Alle Kapitel von Sacred Obsession: For the priest who ruined me : Kapitel 41 – Kapitel 50

Chapter 42: Elias POV The food turned to stone in my mouth.One moment the seared fish and rice had been warm and necessary; the next they sat heavy and flavourless, impossible to swallow. Lucian’s words hung in the cool garden air between us, simple and precise. *Join my father’s business. In return, I will help you find Cassian.* The fountain continued its soft, indifferent fall of water. A light wind moved through the half-bare branches overhead and brought the distant noise of campus with it—voices, a door closing, the low hum of evening traffic beyond the hedges. None of it touched the sudden tightness in my throat.I was desperate. That fact was no longer deniable. The voicemails, the late nights in the laboratory, the slow accumulation of skills I did not yet know how to use—all of it existed for one purpose. But desperation had limits. Getting into whatever world Lucian’s father occupied was not part of any plan I had made. Trouble of that scale had never been the intention.

Chapter 44: Elias povThe photograph did not bring comfort.It brought back memories in sharp, unwelcome waves—the exact set of Cassian’s shoulders under clerical black, the way light once fell across his face in the rectory, the controlled stillness that had undone me long before he ever touched me. Looking at the image left me miserable in a quiet, heavy way that settled behind the ribs and refused to move. He had marked me so thoroughly that everything afterward felt like an aftermath. I had gone from a healthy young man with ordinary plans to a shadow that only functioned in the direction of one missing person. Without him, life had lost the shape that made it worth sustaining. The knowledge sat in me without drama, simply true.I returned to the east-side apartment under a sky already losing its colour. The corridor lights hummed. The shared sitting room was empty and dim; Theo’s door remained closed. The absence registered as relief. I did not have the capacity for conversation

Chapter 46: Elias pov Two weeks had passed since Lucian gave me the photograph.Autumn had settled more firmly over Caldrith. Morning mist clung longer to the glass façades of the university buildings before the light burned it thin. The air carried a sharper edge, metallic from the river and faintly damp from the constant low cloud. In the computer science wing the corridors smelled of warm electronics and floor polish. Overhead lights hummed with a steady, tired frequency. Students moved in the usual half-focused currents between lectures, their voices bouncing off hard surfaces and fading again.Lucian had not appeared in person. Instead, food began arriving at the laboratory.The first time a delivery bag was set on the terminal beside mine I almost sent it back. The second time I opened it out of simple hunger. After that the pattern became familiar. The meals were always correct—seared fish with clean rice, broth that still held its heat, simple combinations I would have chose

Chapter 48 :Seraphine's pov The Calder mansion sat on the northern ridge of Caldrith’s most guarded residential district, a structure of pale stone and dark glass that looked more like a private gallery than a home. Inside, every surface had been chosen for rarity. Limited-edition furniture from houses that no longer took commissions. Walls finished in hand-troweled plaster the colour of bone. Floors of wide oak boards imported and laid in patterns that repeated only once across an entire level. Even the air carried a faint, expensive stillness—filtered, cooled, and scented with something clean and green that never quite covered the emptiness of rooms built for a family that rarely occupied them at the same time.My father, Charles Calder, was a senator and a businessman who preferred the former title in public and the latter in private. The house reflected both. Public spaces were designed to impress visiting donors and party officials. Private wings were designed so that no one ha

Chapter 49: Seraphine's pov After I agreed to the instructions from the unknown number, a second reality settled over me like cold water.How was I supposed to break Elias Voss?The question sent me pacing the full length of the lilac room—from the tall windows that looked out over the dark slope of the grounds to the wide bed and back again. Bare feet silent on the thick rug. The stick between my fingers burned down faster than usual. Within the first hour I had lit nearly ten. I never went past two on a normal day. Tonight the count meant nothing. Restlessness had taken the place of ordinary appetite. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face at the party—the flat refusal, the way he had pushed me away as if I were something he could simply set aside. No o