Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Deadly Obsession: Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

CHAPTER 51CASSIANI tried to push myself up on shaky arms and immediately regretted it. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, completely useless and trembling, and the deep, thorough ache between them made every small movement send a fresh spark of oversensitive feeling through me. I only managed to get one knee under me before my elbow gave out and I dropped face-first back into the ruined sheets with a quiet, embarrassed groan.Rafael’s voice came from somewhere above me, dry and low. “Stay still before you hurt yourself.”“I can do it,” I muttered into the pillow, even though it was an obvious lie.“You clearly can’t.”Before I could argue he slid an arm under my knees and another behind my back and lifted me off the bed like I weighed nothing. I made a small sound of protest that turned into a sleepy sigh when he carried me straight into the bathroom and set me down carefully in the empty tub. The porcelain felt cool against my overheated skin. He turned on the water,

CHAPTER 53CASSIANThe final day of filming stretched longer than any of us expected, the overnight hours blurring together under the heavy lights while the director pushed for every last emotional beat he could pull from the remaining pages, and by the time he finally called a hard wrap the sky outside the soundstage had already started to lighten with the first gray edge of morning. I stood in the middle of the marked floor feeling both the deep relief of knowing there would be no more call times for this project and a strange hollow emptiness as the crew began striking the set around us, the walls of the fictional world coming down piece by piece while someone laughed too loudly near the craft table and someone else started crying quietly into a tissue. Amara reached me first, her arms already open, and I stepped into the hug without hesitation, holding on longer than was strictly professional because the shared exhaustion and the sudden end of something that had consumed months of

CHAPTER 55CASSIAN The final credits rolled to sustained applause that only grew louder when the house lights rose and the director walked onto the stage with a wireless microphone, smiling in that slightly stunned way people did when a film they had lived with for years was finally real. He thanked the studio, the crew, and the cast in turn, voice thick with emotion as he spoke about the late nights and the impossible schedules and the way the story had changed all of them. When he called the principal actors up one by one the applause swelled again, and I followed Amara onto the stage under the bright lights with the rest of the ensemble while the audience kept clapping.The director handed me the microphone last, as the lead, and the theater quieted just enough for my voice to carry.“I don’t really know how to follow all of that,” I began, earning a soft ripple of laughter, “but I want to say thank you. To the director for trusting me with this character, to Amara and everyone st

CHAPTER 57RAFAEL Cassian was still asleep when I left the room.I closed the door without a sound, stood in the hallway long enough to hear his breathing stay even, and then I walked away from it. That was the problem. I had started listening for his breathing. I had started calculating whether he would reach for me if he woke and found the bed empty. Attachment was a leak, and leaks got people killed. I put on a clean shirt, ignored the faint ache in my back, and drove to the secondary location the loyalists used when they needed to speak without leaving a trail that pointed back to the palace.They were already waiting. Seven of them this time. Tomas stood near the wall with his hands folded, still carrying the nervousness of a messenger who had walked into the palace once and survived it. The others were older. Money. Old titles that no longer appeared on any official list. Men who had spent decades telling themselves that patience was the same thing as strategy.I took the seat

CHAPTER 59CASSIANBy the afternoon Sofia and I were already sitting in the glass conference room of my lawyer’s office, the demand letter on the table between us and the city looking too bright on the other side of the windows. Maya had wanted to come. I told her to stay back and handle the press until we knew what we were walking into. That turned out to be a mistake, because the man we had been talking about at the party walked in ten minutes later with his own lawyer and a smile that did not reach his eyes.“I didn’t think you two would actually show,” he said, buttoning his jacket like this was a premiere instead of a legal meeting. “Brave. Or stupid.”Sofia didn’t stand. “Say what you came to say.”His lawyer started first, all polished language about reputational harm and implied accusations and how a look at a party should not be allowed to destroy a man’s career. Then the man himself leaned forward and the polish cracked.“You two stood there and made me look like a monster f