The Devil's Favourite Obsession

”And here I thought you were smarter than Lorian.”

Olga’s eyes hardened. She shed the worry and the confusion in a single breath. The mother who had been trembling thirty seconds ago stepped quietly aside. The daughter of an industrialist took her place.

She crossed her legs. Her foot dangled in the air. One ankle rested on the opposite knee.

”Cixi is my daughter.” This time she did not ask.

Cassian’s mouth pulled at one corner. A small, slow smirk. Yet, he gave her no reply.

He did not need to. The smirk was enough for Olga to understand.

A moment ago, her facade had held her. But that smirk took it from her.

Overwhelmed by the thought that her husband had tried to kill her first child. And the same child ... who was pushed from the terrace... and now was alive sleeping behind the closed door.

She had spent the last hour planning to remove from her daughter’s life the only man who had kept her daughter alive.

The three facts did not fit inside one chest.

”Why did you not tell us she was alive?” Her voice came out lower than the previous sentence. The mask reassembled itself faster than it had cracked. ”If you knew this whole time. Why did you not tell us.”

Cassian drew on his cigarette. The tip brightened.

”Are you playing some kind of game with us, Cassian?!” Her eyes accused him before her mouth did. ”How is it that Cixi is with you?!... Did you know what Lorian did? Did you know all this while where Cixi was?” The questions came one after the other. She did not wait for answers. She did not give him the opening. ”How long have you known?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

Cassian tapped the ash from his cigarette into the tray on the side table.

”Long enough.”

”And you said nothing? You kept her away from me..... under our noses and you--- how could you not tell me she was alive?”

”You would be surprised to know that her kidnappers kept her alive...” He chuckled darkly. ”But do you know what shocked me even more? The same kidnappers stole money from me. When I caught them, they were ready to sell Cixi—just seventeen years old—into servitude. I didn’t even know it was the same girl I was promised.” Cassian let out a feigned sigh, but the rage smouldering in his eyes was unmistakable, a flicker that Olga couldn’t ignore.

The words hit like a blade slipped between ribs.

Olga closed her eyes. Tears squeezed through her lashes and ran down the sides of her face.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to run to the bedroom, throw open the door, gather Cixi into her arms, and hold her until every lost year dissolved into something bearable.

But she could not move. Her body had locked itself into the sofa, paralysed by the weight of a truth she had spent two decades searching for and was now too devastated to hold.

”The day they were giving Cixi to a handler, they were killed...” He chuckled dryly, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. ”I ordered my men to shoot them.” Cassian had unknowingly delivered the death sentence to Cixi’s kidnappers, sealing their fate. He took another drag of his cigarette before continuing, ”Do you know how I met her for the first time?”

Olga’s heart stopped. It twisted and turned in the most painful way. Lorian had tried to kill Cixi to protect her from Cassian, but fate had other plans. It was as though heaven itself had orchestrated a game, placing Cixi squarely in Cassian’s path.

”Near the cafe...” And he smiled thinking of what Mark told him about how he met Cixi... ”I was about to throw the coffee because the person added too much sugar for my taste. And Cixi stopped me and asked me if she could have it...”

Tears began to flow down Olga’s cheeks. She couldn’t imagine the life Cixi had led until now, and the thought of how everyone had treated her made the pain in her heart unbearable. She brought her hand to her chest, trying to massage away the ache, but it offered no relief.

”She lived a heartbreaking life. And do you know when I met her the second time? I caught her in my arms when she tried to jump from the terrace of the building where she lived.”

Cassian’s smile was unsettling... He didn’t relish recounting how he had met Cixi. He wanted Olga to feel every ounce of pain for her ignorance regarding her husband’s actions.

”And this is all because of Lorian... Your husband...”

”What will you do to Lorian?” she asked.

Cassian’s eyes settled on hers. ”That depends on what Lorian does next.”

Olga swallowed. ”He does not know. About Cixi.”

”I am aware.”

”If he finds out—”

”He will find out,” Cassian said, ”when I decide he finds out. Not before.”

The finality in his voice left no room for negotiation. He was not asking for her cooperation. He was informing her of how things would proceed, and her role in the arrangement was to comply.

Olga wiped her face with trembling hands. ”Can I see her?” The words came out broken. ”Please. Can I just — see her?”

Cassian studied her for a long moment. The cigarette burned low between his fingers.

Then he tilted his head toward the closed bedroom door.

”Five minutes.”

Olga rose from the chair on legs that barely held her. She crossed the room, placed her hand on the doorknob, and paused.

She looked back at Cassian. He sat exactly where he was, exactly as he was with cigarette in hand, smoke curling upward, watching her with the same unreadable calm he had worn since the moment she walked in.

She opened the door.

Cixi lay on the bed, still unconscious, her golden hair spread across the pillow, her breathing steady and slow. The bruise on her temple had darkened. Her hands rested at her sides, palms open.

Olga moved to the edge of the bed and lowered herself onto her knees.

She did not touch her daughter. She was afraid to. Afraid that the contact would shatter whatever thin layer of composure was keeping her upright. Afraid that twenty years of absence could not be bridged by a hand on a cheek.

She simply knelt there, looking at Cixi’s face — the nose that was Lorian’s, the jaw that was her own, the hair that was exactly the shade she remembered and let the silence hold what words could not.

Five minutes.

It was not enough.

It would never be enough.

But it was more than she had been given in twenty years, and she held on to every second of it the way a drowning woman holds on to a piece of driftwood in an open sea.

When Olga stepped back into the living room, she was not the same woman who had walked in.

The tears were gone. Not dried but removed. Wiped clean with the back of her hand and buried beneath a surface that had been polished back into place with the ruthless precision of a woman who had spent decades surviving rooms full of men who fed on weakness.

She closed the bedroom door behind her gently. Then she walked back to the chair opposite Cassian and sat down.

This time, she crossed her legs. One heel dangling in the air. Her back straight. Her chin level. Her hands rested on the armrest with the practised ease of someone who had decided that grief was a luxury she could not afford in front of this man.

”What do you want me to do?” Olga asked.

”Don’t tell anyone I am alive,” Cassain replied. ”Make sure Cixi is well fed and well taken care...” He took a deep breath. ”And keep Rafael away from her.”

Olga frowned at the mention of Rafael’s name. Should she be concerned about her second daughter? Was it a mistake to intertwine her life with Rafael’s? Was this bad news? But then again, since when had Cassian ever been trustworthy...? She swallowed hard, letting her thoughts linger for the time being.

”Is Rafael not trustworthy?” she asked hesitantly.

”I don’t trust him,” Cassian replied flatly.

*

In the palace, Rafael stood by the window, his gaze fixed on a particular spot in the garden. Tatiana emerged from the bathroom, dressed only in her bra and panties. ”Where had you gone?” she asked, her voice playful yet curious.

Rafael didn’t turn around. His eyes remained on the same spot. ”Something important came to mind,” he replied.

Tatiana settled onto the edge of the bed, watching him. ”Are you planning to stay near the window all day?”

Rafael shot a sidelong glance her way before turning fully to take in Tatiana from head to toe. ”How is it that Cixi looks hotter than you, even in her pregnancy?” he muttered under his breath.

He then strode across the room, grabbed Tatiana’s hand, and lifted her to her feet, claiming her lips in a sudden, passionate kiss.