All Chapters of His Deadly Obsession: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

CHAPTER 71RAFAEL Cassian’s throat worked. He looked like he might be sick and like he might scream and like he could not decide which would make this real. I should have closed the door on him. I should have given him a cleaner sentence. I gave him the truth because the night had already taken the softer version away.“This is what I am,” I said. “Go back to your room.”He didn’t go back to his room.Cassian stayed in the doorway as if moving would make the body on the floor official. His eyes kept returning to it, then to my hands, then to my face, looking for a version of the night that did not include a dead man in a bedroom down the hall from his own.“Why?” he said.I tore a towel off the chair and wiped my fingers. “Because he came into the house.”“That’s not a reason to kill a human being.” His voice shook, but he didn’t step back. “You had him in the room. You could’ve stopped him. Tied him. Called the police. You didn’t. You killed him.”“Yes.”“Don’t yes me. Answer me.”I

CHAPTER 73RAFAEL The kings called before Cassian came downstairs.I took it in the study with the door shut. Dante was already talking when the screen came up. Lucien sat to his left. Kade had a file open in his hands and the look of a man who had not slept.“It’s internal,” Dante said. “We’re past guessing.”“I told you that two days ago.”Lucien leaned forward. “Then give us more than a feeling. Someone in this palace is moving information. The lockdown didn’t stop it. If anything, it got cleaner.”I had the name ready. I had prepared it before they asked, which was the point.“Start with Corbin Lale,” I said. “Treasury liaison. After-hours access he should have lost in the last review. He’s been in three rooms he had no reason to enter.”Kade looked up. “Lale has been with the household for nine years.”“Which is why nobody looked at him properly.”Dante’s eyes stayed on me. “You’re sure.”“I’m sure enough for you to pull his logs. If I’m wrong, you waste a morning. If I’m right,

CHAPTER 75CASSIANThe drink campaign was the first thing all week that forced us into the same room.Maya told me in the car before sunrise, already holding the call sheet. Sofia and I were the faces of the launch. Two days of studio time had been compressed into one because the brand wanted the ads out while the movie was still in people’s mouths. That meant me, Sofia, glass bottles, wet light, and Rafael standing close enough to touch if anything went wrong.“You don’t have to like each other today,” Maya said, eyes on the road. “You have to look like you can hold a bottle and not start a scandal. Sofia’s team is already there. Wardrobe first. Then stills. Then the motion spot.”“I know how a shoot works.”“I know you know. I’m telling you because you and Rafael have been circling the house like roommates who lost a bet.” She glanced at the mirror. Rafael was in the second car, as requested. “He stays on the floor. You do your job. After that you can go back to whatever this is.”“

CHAPTER 77CASSIAN I woke up on Rafael with my cheek on his chest and one of his arms heavy across my back and the room still dim enough that I thought I could steal another ten minutes before Maya started her morning siege. The night before was still in my body in a slow sore way. The belt marks were gone but I still remembered his mouth and the way he had refused to rush anything. I smiled into his skin before I was fully awake.Then my phone started losing its mind on the nightstand. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. It did not stop. Rafael made a low sound and tightened his arm.“Ignore it.”“I can’t. That’s not one person.”I reached back without sitting up and unlocked the screen. The first thing that opened was not a text. It was a video already playing of me and the woman from the fan-sign line in a bed I had never seen, faces close, sheets moving, and a caption slapping proof across the bottom as if it had been waiting all night. Under it was a still of her face and her body against mine in

CHAPTER 79CASSIANShe was already live when we got to the gate.I saw the phone first, held up in front of her face, the little red dot telling on her, and then I heard her voice doing that sweet public tone she used on sidewalks and in comment sections.“See? I told you he lives here. I told you he’d come out if I asked. Cassian, baby, tell them I’m not crazy.”I saw red.Is this bitch fucking with me? After the pictures, after the gate call, after I said court and filings and stay away, she brought a camera to my house like this is content.“Turn it off,” I said.She smiled at the lens, then at me. “No. People deserve to see you. They think I made you up.”She stepped in and tried to peck me.I turned my face and her mouth caught my cheek instead. Rafael moved at my side and I put my hand up without looking at him.“I’ve got it.”He stopped. He did not look happy about it.“Turn the live off,” I said again.She kept the phone up and went sweeter, like I was being shy for an audienc