Page 125 of Unapologetic Obsession
“We met at the hospital while you were being treated for your scars,” he said.
“W-why didn’t you tell me before?” I managed to ask, the sound more exhalation than speech. It was excruciatingly difficult to force the syllables past my teeth.
He stared at me skeptically, unsure if he should have brought up the topic at all. Perhaps he really had been hurting in my absence and this was his last resort. “I was told that you have no memories of that time. That you get triggered whenever people bring it up.”
Except for that day. I had almost no memories of that time except for the day he saved me.
He studied me with an intensity that bordered on urgency. “Do you remember meeting me?”
Remember him? I had based my entire life around him.
The walls started closing in as I hyperventilated. How was this possible? He had been here all along.
Now that he was in front of me, I didn’t know how to reconcile the man I resented with the phantom of the boy I had worshipped. I wish we could get a reset. I didn’t want to viewhim as the monster from my nightmares. And he deserved to know of my lifelong devotion to him.
But things had become so murky between us that it seemed impossible to start over.
He took my silence as refusal, whereas it was the panic getting the better of me.
His lips curled into a bitter smile as he shook his head. “Figures. You forgot everything. Even the man who tried to murder you.”
The words cut through my fog like cold water. “You know who stabbed me?”
“You know him, too.”
My stomach clenched. “What are you talking about?”
He watched me with clinical detachment. The specks of vulnerability from earlier were gone. “Did you know Rayyan would have inherited a much larger percentage of the company if he were your father’s sole heir?” he asked, his voice flat. “Even if your father couldn’t publicly claim him, he would’ve handed Rayyan his shares upon his death. There was only one thing standing in the way.”
The breath was knocked out of me by the punch of his words.
Professor Maxwell straightened from the wall, his jaw tightening as he delivered the final blow. “Your father already had a legitimate heir—you. But if that person were no longer in the picture, Rayyan could combine the assets he would gain from his parents and the ones he expected from your father to take hold of the company. All he had to do was get rid of you.”
I shook my head at him, hands trembling violently. “No. You’re wrong.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Am I?” His eyebrow arched in challenge. “It wasn’t even that difficult to figure it out. All I did was follow the money. It was so obvious that I had to wonder whether your family already knew and deliberately swept it under the rug.”
My stomach lurched. I tasted bile at the back of my throat as I swallowed hard. I knew my family was fucked up, but were they that fucked up? My own brother would repeatedly stab his eleven-year-old sister and leave her for dead? The thought made my skin crawl.
I couldn’t remember a thing about that awful day, only a voice that repeatedly said,You stupid bitch, with hatred so vile I didn’t think it was possible to harbor toward a child. He had said it repeatedly until it had been ingrained into my brain.
Professor Maxwell looked at me with half-lidded eyes. “My poor little lost girl.” His lips curved with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes, it was cruel and mocking. “The things they’re willing to do to you are sickening. It’s a shame that you have so much love to give, and no one to love.”
The words sliced me open. My throat tightened as tears threatened to pool in my eyes.
“It’s a shame,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper that somehow cut deeper than a shout, “that you keep them around while spurning the only man who loves you.”
I stumbled backward, my heel catching on the floor. Each step was an attempt to escape the truth that clung to me like a second skin. I stifled a sob with a hand over her mouth, tasting the salt on my lips.
“They don’t deserve your loyalty, Little Rose.” His voice caressed my name while his fingers twitched at his sides. He stepped forward, jaw clenching. “When will you finally realize I’m the only man here for you?”
The shots from tonight had gone straight into my bloodstream. Tears and alcohol blurred my vision as I blindly walked backward to distance myself from what he was telling me. I refused to believe it. My tongue felt thick, useless.
His eyes widened suddenly. “Rose, stop!”
The warning ripped from his throat, but it came too late. I had retreated too fast. Cold metal pressed against my lower back, biting into my spine. The split second of horrifying clarity that I had walked too far back was no match for gravity.
“Fuck, Rose!” He lunged for me, his hand outstretched, fingers splayed, the veins in his forearm corded and frantic.
