Hateful obsession

Chapter 26

I was just thinking...you can't live without my book, I can't live without writing so why I need to stop this? Exactly. (Yeah, your Jannel changed her mind again.)

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Melissa
"Turning points."

I was lying in a deep claw-footed bathtub, warm water enveloping my legs each time my toes opened and closed the tap. I quietly sighed, watching the steam rise and swirl toward the ceiling. The soft light in the bathroom cast shadows on the tiles, reminding me of evenings spent alone, where the only company was my thoughts. The sound of the water gently echoed around, washing over the blood-stained bath from earlier.

I extended my leg and pressed the cold brass faucet again. With a light push, the water gushed out, splashing and rippling around my body. It was a simple movement, but it reminded me of a scene from *The Notebook*, a movie I had watched years ago with Natasha, where a woman tried to escape her feelings but always came back to them. It made me wonder if that was my story too—always caught in a whirl of emotions.

Except, I wasn't in a wedding dress, nor was I heartbroken over seeing a picture of my first love who had built the house of our dreams. I was in the shirt of my almost ex-husband, the man I was still in love with... and who had slept with me last night. Then, I had simply killed poor Kate, who had been after him, and now, with her body wrapped in sheets and Roman and Lyn gone to deal with the problem, I was trying to understand why I had trusted him so easily.

That night, six years ago, when he proposed to me for the second time, I believed it. That someone like Roman could love, but it turned out it was all just my fantasy or part of another one of his plans.

He said nothing. He just distanced himself. We stopped going on dates, stopped having dinner together, and had sex so rarely that it felt like I was forcing him into it. At first, I thought he was really busy at work. But when he started coming home late every night, smelling more strongly of alcohol, like any woman, I thought of a mistress. But no.

And so it continued for another four years. Like *Groundhog Day*. I woke up alone, went to training, killed traitors, tortured the necessary people, and became the best of the best. The queen of snakes. But returning to the empty bedroom, I became the forgotten wife, held only by a drunk husband near dawn. But there are things you're not ready to forgive, and you decide to run away from it all, knowing that you might be killed for betrayal.

The water kept flowing, and I repeated the foot movement over and over—up and down—as I sank deeper into the cold bath but still felt the warmth of the water below. The room seemed to embrace me, muffling the outside world. Until I heard a voice.

"Enjoying yourself in there?"

My eyes snapped open. Dean. His voice was unmistakable, warm, with a teasing note. I hadn't even heard him open the door. I turned my head and saw him standing casually in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, with a slight smile on his lips. His presence was unexpected yet familiar, like the support I needed but hadn't realized.

"Dean." I said, startled, pulling the shirt tighter and stopping the movement of my foot, although the setting had more than ensured my modesty.

He raised an eyebrow. "Relax, Mel. You're covered enough, and I don't think you're the modest type."

I rolled my eyes, a faint smile forming on my lips. "Do you always intrude on other people's personal moments?"

"I knocked." Dean responded nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders. "But you didn't answer, so I figured you were either asleep or drowning."