All Chapters of His Deadly Obsession: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

CHAPTER 21RAFAELI left the house after midnight.Cassian was finally asleep upstairs. I had checked once, quietly, and found him passed out with one of his books still open on his chest. Good. I didn’t need him asking questions tonight.The egg thrower hadn’t been hard to find. People who do stupid things in public usually leave a trail. His name was Samuel. A disgrace to the biblical one, really. That Samuel had been a prophet. This one was a loud, reckless idiot who thought throwing an egg at a stranger made him brave. I don’t believe in God, but I know the stories. Knowledge is useful. Faith is not.His Instagram told me everything I needed. He posted constantly. Location tags. Friends tagged. A story from earlier that evening showing him and a few others near an old school alley a few blocks from the bookstore. I drove there without rushing.When I turned into the alley I found them exactly where I expected. Samuel had some smaller kid shoved up against the wall. Two others stoo

CHAPTER 23RAFAELI arrived at the private room ten minutes early and took the seat at the head of the table.The others filtered in shortly after. Four men. Old money, older influence, the kind of people who never appeared in public records but moved pieces across countries when it suited them. They all knew who I was. More importantly, they knew what I was capable of doing without hesitation or regret.I waited until the door was sealed and the signal jammer was active before I spoke.“Report.”The man to my right, an older financier named Calloway, opened a thin folder. “The delays in Varynia’s northern supply lines are holding. Two of their secondary intelligence cells have been fed conflicting information. They’re starting to turn on each other.”“And the royal security detail?”“Still confident. They believe the recent disruptions are external. No one has traced anything back to you.”I nodded once. “Keep it that way. Cassian remains useful cover. As long as I am publicly tied t

CHAPTER 25CASSIANI woke up to the sound of Maya’s voice tearing through the house, sharp and furious, telling me I was late and that the car had already been waiting for twenty minutes. My head throbbed the second I sat up, my mouth dry and bitter with the leftover taste of beer.Maya was still yelling through the door when I finally stumbled out of bed. I didn’t have time to shower, so I dragged on the first clean clothes I could find, brushed my teeth in a hurry, and went downstairs looking exactly as rough as I felt. The moment she saw me her face twisted in pure disappointment.“You reek of booze,” she said, already pushing me toward the front door. “Absolutely reek. What the hell did you do last night?”“Nothing,” I muttered, but she wasn’t interested in my answer. She herded me into the passenger seat, slammed the door, and started the engine in one angry motion. The second we were on the road she launched into a full lecture about how I was already on thin ice with the schedu

CHAPTER 27CASSIAN We were halfway home from the set when my phone started going insane.Notifications stacked on top of each other so fast the screen barely kept up. I unlocked it, frowning, and the first thing I saw was my own face shirt open, head tilted, mouth slightly parted in an angle that made my stomach turn. Then another. And another. All from Anton’s shoot. The captions were worse than the photos.“Cassian Vaelor looking like he’d take it so well.”“Someone please ruin him.”“Those eyes were made for being on his knees.”The comments under them were even filthier. People I didn’t know were dissecting my body like I wasn’t a person. Someone had zoomed in on my mouth. Someone else had made a thread about how much they wanted to “use” me. My hands started shaking.“What is it?” Maya asked from the front seat, turning slightly.I couldn’t answer right away. My throat felt tight. “The photos from the shoot. Anton released them with… captions. They’re everywhere.”Maya’s face we

CHAPTER 29RAFAELThe plate numbers were burned into my head. I had seen them clearly between the muzzle flashes. They belonged to vehicles I had assigned myself—men who answered to me, men who were supposed to be running quiet interference on the Varynia side, not opening fire on a public street while I was inside the target car. Someone had decided to accelerate the timeline without authorization.That was unacceptable.I drove to the secondary safe house on the industrial edge of the city. The lights were on. I killed the engine two blocks away and walked the rest of the distance, gloves already on. When I pushed the door open, four of them were inside. Two were still laughing about something. One of them looked up and actually grinned.“Boss. Did we do good or what? The actor looked ready to piss himself.”The second one, a wiry man named Cole, shrugged. “We had to do something. You’ve been taking too long. People upstairs were starting to ask questions.”I didn’t answer.I crosse