Chapter 9: That Moment He Looks at Me
1190 Words
Suspicion never arrive like fear.
Fear kicks down a door.
Suspicion always wait.
Adrian Vale notice patterns for living.
He calls it instinct, but it’s really arithmetic—cause and effect, pressure and release.
He trusts numbers more than any people.
That’s how he built an empire without even learning how to love.
So when Victor Rowan dies, and the fallout settles too neatly, Adrian doesn’t grieve.
He calculate.
Again.
---
The house goes quiet in a way that has nothing to do with peace.
Guards still stand at their post. Staff still moves like the schedule. The clocks still tick with expensive precise.
Yet something invisible has shift, like a furniture moved in the dark.
Adrian feel it.
Yet he doesn’t say so.
He start watching.
He spend nights in the study room again, screens glowing, light low. He rewind weeks of damage like footage in a crime scene.
The investigation.
The articles.
The collapse that stop just short of fatal.
Someone wanted him shaken, not dead.
That thought irritates him.
Enemies usually want blood.
This one wanted control.
Politicians with grudges. Executives. Rivals. Journalists chasing glory.
He pull a files. Cross-references movement. Followed by money.
Each trails goes cold.
Too cold.
No rushed exits. No sloppy greed. No panic withdrawals. The enemy is patient.
And closer.
---
I don’t ask a questions.
That’s what draw his attention.
Most people lean forward when danger approach. They reach for reassurance. They need to know where to stand.
I don’t.
I move through the house like I always do—observant, unafraid, quite.
Unchanged.
That’s what bothered him.
Though we have a dinner alone for the first time in days.
Wine. Candles. Polite distance.
“You’re calm.” he said, like an observation.
“I always been calm.”
"But not like this.”
I meet his gaze.
“Should I be hysterical?”
“No.” he say. “You should be more worried.”
I take a sip of wine.
“I am not.”
He watch my throat as I swallow.
The next morning he lied.
Not a big lie.
But a careful one.
“They found an evidence” he say lightly stirring a coffee. “Against me.”
I didn’t react.
“Did they?” I ask softly.
“Yes” he said. “A witness came forward.”
I tilted my head. “That’s so inconvenient.”
It is the correct response.
Yet also the wrong one.
His eyes narrow just a fraction.
Later that night, he pressed.
“If I fall...” he say, “you will fall with me.”
I look up from the book in my hand.
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” he replied. “A fact.”
“Then we’ll fall,” I say calmly. "Together.p"
Not to catch with me.
Not l’ll stand by you.
We.
Us.
Adrian didn't smile.
He circle the truth like a predator that smell blood but can’t see it yet.
Victor Rowan.
Marcus Hale.
All threads that connect to silence.
The journalist who never slips.
To restraint.
To someone who understand how Adrian action and think.
That realization is the one who unsettles him more than betrayal ever could.
I wake at three in the morning to his gaze.
Not threatening.
Not looming.
Just present.
“What?” I murmured.
“Nothing.” he say softly.
He never touch me.
That’s when I know.
Quietly.
Pretending.
Without all his usual team.
He order background checks—not on rivals, not on employees, not some unknown men.
But on me.
On Evelyn Vale.
He expect emptiness.
A woman without any history is easier to control.
Instead, he find gaps.
Records that align too cleanly for a womanlike me.
Anonymous transfers that stop just short of connection.
A past shaped by erasure.
Lost.
Missing.
That’s when suspicion sharpened.
We stand in the greenhouse at noon.
Glass wall.
Nowhere to hide.
“Do you believe in a coincidence?” he ask.
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
I brush my finger over a leaf.
“Then why do you ask?”
“Because.....” he says slowly, “someone has been moving around me like they know all my habits.”
I look at him.
“And that bothers you?"
“It should.” he say.
“Should it?” I ask. “Or should it impress by just you?”
His breath stills.
He step closer.
“You’re not afraid of me?” he ask.
“I never said i was.”
“That’s rare.”
“Fear makes people feel stupid.”
“And you’re not stupid.” he said softly.
There it is.
A recognition.
Not certainty.
Not proof.
But awareness.
Adrian stop threatening.
Stop posturing.
He becomes careful with his words coming from his mouth.
Gentle, even. He asks about my day.
About my thoughts.
He listened.
Men like him only listen when they suspect danger.
Doesn't he think I'm blind?
“You should be more involved about whats happening around us,” he say.
one evening. “In the company.”
I meet his gaze.
“Do you trust me that much?"
“I trust what I can see." he replied.
A test.
I smile.
“Then you should be careful what you look for.”
He laugh quietly.
Not amused.
---
Staff grow tense.
Security increases.
Again.
Doors lock earlier.
Doubled.
The house senses a shift before its master the names.
Yet.
I move freely anyway.
I always have.
Remember I'm just a decoration.
---
He call in his intelligence team.
Order them to pursue a rival with too much enthusiasm and too much evidence.
To keep them busy.
Keep him distracted.
And yo tell me everything.
He is not ready to accuse me.
Not yet.
Adrian don't act on suspicion.
He wait for a confirmation.
That is his strength.
And also his weakness.
Because I don’t give him a single mistake to hold.
We stand on a opposite side of the bedroom, the distance between us no longer physical.
“You’re hiding something, i don't know ” he said quietly.
“So are you.”
He studied me.
Then nod once.
“Yes,” he admit. “I am.”
For the first time, we are honest.
Just not about the same thing.
As he leaves the room, his voice stop him at the door.
“Evelyn.”
“Yeah?”
“If you ever betrayed me,” he said calmly, “I will freaking destroy you.”
I didn’t smile.
I didn’t flinch.
I didn't deny it.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I replied.
Not in relief.
In readiness.
Adrian is close now.
But not close enough.
But closer than before.
Suspicion has chosen its directions.
Soon, he will stop asking questions.
Soon, he’ll demand answers.
Answer that will be his downfall.
The woman in the mirror look unchanged.
That is the point.
“He’s looking at me.” I whispered.
Not seeing.
Looking.
And when Adrian Vale finally seen the truth
It won’t be suspicious anymore.
It will be war.
- Writer
