His Obsession

Chapter 10: Blood On Seat

Adrian's driver had the car waiting at the curb, engine already running, when they burst through the lobby doors into the cold night air.

"Riverside car park, off Marlow Street," Adrian said, practically shoving Amelia into the back seat before sliding in beside her. "Fast as you can."

The car pulled away hard enough that Amelia's shoulder pressed into his for a moment before she straightened, gripping her phone like it might explode in her hands.

"Talk to me," she said. "What do you know that you're not telling me?"

Adrian's eyes stayed fixed on the passing streetlights, jaw tight. "Victoria has been careful for four years. Ever since the first time. She doesn't drive alone at night. She doesn't take unfamiliar routes. She checks in every two hours without fail, and if she misses one, security is at her location within fifteen minutes." His hands curled into fists on his knees. "Someone would have had to know her patterns intimately to get to her. That's not a stranger, Amelia. That's someone close."

"Close like who?"

"I don't know yet." His voice was tight with barely restrained fear. "That's what terrifies me."

Amelia's phone buzzed again. She flinched so hard Adrian's hand shot out instinctively to steady her, warm fingers wrapping around her wrist before either of them registered the movement.

It wasn't the unknown number this time. It was Sophie.

"Soph?" Amelia answered, voice shaking.

"Dad called," Sophie said immediately, breathless. "Amelia, he's okay, he's safe, but he told me something and I don't understand it and he sounded so scared…"

"Tell me. Now."

"He said there's a name. Someone he worked with at Blackwood Enterprises back in 2019, someone he trusted, who he thinks might have been feeding information to whoever wanted Robert Blackwood dead. He wouldn't say the name over the phone. He said it wasn't safe. He said he's going somewhere to get proof, and he'll call again when he has it."

Amelia's stomach dropped. "Soph, did he say anything else? Anything at all?"

"Just one thing." Sophie's voice cracked. "He said, tell Amelia not to trust anyone who's been with the company since before Adrian took over. Not even people she thinks she can trust."

Amelia's gaze slid, almost against her will, toward Adrian.

He was watching her, and something in his expression told her he'd heard every word through the phone's speaker.

"Ethan's been with the company since university," Adrian said slowly, like the thought was forming and horrifying him in real time. "Before I took over. Before my father died."

"So has Mrs. Grey," Amelia said quietly.

"So have half my board members." Adrian dragged a hand down his face, something close to despair breaking through his usual control. "Amelia, I don't know who to trust either. That's the truth. I built this company on the assumption that loyalty could be bought with money and fear, and it worked, for years…until it didn't."

The car screeched to a halt.

Blue and red lights strobed against the buildings ahead, an ambulance parked at an angle beside a familiar silver car, its driver door hanging open.

Adrian was out before the vehicle fully stopped, sprinting toward the scene with a desperation Amelia had never seen from him. She scrambled out after him, heart in her throat.

"Where is she?" Adrian demanded, grabbing the nearest officer by the arm. "Where's my sister?"

"Sir, I need you to stay back…"

"That's my car. That's my sister's car. Where is she?"

A paramedic approached, expression carefully neutral in the way Amelia recognized from every hospital drama she'd ever watched, the way people talked when they didn't want to say something terrible too fast.

"Are you family?"

"I'm her brother. Adrian Blackwood." His voice shook now, all pretense of control gone. "Please. Just tell me."

"She's alive," the paramedic said, and Amelia watched four years of tension leave Adrian's body all at once, his knees nearly buckling with relief. "We found her about ten minutes ago, a quarter mile from here. She'd been badly beaten, and there's a laceration on her arm that accounts for the blood in the vehicle, but her vitals are stable. She's conscious. She's asking for you."

"Take me to her. Now."

The hospital corridor smelled like antiseptic and fear.

Amelia sat in a plastic chair outside Victoria's room, watching through the narrow window as Adrian gripped his sister's hand, his head bowed low, shoulders shaking in a way that told Amelia he was crying…silently, privately, the way a man cries when he's spent his whole life being told he wasn't allowed to.

Ethan arrived twenty minutes later, sprinting down the corridor with his tie askew, panic written across every line of his face.

"Is she okay? Someone called and said…" He stopped short, seeing Amelia's face. "What happened?"

"Someone attacked her. Left her on the side of the road." Amelia studied him carefully as she said it, watching for any flicker of something wrong, hating herself a little for doing it. "She's stable. She's talking."

Ethan's relief was immediate and total, his whole body sagging against the wall. "Thank god. I've known that girl since she was fourteen, throwing food at me across the dinner table because I beat Adrian at chess." He laughed, shaky and wet. "Can I see her?"

"Adrian's with her now."

Ethan nodded, dropping into the chair beside Amelia, dragging both hands down his face. "This is insane. Someone's actually trying to hurt this family. I thought…I don't know what I thought. I thought maybe it was old business rivals, corporate stuff, nothing that would actually…" He stopped, glancing sideways at her. "You look like you know more than you're saying."

Amelia hesitated. Her father's warning echoed in her head. Don't trust anyone who's been with the company since before Adrian took over.

Ethan had known Adrian since university. Long before Robert Blackwood died.

"I'm just scared," she said instead, which wasn't a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth either.

"Yeah." Ethan's eyes stayed on the door to Victoria's room, something unreadable passing across his face. "Me too."

The door opened a while later, and Adrian stepped out, eyes red-rimmed, tie gone, looking more undone than Amelia had ever seen him.

"She's asking to see both of you," he said. "She says it's urgent. She says she remembers something."

Amelia and Ethan exchanged a glance before following him inside.

Victoria lay propped up against pillows, a bandage wrapped around her forearm, bruising already darkening along her jaw. She looked smaller than Amelia had ever seen her, elegant composure stripped away, replaced by something raw and frightened.

"Victoria," Adrian said gently, taking her uninjured hand. "You said you remembered something."

Victoria's eyes moved past him, landing on Amelia with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

"It was a woman," Victoria said, voice hoarse. "The person who grabbed me. I only saw her for a second before everything went dark, but I recognized her voice. I've heard it before, at company events, at dinners." Her gaze didn't leave Amelia's face. "She said something strange before she hit me. She said, tell your brother the girl he hired isn't who he thinks she is."

The room went utterly silent.

Amelia felt every eye turn toward her…Adrian's, Ethan's, Victoria's…each one asking the same unspoken question.

"I don't understand," Amelia said, voice barely a whisper. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Victoria said, and there was something almost apologetic in her exhausted expression. "But she said it like she meant it. Like there's something about you that none of us actually know."

Amelia's mind raced back through everything…the biggest secret her character profile had always carried, the thing she'd never told anyone, not even Sophie. A cold, sick feeling spread through her chest.

Adrian turned to look at her slowly, something fracturing behind his eyes.

"Amelia," he said quietly. "Is there something you haven't told me?”