My uncle’s Obessesion

The Interview

The video went live at 9 AM.

Bastian was on a call with his lawyers when his assistant texted him. He read the message, said something sharp to the person on the phone, and hung up.

“Turn on the news,” he said to Wren.

She was sitting at the kitchen counter with coffee she hadn’t finished. Isolde was in the guest room, pretending to sleep.

Wren grabbed the remote. It took three channels before she found it.

Celestine Marchetti, sitting across from a morning show host, wearing designer clothes and a concerned expression. The chyron underneath read: “CALLOWAY CORP INSIDER SPEAKS OUT.”

“I just want to be clear,” Celestine was saying, her voice soft and worried, “I’m not here to attack anyone. But I have a responsibility to speak the truth about what I’ve witnessed.”

The host leaned forward. “And what have you witnessed?”

“My ex-husband has a pattern. He becomes obsessed with women who are vulnerable. Women who need help. He presents himself as a savior, but what he’s really doing is creating dependency. It happened with me. It happened with others. And now it’s happening with this young woman who just left her husband.”

Wren’s stomach dropped.

On screen, they showed photos. Her and Bastian in the lobby of his building. Her in the car with him. Old photos of Celestine and Bastian together at charity events.

“He’s already moved her into his penthouse,” Celestine continued. “He’s hired her lawyers. He’s destroyed her sister’s career by extension. He’s isolating her from support systems. It’s textbook emotional abuse dressed up as protection.”

“That’s a serious accusation,” the host said.

“I know. But I’ve been where she is. I fell for it too. The money, the protection, the way he makes you feel like you can’t survive without him. And by the time you realize what’s happening, you’re completely trapped.”

The interview cut to commercial.

Wren set the remote down.

“That’s a lie,” she said.

“Yes,” Bastian said, his voice completely flat. “It is.”

“She’s making it sound like you’re manipulating me.”

“She is.”

“We’re not even” Wren stopped. She couldn’t say it. They weren’t together. But they weren't together either. They were something undefined and dangerous and getting more defined by the second.

Her phone buzzed. Then again. Then again.

Texts from numbers she didn’t recognize. Twitter mentions. i********: comments. Reddit threads already spinning up about “the Calloway family abuse pattern” and “another victim in Bastian’s web.”

By noon, it had hit the major news outlets. By 1 PM, her design studio’s i********: was flooded with comments from people calling her a gold-digger, a homewrecker, a victim, a fool. The comments section became a battlefield.

She deleted the app off her phone.

At 2 PM, Isolde came out of the guest room. Her phone was in her hand, her face drained of color.

“My new employer is getting calls,” she said. “People saying I was fired from Calloway Corp for corporate espionage. They’re saying I’m part of some scheme. They just officially rescinded the offer.”

“That’s the second job,” Wren said.

“Yeah.”

Bastian was in his office, making calls, his voice sharp with controlled anger. Every few minutes, he would come out of the room, say something brief to them, and disappear again.

By 4 PM, there were three news vans parked outside the building.

“They’re staking out the entrance,” one of Bastian’s security team told him. “Asking about you. Asking about the woman staying in the penthouse.”

Bastian didn’t respond. He just looked at Wren.

That’s when she realized it was working. Celestine’s interview, the media, the narrative it was all designed to make Wren feel exactly like she was feeling now. Trapped. Dependent. Like the only person who could possibly protect her from the story being told about her was the man at the center of it.

She stood up and walked to Bastian’s office.

He was on the phone. He saw her, said something to whoever he was talking to, and ended the call.

“What?” he asked.

“Stop,” she said.

“Stop what?”

“Stop fixing everything. Stop making calls. Stop destroying people who make moves against us. Stop acting like you need to control every single thing happening around me.”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“You’re trying to own me.” Her voice came out harder than she meant. “There’s a difference. Celestine got on camera and told the world that you isolate women and create dependency. And you know what? She’s not entirely wrong. I’m completely dependent on you now. I can’t work. My sister can’t work. Everyone I know is being collateral damage. And the only person who can make it stop is you, which is exactly what she said would happen.”

Bastian stood up. “That’s not what’s happening.”

“Isn’t it?” Wren moved closer. “You hired my lawyers. You’re paying for everything. You threw me a line and now I’m drowning if I let go. That’s not protection. That’s a trap.”

“You think I want this?”

“I think you want to feel like you’re saving someone. I think my situation makes you feel less guilty about whatever you couldn’t save before.”

His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” Wren laughed, but there was no humor in it. “My ex-husband is destroying my custody chances. My son is sleeping in a guest room in a penthouse belonging to a stranger. My sister just lost her second job. And the media is calling me a gold-digger. None of this is fair.”

Bastian crossed the distance between them in two steps. He grabbed her wrist not hard, but firm, the way he’d grabbed it when they first arrived. His touch was possessive and careful at the same time.

“You’re right,” he said. “None of this is fair. And you’re also right that I’m not doing this just to protect you. I’m doing it because every minute you’re here, every move I make to keep you safe, it reminds me I’m not the person who failed before. So yes, you’re dependent on me. And yes, that serves me as much as it serves you.”

He was close enough that she could see the exact color of his eyes dark grey, almost black.

“But,” he continued, “I’m not going to apologize for that. I’m not going to pretend I don’t have selfish reasons for keeping you alive and safe and in this penthouse. And I’m not going to let you walk out that door because Celestine got on camera and made a speech about how I trap women.”

“What if she’s right?” Wren whispered.

“Then you’ll figure it out. But not tonight. Not while the media is outside. Not while your ex-husband is filing custody motions. Not while you have nowhere else to go.”

He released her wrist.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Wren asked. “Just accept that I’m trapped?”

“You’re going to accept that you need help right now. And you’re going to accept that I need to give it. Everything else the complicated feelings, the dependency, the questions about whether I’m manipulating you we can sort that out later. Right now, we survive.”

Wren wanted to argue. She wanted to leave. She wanted to prove she didn’t need him.

Instead, she stood there in his office, shaking with anger and fear and something else she couldn’t name.

Her phone buzzed. Text from her lawyer: Got the custody hearing moved up. Three days instead of two weeks. Holt’s attorney pushing for expedited resolution. We need to meet tomorrow. Bring all documentation.

She showed it to Bastian.

He read it, and his expression shifted into something colder. Something more dangerous.

“Three days,” he said.

“That’s not enough time to prepare.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

He walked back to his desk and picked up his phone. “It’s Bastian. I need you to find out who’s pushing the expedited hearing on Holt’s side. I want names, I want reasons, and I want to know if my family is paying for it. And I want to know tonight.”

He hung up.

“What are you going to do?” Wren asked.

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

And she realized, standing there in his office while the news vans circled outside and the media tore her apart on the internet, that Bastian Calloway wasn’t the savior she’d thought he was.

He was something far more dangerous.

A man who’d decided she was worth burning everything down for.