LOGINCaspian I didn't speak.I couldn't, not when the single name lying on the desk between us seemed to swallow every other thought inside my head.Elias.For days, I'd suspected him, for weeks, I'd questioned his motives and now suspicion had become something far heavier.Proof.I stared at the folder, waiting for my mind to reject it, to tell me there had been some mistake, but it never did.Instead, the investigator quietly walked around the desk and stopped beside me."I know what you're thinking."“Really?’ I tore my eyes away from the file. "Do you?""You're wondering whether this is enough.""...Is it?" I looked back at the papersInstead of answering, he opened the folder completely."We're not looking at one piece of evidence." He pulled out the first document. "We're looking at years of it."Without warning, he placed an old envelope on the desk. Its paper had yellowed with age, and the edges looked as though they'd crumble if handled too roughly."The handwriting was confirme
Caspian The conversation refused to leave my head. No matter how hard I tried, every word Elias had spoken found its way back to me."She came back to you.""Interesting.""You're running out of time."I slammed my office door harder than I'd intended and the sound echoed through the room before silence settled once again. For what felt like the hundredth time that morning, I crossed the length of the office.Then I turned, walked back and turned again. Pacing had never solved a problem and it was no surprise that today wasn't any different.Every answer Elias had given had somehow managed to reveal absolutely nothing. Or maybe...I stopped beside the window. Maybe he'd revealed exactly what he'd wanted me to know.Nothing more, nothing less.I clenched my jaw as a curse bubbled in my throat, but I forced it back down anyway. I'd walked into his office believing I was finally going to corner him.Instead, he'd walked away knowing Daisy had come back to me. Knowing we'd spoken and
Caspian Finding Elias had become a game. A frustrating one at that room .Every time I thought I was close, he somehow slipped through my fingers."He just left.""I'm afraid you missed him.""His meeting was canceled.""I haven't seen him today."Those were the responses that came from different faces and different voices, but they all had the same answer.By the fourth day, I stopped believing in coincidence. Whether he knew I was looking for him or not, the result remained the same.I never found him. So I changed my approach. Instead of chasing him, I made him come to me.His office was exactly as I remembered it. Ordeky and quiet, everything sat precisely where it belonged, from the neatly arranged files on his desk to the books lining the shelves behind him.Nothing about the room felt personal.It was a place built for conversations where one person always left knowing less than the other.I lowered myself into one of the chairs opposite his desk and waited.I didn't pace, d
Caspian For the next couple of seconds, the only thing that registered in my ears was silence. It settled over the room so completely that I could hear Daisy's uneven breathing.I didn't look at Octavian, I couldn't, so my eyes stayed fixed on Daisy.She stood frozen where she was, tears clinging stubbornly to her lashes, her chest rising and falling far too quickly.“I kissed you because I was desperate.” Her words still echoed inside my head. “I thought if I could kiss someone else... maybe I'd stop loving him.”It should have hurt less than hearing she'd fallen for someone else. Instead, it hurt infinitely more because she'd tried. She'd genuinely tried to tear herself away from me, and she'd failed.A part of me wanted to be relieved by that, while the rest of me only wondered how much pain she'd been carrying to reach that point.Before I could say anything, Octavian spoke."You heard the wrong part."My gaze shifted to him. His expression remained calm, though I knew him we
Daisy I couldn't breathe, not because there wasn't enough air, but because every breath I took seemed to hurt.I'd spent what felt like hours sitting on the edge of my bed, yet I couldn't remember sitting down in the first place.My thoughts refused to stay still and every single one of them led back to him."Please don't decide I'm guilty before you hear me."I squeezed my eyes shut.“Stop.” I willed my mind to let the memory die, but the more I tried, the harder they all came rushing by. "Have you been lying to me?" I had asked, and even till now, his answer was still shocking. "Yes.""No..." I whispered into the empty room.The memory refused to fade and this time, it wasn't just his answer, it was his face too. I'd expected guilt, I'd expected panic and I'd expected excuses. Instead, he'd looked devastated, like I'd ripped something out of him.I groaned softly, pressing both palms against my temples.Why? Why hadn't he looked guilty? Why had he looked broken?A fresh wave of
Caspian The cemetery was exactly the kind of place people forgot.A cold wind swept through the weathered headstones, carrying dead leaves across narrow stone paths that had long since begun to crack with age.The sky hung low above me, gray and unforgiving, threatening rain that never seemed to fall.I spotted the investigator almost immediately..He stood near the entrance with both hands buried inside the pockets of his coat.The moment our eyes met, he gave a single nod.No greeting, no small talk and I didn't blame him because this wasn't the place for either."You found it?" I asked as I reached him."I did.".His expression remained unreadable. "Come with me."We walked in silence and the further we ventured into the cemetery, the fewer fresh flowers I saw.The graves became older, neglected and definitely forgotten. Nature had begun reclaiming this part of the grounds, with vines curling around cracked marble while moss swallowed faded names one letter at a time.Eventually,
Caspian The second I stepped into the kitchen, the bond turned vicious. It wasn't angry as usual, this one was worse. It felt desperate. It hit me all at once, sharp enough to make my chest tighten painfully as my gaze landed on Daisy standing beside Octavian with a mug cradled between her han
Caspian I knew something had changed the second Daisy stepped back inside.I felt it before I saw her.The bond had been restless all evening, sharp and unsettled beneath my ribs while I worked through reports I hadn’t actually read once. Every few minutes my focus drifted toward the garden outs
Caspian I didn’t wait for permission. The second Octavian was out of that room, I followed him. I made sure my footsteps weren't chaotic or too fast, because that was the only thing keeping me from snapping his neck. Behind me, I could still feel Daisy, still standing there in my study, still b
Daisy I felt weird waking up. It wasn't painful or disorienting exactly, just wrong in a way I couldn’t immediately explain.I stared at the ceiling for a long moment, blinking slowly as soft morning light spilled across the room in pale streaks. My body felt unusually relaxed, and heavy beneat







