Semua Bab His Deadly Obsession: Bab 41 - Bab 50

CHAPTER 41RAFAEL The jet touched down just after eleven local time. I waited until the engines cut and the cabin door opened before I switched my phone out of flight mode. The screen filled immediately with missed calls, all of them from Cassian, the most recent only forty minutes earlier. Something cold settled in my chest. I called the lead of the detail I had left behind while I was already moving toward the terminal exit.He answered on the second ring, voice tight. “Mr. Vitali—”“Where is he?”“We lost visual at the gala. He left and never came back out. We’ve checked the main floor and the side corridors. We can’t find him.”I stopped walking for half a second. “You had one responsibility. One. If anything has happened to him I will kill every single one of you myself. Find him. Now.”I ended the call before he could answer, flagged the first black car that looked private, and gave the driver the gala address with instructions not to spare the engine. The scars across my back

CHAPTER 43RAFAEL I stepped out of Cassian’s hospital room and closed the door quietly behind me. The four men I had left in charge of his safety were waiting in the corridor exactly where I had told them to stay. They straightened when they saw me, but none of them spoke first. I let the silence sit for a moment while I looked each of them over, then I started walking toward the side exit that led to the staff parking area. They followed without being asked.Once we were outside and away from open doors and cameras, I turned to face them.“You had one assignment,” I said, voice even and low. “Keep him in sight. Do not lose him. Do not allow him to be alone in an unsecured space. Explain to me how a man under twenty-four-hour protection ends up unconscious on a bathroom floor for over an hour without a single one of you knowing where he was.”The lead cleared his throat. “ We didn’t want to crowd him in a public—”“I did not ask for your reasoning. I asked for an explanation of the f

CHAPTER 45RAFAEL I stood in the middle of my room, the air still carrying the faint trace of him. I refused to think about the kiss. Whatever that had been, it meant nothing. My phone vibrated once. I answered on the second ring.“Talk.”“We have him,” the voice on the other end said. “The one who put the poison in Cassian’s glass at the gala. Isolated house, east side of the old industrial stretch. He’s alone. We already secured the place. He’s restrained and unconscious. Waiting on your word.”“Coordinates.”He rattled them off. I was already moving toward the door, pulling on my coat.“I’m on my way. Keep him breathing until I get there. No one touches him.”“Understood.”I ended the call and left. The city lights thinned as I drove, replaced by dark stretches of road and thicker trees. I kept my hands steady on the wheel and my mind empty of everything except the work ahead. The memory of Cassian’s face that night..pale, shaking, fighting for air..stayed only because it was usef

CHAPTER 47 RAFAEL They put me in a small interview room with a metal table bolted to the floor and a camera blinking red in the upper corner, and the first detective dropped into the chair across from me while the second one stayed on his feet near the wall with his arms crossed. The seated one opened a thin folder he never actually looked at and started speaking in the calm, practiced tone they all used when they still believed the conversation might go their way. “State your full name for the record.” I looked at the scratched surface of the table and said nothing. “Mr. Vitali, we know who you are. This will go faster if you cooperate. Where were you on the night of the twelfth between the hours of nine and midnight?” Silence. “Did you know a man named Samuel Ortiz?” I kept my eyes on a fixed point on the wall. “Have you ever met him? Spoken to him? Had any contact with him at all?” The standing detective shifted his weight and tried a harder edge. “You’re not doing yourse

CHAPTER 49CASSIANI stayed on the couch for a full minute after the door upstairs closed, then grabbed the nearest pillow, pressed it hard over my face, and screamed into it until my throat burned. The sound came out muffled and furious, all the leftover want and humiliation pouring out of me in one long, broken noise. When I finally dropped the pillow my hands were shaking and my cock was still painfully hard against the front of my pants. I sat there breathing through my nose, trying to talk myself down, telling myself I could live with the rejection, but every time I closed my eyes I only felt the thick shape of him under me again and the way he had kissed me back before he pushed me away. Ten minutes passed. Maybe less. I stood up, wiped my face with the heel of my hand, and walked upstairs with my jaw set.His bedroom door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside, ready to demand an explanation or a fight or anything that would force him to look at me, and then I froze.