairs had felt like something built for performance. This one felt more like a place where a person could actually sit and eat without feeling like they were being watched by the architecture.There was a round table by a window that looked out over the side of the garden. Two places had been set, simple and clean, nothing excessive. Daniel stood in the doorway for a moment before going in, taking in the details the way he had been doing since he arrived, building his understanding of this place one small thing at a time.Tim was already there.He was standing by the window with his back partially to the door, looking out at the garden with his hands in his pockets. He had changed since the morning, a different shirt, darker, the collar open at the top. He looked less like s

The invitation came through Mrs Alves.That was how most things reached Daniel in the house. Not directly, not through a knock on his bedroom door or a message on his phone, but through the quiet woman who moved through the hallways like a shadow with purpose, delivering information in short sentences and then disappearing before he could ask follow-up questions.“Mr Black will have dinner with you this evening,” she said, appearing in the doorway of the small sitting room where Daniel had taken to spending his afternoons. It had a good window and a shelf of books that were actually interesting and it was far enough from the main parts of the house that he could almost forget for stretches of time how many people were moving through it.Almost.“What time?” Daniel asked.“Seven,” Mrs Alves said. And then she was gone.Daniel looked back at the book in his lap and read the same sentence three times without taking it in.He had been in the house for six days now. Six days of learning it