Lahat ng Kabanata ng Hundred Nights With Him : Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

The first fragment stayed sharp even as I tried to push it away. Cigarette smoke. A desk lamp. A hand resting over mine while a pen moved across paper. The memory did not feel like it belonged to me, yet the details were too clear to dismiss.Riven sat across from me and waited. He did not rush. He simply watched my face as if he could see the pieces rearranging themselves behind my eyes."Keep going," he said.I shook my head once. It does not make sense. I was never the kind of person who sat at desks writing confessions for other people."You were nineteen,"Riven said. "Your father was still alive. Elena was still a secret he thought he could control." That combination creates its own kind of pressure.I stared at the floor. I remember the smoke. I remember the light being too bright. Someone was standing behind me."Who?""I do not know."Riven leaned forward slightly. "Yes you do. You just have not allowed yourself to look directly at it yet."The room felt quieter than it should

The moment the unmarked door closed behind us the air changed. It was quieter than the usual room, heavier somehow, as if the walls themselves were waiting. My pulse was already too fast. I could feel it in my throat and in the tips of my fingers. Riven walked ahead of me without looking back, and for a second I hated how easily he moved through spaces that made me feel like I was drowning.I stopped in the middle of the room.I am tired of being led into places without knowing what is waiting for me.Riven turned. The low light caught the edge of his face. Then stop following, he said. You still have that choice. It simply comes with consequences you have already seen.The reminder of Theo in that chair sat between us like a third person. My stomach twisted. I looked away first.He walked to a small table near the far wall and unlocked a black folder. The sound of the clasp opening made my shoulders tighten. He did not hand it to me immediately. He held it and watched my face instead

I walked through the doorway.I hated that I did it without more of a fight. I hated the way my pulse climbed as I crossed the threshold and heard Riven close the door behind us. The room beyond was larger than the others, dimly lit, with wide windows that showed the city like a scattered field of lights. There was a bed. There was a chair. There was enough open space to make the quiet feel intentional.Riven stayed near the door for a moment and watched me."You are angry," he said."I am past angry.""Good. Anger is clearer than fear. It makes the truth harder to hide."I turned to face him fully. "You keep talking about truth as if you are the only one allowed to define it. You knew about Elena. You knew about the second document. You knew about the gaps in my memory. And you still let me walk into every one of these nights believing the contract was the main cage.""It was never the main cage,"he said. "You needed time to see that for yourself.""And now that I have seen it? What

I sat in the passenger seat with the envelope resting in my lap and the low hum of the engine filling the silence. Riven did not rush me. He simply watched the empty lot through the windshield as if he had all the time in the world. The patience felt deliberate. It always did.I turned the envelope over once without opening it. The paper was thick. Expensive. The kind of detail that made everything feel more calculated."You expect me to trust you with this," I said."I expect you to decide whether the alternative is worse," he replied. "Elena already knows you have been digging. She will not wait much longer before she tightens the pressure on Theo to remind you of your place. Victor Hale is one of the few remaining people who can make her position less clean. That is useful. It is also dangerous. Both things can be true at the same time."I looked at his profile. The scar on his knuckle was visible again under the dashboard light. I still did not know the story behind it. The not kn

The building Riven stopped in front of looked ordinary from the street. Too ordinary. A low office structure with darkened windows and a side entrance that required a code. He entered the numbers without hesitation and held the door for me. The hallway inside smelled of dust and old paper. Our footsteps sounded too loud in the quiet.I kept my voice low. "Who is this person?""Someone who used to move money for people who preferred not to leave clean records, Riven said. He also used to work with Hale. That combination makes him useful and unstable in equal measure. Do not trust his manners. Trust the fact that he still owes me something he cannot afford to leave unpaid."We took a narrow staircase to the second floor. Riven knocked once on a plain wooden door. A moment later it opened.The man who stood there was older than Riven, with gray at his temples and the kind of eyes that measured everything in risk. He looked at me first, then at Riven, then back at me again."You brought c