Chapter 103: Taste Of Freedom 2

The rest of the day was a blur of high-end offices, frantic emails, and project updates. But there was a glaring, gaping hole in the center of the afternoon.

No Cassian.

He was nowhere. He wasn’t in the satellite office; he wasn’t in the scheduled conference rooms; he wasn’t even a shadow in the hallways. It was as if he had vanished into the Spanish air, leaving only the memory of his fury behind. He had vanished like he was never here at all.

And that feeling, the unexplainable, crushing sadness, kept growing. It was bigger now, a physical weight pressing down on my sternum until it felt like my ribs might crack.

I kept replaying the argument. I couldn’t stop. I thought about his face when I mentioned the prison record, that moment of raw, exposed hurt that had flickered behind the Wolfe mask.

I crossed a line, I thought. I know I did. But then the anger would flare up, weak and flickering. But he’s a piece of shit anyway. He deserved it. He’s the one who treated me like property. But no matter how much I told myself he deserved it, the feeling didn’t go away. The tightness in my chest didn’t loosen. The replay loop didn’t stop.

By the time evening rolled around, I was exhausted in a way that sleep couldn’t fix. I declined Alex’s offer to grab dinner, making up some excuse about needing to rest for the final site inspection the next day. I headed back to the suite alone.

On the way up the elevator, my heart was pounding against my ribs. My stomach was in knots. I told myself I wasn’t hoping to see him. I wasn’t wanting to see him. It was just… habit. I was used to the magnetic pull of his presence. I was used to him being the center of gravity in any room I occupied.

The suite was quiet when I entered. Dark. Empty.

The living room was a graveyard of luxury. There was no Cassian draped over the couch, scrolling through his tab with that bored, dangerous grace. There was no scent of expensive cigar smoke clinging to the curtains. There was no sound of ice clinking against glass.

Just silence. And that horrible, hollow feeling in my chest that told me I was exactly where I’d fought to be: alone.

I don’t know why I did it. I knew he wasn’t there, but I found myself walking toward his bedroom door anyway. I stood there for a long time, my hand hovering over the wood.

“Cassian?” I whispered.

Silence.

I pushed the door open. The room was dark and perfectly ordered. The bed was made, the sheets crisp and untouched. There was no sign he had been there at all. I checked the bathroom, the study, and even walked out onto the balcony to see if he was standing in the shadows.

Nothing. He wasn’t here.

And for some reason, that made the dread escalate into a full-blown panic. Why was I even looking for him? It was ridiculous. I should be relieved. I should be dancing in the living room. I didn’t have to worry about his moods, his demands, or his proprietary touches.

But it just felt wrong. Everything felt fundamentally, catastrophically wrong.

I stood in the middle of the empty living room, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

“He’s a piece of shit,” I said out loud. My voice sounded hollow, bouncing off the expensive walls and coming back to me sounding like a lie. “He’s manipulative and controlling and—” I paused, my throat tightening. “And I don’t owe him anything.”

Silence was my only answer.

“He had it coming,” I insisted, my voice louder now. “What I said… he deserved it.”

But my chest still felt tight. The dread was still there, growing like a weed in the dark.

“I don’t care. I don’t… I don’t fucking care!” I shouted at the empty suite. My hands were shaking. “This is what I wanted! Freedom! I got it! I should be happy!”

But I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy, and I wasn’t relieved. I just felt empty. Hollow. Wrong.

I forced myself to move. I went through the motions of a normal evening. I took a shower, standing under the spray until the water turned from hot to lukewarm, hoping it would wash away the layer of guilt that felt like it was caked onto my skin. It didn’t.

I made dinner, something simple, heating up some leftovers from the fridge. Not because I was hungry, but because that’s what a “free” person does. They eat. They take care of themselves. I sat at the table, my fork moving mechanically. Mouth to plate. Plate to mouth.

The food tasted like ash. I ate it anyway.

My phone buzzed on the table. Mason had been texting me all day, probably sensing the shift in my energy even from across the ocean. I finally replied with short, bland responses.

Yeah, I’m good.

Work’s fine.

Talk later.

I was so good at this. Pretending. Acting normal.

I couldn’t finish the meal. My stomach was too tight, too full of knots. I moved to the couch and pulled my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees and tucking my chin.

The TV was on, some mindless show playing at a low volume. I wasn’t watching it. My phone was in my hand, the screen lit up. I didn’t know why I was holding it. I didn’t know who I was waiting for. A message? A call?

I didn’t want to think about who that “someone” might be.

The suite was so quiet. Just the low murmur of the TV, the hum of the AC, and the sound of my own shallow breathing. And I felt worse. I felt worse than I ever had when I was trapped in the contract. Worse than any punishment Cassian had ever devised.

This hollow, aching, suffocating feeling in my chest was the price of freedom, and I couldn’t afford it.

I caught myself spiraling, sinking into that dark place where the regret started to look like grief. No, I told myself. No, no, no. Stop it. Don’t go there.

I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on the TV. I found some random Netflix show, I didn’t even look at the title, and let the noise fill the silence. But it wasn’t enough. I could still feel it. That crushing weight.

I reached for my phone and opened TikTok. I started scrolling, my thumb moving in an automatic, mechanical rhythm. I just needed to stop thinking. I needed to drown out the voice in my head that kept saying you went too far.

Videos flashed past. Cooking tutorials. ASMR. Comedy skits. People doing dance trends. Mukbangs. I wasn’t really watching them; I was just letting the sensory overload wash over me.

My thumb kept scrolling. A news clip popped up. Some reporter was talking about a high-profile court case or a scandal. I started to scroll past it, but then, I heard a name.

“Nicholas Bennett.”

My thumb froze on the screen. My heart stopped.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep