All Chapters of HIS BLIND OBSESSION : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Noah had told me. I sat with that for a long time after he left. Daniel had specifically told him not to, and Noah had walked down the hall and told me anyway. I was not going to think about what that meant. Because thinking about what that meant led somewhere I wasn’t going. I picked up my phone. Called Daniel. He answered on the first ring, which meant he’d been expecting it. “Damien,” he said pleasantly. The pleasantness of someone who knew exactly what he’d done. “You told him not to tell me.” “Good morning to you too.” “Daniel.” “I was testing something.” “You were testing something,” I repeated. “With my assistant.” “He told you immediately,” Daniel said. “Within the hour. Didn’t hesitate.” A pause. “Interesting, isn’t it?” I said nothing. “Most people would’ve just gone to lunch and said nothing. Normal people. People who see their employer as their employer and nothing more. But Noah walked straight down that hall and—” “Cancel the lunch.” A pause. “No.”

I sat at my desk for a long time after we got back. Thirty percent. I had built Cole Enterprises on margins thinner than thirty percent. I had walked into boardrooms with less and come out with more. I had made decisions with worse odds without hesitation because hesitation was a luxury I had never been able to afford. This was different. This wasn’t a boardroom. I pressed two fingers against my nose and thought about Walsh’s voice. Meaningful visual recovery. Three years of darkness. Three years of building a life around what I could do instead of what I couldn’t. The penthouse. The desk. The sixteen steps to the kitchen and the forty-seven to the elevator. Every room mapped in my head through sound, distance and memory until I barely had to think about where anything was. I had made a life inside this darkness. It worked. It was mine. And now Walsh was telling me there was a thirty percent chance I could have something else. A twenty percent chance of complications. Fift

The call ended at ten twelve. I put the phone down and sat for a moment before noticing it. Something was wrong. The penthouse was too quiet. I had spent three years learning to read this space through sound and air and the weight of someone’s presence. I knew when someone was in it and when they weren’t in the same way other people knew by looking. Noah wasn’t at his desk. No keyboard. No chair shifting. No quiet movement from the hallway. Just the hum of the building, the distant city, and nothing else. I stood and walked into the hallway, one hand trailing along the wall out of habit. I stopped outside his workspace. His chair was pushed in. His room was empty too. I could tell from the way the sound moved through the open doorway. Kitchen. Empty. I went back to my office and called the front desk. “Mr. Cole.” The receptionist sounded careful. “Mr. Carter came down about fifteen minutes ago. He—” She paused. “He left the building, sir. With a woman. They went across

I woke up at five forty. Not from sleep. I had barely slept at all. I’d spent most of the night lying there with my eyes closed, my mind running through everything I had told it not to think about. Walsh. The procedure. Lena sitting across from Noah in a café with information she had no business having. At five forty, I gave up and got out of bed. I showered, dressed, and found my jacket on the back of the chair where I had left it the night before. Which meant I had taken it off. Which meant last night had been the kind of night where I had actually relaxed enough to take my jacket off without thinking about it. I decided not to examine that. I went to the kitchen and made my own coffee. I had done it twice now. The first time, five weeks ago, had felt different. That morning, I had made a conscious decision. I’ll make my own coffee so Noah can sleep. This morning, my hands simply did it. Measured. Timed. Poured. No decision required. I stood at the counter and drank

I heard the elevator at 9:14. Noah’s footsteps crossed the entrance hall, then moved down the hallway. Two knocks sounded against my office door, evenly spaced, the same knock he had used since his first day. “Come in.” The door opened. He stepped inside, closed it behind him, and waited. I was standing by the window. I wasn’t looking at anything. I never was. But I sometimes stood there because the city sounded different from that side of the room. Cars, distant horns, voices, the constant movement below. It was easier to think with all that noise around me than inside complete silence. “Sit down,” I said. He sat. I stayed where I was. “Lena is signing today,” I said. “Marcus will have everything processed by the end of the week. The settlement is straightforward. No penthouse. No non-continuation clause.” I paused. “It’s done.” “Okay.” “The procedure,” I continued. “I’m calling Walsh this afternoon. We’ll discuss the Zurich timeline.” “Okay.” Again. I turned away fro