บททั้งหมดของ Kane's Obsession: บทที่ 101 - บทที่ 106

By noon the smear had teeth.The original arts-blog piece was no longer the only one. Two larger culture sites had picked it up, each adding their own careful questions and a few more out-of-context photos. Someone had dug up an old interview I’d given three years earlier when I was still scraping rent together—tired, a little bitter, talking about how hard it was to get serious work without the right last name or the right introductions. The quote sat under a new headline that made it sound like a confession instead of a complaint.My phone would not stay quiet. Messages from people I hadn’t spoken to in years. A few supportive notes. More that were simply curious in the way people get curious when blood is in the water. One short text from a former classmate that just read wild how fast things change when you know the right people.I turned the screen off and set the phone face-down on the gallery’s back-room table.Aiden stood near the window with his own phone pressed to his ear,

The second package never arrived.That was the part that kept my hands unsteady.Aiden’s security team had intercepted it at the building’s mail room before it reached the front desk—another plain envelope, another set of prints, this time with a tighter selection and a new note that simply read Tick. They logged it, sealed it, and brought the report upstairs to the penthouse while I was still trying to drink the coffee Aiden had put in my hands an hour earlier.I sat on the edge of the long sofa in the living room and listened to the security lead deliver the details in the flat, professional tone of someone who had seen worse. Aiden stood near the windows with his arms crossed, back to the city, listening without interruption. When the man finished, Aiden asked three precise questions, received three precise answers, and dismissed him with a nod.The door closed. The quiet that followed felt heavier than the report.Aiden didn’t move for a long moment. Then he turned. The expression

The afternoon after the collector walkthrough settled over the penthouse like a held breath.I sat at the long dining table with my laptop open, the gallery statement draft in front of me, while Aiden moved between calls in the next room. Soft security remained in place downstairs. The intercepted packages were already with forensics. The walkthrough itself had been survivable, even successful by the narrowest definition, but the residue of it still sat under my skin. Too many eyes that had looked at me instead of the work. Too many careful silences when the personal angle surfaced.Aiden ended his latest call and came into the room. He set his phone face-down on the table and took the chair across from me.“Corporate side is still bleeding,” he said without preamble. “One of the mid-tier deals is going to need a counter-offer by tomorrow if we want to keep it alive. Legal thinks they can trace the doctored term sheet back to a shell Victor has used before, but it will take days, not