Lashirah_Hash

> He saw her once—and that was enough.

Elena Rivers was just a waitress at a high-end gala she didn’t belong to, filling in for someone else's shift. She didn’t know her spilled glass of champagne would be the moment Damien Vale—billionaire, recluse, and dangerously obsessive—noticed her.

He never spoke to her. Not then. But he watched.

And when he wanted her closer, he made it happen.

Now, Elena is working directly under him, unaware that the life she thinks she controls is already entangled in the hands of a man who doesn't just want her—he needs her.

He’s patient. He’s powerful. And he’s been planning this from the moment she walked into his view.

OBSESSION IN SILENCE

He hadn't planned on seeing her again.

Not broken and frayed at the edges. Not clinging to the silence between sips of coffee like it was all she had left.

But then—Elena Rivers never did walk into his life the way most people did.

She crashed in. Once, years ago in a dusty campus library. And now again, in a city too loud for second chances.

Still sharp. Still beautiful in that quiet, unreachable way. But there was something new in her now—fear. The kind that settled in bones and changed how someone carried themselves.

He'd seen that look before. In his mother. Just before she left.

Christopher watched her across the table, his fingers brushing the rim of his mug.

He didn't ask. Didn't need to. The Vale family tree was poisoned at the root. Damien had always been the storm. Christopher had just learned to live in the shadow it cast.

And maybe—just maybe—he could be that for her.

He hadn't come to this city for her. But now that he'd found her, he couldn't walk away. Not again.

He remembered the girl who quoted poetry over noodles. The one who said she didn't believe in soulmates, but smiled like she might if someone gave her a reason.

But he'd rather burn trying to save her than live knowing Damien turned her to ash.

What Was Lost