Page 41 of Sinful Obsession

“Later, Vincent,” I said firmly, and hung up.

I exhaled, staring at the phone like it might ring again. It should have hurt, hearing my brother’s voice after years. But strangely, there was nothing. Just emptiness.

Dragging myself back toward Cassian’s room, I slowed near the hall and glanced around.

What did he plan for me tonight? The question gnawed, but curiosity pulled me elsewhere. If I could find a clue—anything—about my past, it might unlock the fog.

If Cassian and I had truly lived here as husband and wife, then maybe—just maybe—the walls held fragments of my missing years.

So I searched. Room to room, cabinet to cabinet. Everything was spotless, arranged with obsessive precision, as if no one had lived here at all. Nothing of me. Nothing of us. Nothing of... anyone.

No photos, no letters, no trace of the life I’d lost.

Exhausted, I stepped out of a final room, a sterile office with mahogany shelves, and froze.

Scratched into the wall, in shorthand I somehow recognized, was a single word: RUN.

My breath caught, my heart stuttering.

Run? From what? From whom?

The message felt personal, a warning meant for me, but it could’ve been old, meant for someone else.

Cassian? My captor?

The word burned into my mind, a spark in the fog.

I backed away, my pulse racing, and returned to the bedroom, the warning echoing.

Cassian was gone. Relief and dread tangled in me as I showered, dressed, then slipped beneath the duvet. The silence of the house pressed heavy, as though it too was waiting.

Waiting for Cassian.

Waiting for the punishment he had promised me tonight.

And I lay there, staring into the dark, wondering if I’d survive it.

A sudden lurch pulled me under, and I was no longer in the bedroom but on a boat—no, not a boat, a vessel so large the wooden deck stretched endlessly beneath my feet. Yet it swayed, tilting with the vast black sea that clawed at its sides.

The night air burned my skin with its cold bite, and I realized, with a bolt of shame, that I was naked. My arms wrapped around myself in a desperate shield—one hand clutched over my scarred chest, the other pressed hard against my groin. But it did nothing against the open air. Against him.

A masked man leaned against the boat’s railing, his silhouette dark against the starless sky, his eyes—hidden behind a black cloth—boring into me with cold amusement.

The boat rocked, waves crashing against its hull, the sound a deafening roar that drowned my thoughts.

“No one will save you here, Charlotte,” he said finally, his voice casual, almost bored, as if my terror was routine. He gestured lazily at the horizon, where the sea stretched into a void that had no end. “Look around. This is nowhere. Even if you scream, the waves will swallow you first.”

I couldn’t stop trembling.

My teeth clattered, my words came out broken, stuttering, barely forming a plea. I didn’t even know what I was begging for—release? Mercy? An explanation? Why me?

The masked man tilted his head. “I’m sure you don’t know me.” His boots echoed as he walked toward me. Each step felt like a countdown.

My body froze, locked in place, refusing to run though every instinct screamed.

“But you will,” he finished. His gloved hand shot out, clamping around my arm. The grip burned, his fingers digging into my flesh.

“No—” My voice cracked.