All Chapters of 37 Times You Called My Name : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

MIA POV The final video changed everything between us, but it also clarified one brutal point: Ryder Vaughn had never loved me. He had collected me. From the very beginning, I was a possession he refused to lose, and every act of cruelty, every obsessive move, every tender touch in the present served the same purpose — keeping me trapped in his world forever.I played the video alone in the penthouse bathroom the next morning while Ryder was in the shower. The footage was old, grainy, but unmistakable. It was from a school board meeting weeks before the arena incident. Ryder, seventeen and already radiating that dangerous charisma, sat with his father, arguing heatedly. The audio was clear enough to destroy me.“She’s writing about me,” teenage Ryder said. “Dirty shit. Fantasies. I can use it. Make her obsessed. Break her down so no one else wants her. Then she’ll be mine. Completely.”His father laughed. “Smart. Control the girl early. Lock her in before she realizes what she is.”T

MIA POVThe new facility was quieter than the city hospital, but the beeping machines still sounded like accusations. I spent most of my days there now, sitting beside my mother’s bed while she drifted in and out of consciousness. The foundation’s private care had stabilized her heart markers slightly, but the doctor’s warning from yesterday still echoed in my head: any additional emotional stress could reverse the progress. That stress had a name. Ryder Vaughn.I hadn’t slept in his bed for nine days. The distance I asked for was both a relief and a slow torture. Every night I lay in the guest room of the penthouse listening to him move around the main space, knowing he was respecting my boundaries while hating every second of it. The romance that had once consumed us had slowed to careful, loaded glances and brief touches when we passed each other in the kitchen. No more desperate sex. No more counting. Just the heavy awareness of what we were sacrificing.This morning my mother was

MIA POVThe days following my mother’s kidnapping blurred into a careful rhythm of hospital visits, security briefings, and quiet distance. She was recovering in the fortified private wing Ryder had arranged, her vitals slowly stabilizing under constant monitoring. The doctors credited the swift rescue and immediate treatment, but we all knew the emotional toll lingered. Every time a nurse mentioned the “incident,” her blood pressure spiked. The point was driven painfully home: our world — Ryder’s world — was toxic for her.I split my time between the facility and the penthouse. Mornings were for her. Afternoons for work from the guest room. Evenings for careful conversations with Ryder that never crossed into the physical. The romance we had once drowned in had slowed to almost nothing. No desperate kisses. No nights spent tangled together. Just shared meals, brief touches when we passed each other, and the heavy awareness that every step closer to him risked another crisis for my

Mia POVThe new threat sat on my phone like a live grenade. *Leave him or she pays.* I stared at it until the screen went black, then showed it to Ryder. His body went rigid beneath me on the couch, arms tightening around my waist like he could shield me from the words themselves.“They’re getting desperate,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “I’ll handle it. But we do this together. No more distance if it means risking her.”I nodded against his chest, the decision feeling both inevitable and terrifying. The slowed romance had been my attempt to protect my mother, but the threats had proven that staying apart only made us weaker. The drama had evolved into this brutal truth: loving Ryder meant fighting as one, or losing everything separately.We spent the rest of the night planning in the living room, laptops open, security feeds running. No touching beyond the occasional hand on my knee. The restraint was still there, but the urgency had shifted it from emotional distance to strat

Mia POVThe new threat had shattered the fragile hope we had started to build. *We’re not finished. Your mother’s new home has a weak point. Leave him or we take her again.* I read it over and over in the car on the way to the facility, Ryder’s hand tight on mine. The drama refused to die. Just when we thought the past was buried, it kept clawing its way back, using my mother as the weapon.We arrived to find extra security already in place. Ryder had called ahead, his team sweeping the building before we even stepped inside. My mother was sitting up in bed, looking stronger but worried when she saw our faces.“What happened?” she asked immediately.I told her the truth. The latest threat. The demand to leave Ryder. Her expression hardened with the same stubborn strength that had raised me.“Then don’t leave him,” she said firmly. “I’ve survived worse than this. Don’t let them win by tearing you apart.”Her words gave me courage I didn’t know I still had. Ryder stood by the window, si