Page 66 of His To Unravel
This little rebellion of hers is nothing more than a spark. One that I will extinguish.
Satisfaction curls in my chest as I pull up the newly-activated feed from Olivia’s dorm room. The camera flickers to life, offering me a clear, unobstructed view of her small, personal world—the one place that has remained out of my grasp.Until now.
Securing this access was almost comically easy—a few carefully worded emails to the maintenance department and a quick study of the dorm’s infrastructure. A simple suggestion that an inspection was overdue, paired with a timely financial incentive slipped to one of the university staff, was all it took to arrange for a “sprinkler inspection.”
I watch the crisp, high-definition view of her room on my screen, the angles perfect, giving me a full sweep of her space. A surge of satisfaction ripples through me.
The footage is empty for now, but I can see traces of her in every corner: a half-open notebook on her desk, a neatly foldedblanket at the end of her bed, even the mug she favors resting on her windowsill. Each item feels like a revelation, a fragment of her world that I now have control over.
The surveillance, the tracker, the cloned phone—all of it only confirmed the most routine, ordinary parts of her life. She’s simply been studying late, messaging her friends, gazing out that window in thought, her expressions unreadable.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I must be missing something.
I lean closer to the screen, my eyes narrowing as I watch her return to the room.
She moves with the same grace that I know so well, settling into her study routine without a second glance at the world beyond. She’s beautiful in her simplicity, her focus so intense that I can almost imagine I’m right there beside her. The way she absentmindedly tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, the slight furrow of her brow when she’s lost in thought—each movement a personal, private show only for me.
Yet even with this view, I feel the gnawing edge of frustration creeping in. This unbroken rhythm of hers, the ease with which she lives a life seemingly independent of me, it’s like a slap in the face.
How can she go on, day after day, without the weight of my influence? Every time I watch her laugh with someone else, or shut her door to me, it feels like a challenge she doesn’t even know she’s issuing.
As I continue watching, a thought settles with an unsettling clarity. She still believes that she can compartmentalize me into one segment of her life while keeping the rest untouched.
How naive.She has yet to understand that I’m not a chapter in her story—I am the binding that holds it all together.
I feel the frustration ebb slightly as I consider my next move.
I lean back, my gaze never leaving the screen, watching as shesighs, rubbing the back of her neck in a way that sends a wave of possessive satisfaction through me.
Her family, her friends, her ambitions—none of it will compete with what I can offer her. And if she doesn’t yet recognize that, I won’t stop until she does.
The libraryat Halford is dim and hushed, its silence settling heavily like a tangible presence. I’ve always been fond of its isolation, the way sound is absorbed into the worn carpet and thick bookshelves. Today, it serves a different purpose—a space where Olivia can’t slip away, where I can finally observe her without interruption.
The private study room feels smaller than usual, with the narrow table between us and the stacks of her neatly organized notes spreading outward like a delicate map of her mind. She sits across from me, her posture slightly more rigid than it was during our previous sessions.
Watching her sit there, surrounded by the chaos of our shared work, I feel the satisfying rightness of my own design. Orchestrating this project pairing had been one of my earliest moves—ensuring her time, her focus, her presence would belong to me.
Transferring into all her classes had been tedious but necessary. But this project…thisis the jewel. A perfectly valid reason to demand her time and attention, one she can’t easily avoid.
My hand brushes against hers as I reach over to examine her notes, holding her gaze as I do. She’s quick to pull her hand back, hiding her discomfort behind a tight-lipped smile. I let the silence stretch between us, the weight of it pressing down until she looks back, her eyes uneasy but compliant.
“You’ve been distant lately.” My voice is calm, probing, the tone controlled but with an edge I know she’ll catch.
She blinks, surprised, and then quickly masks it, letting out a small, forced laugh. “The semester is just catching up to me,” she replies dismissively.
“If there’s anything else bothering you,” I say, my voice dipping to a softer, darker note, “I hope you’ll tell me.”
Her gaze drifts to the side before she forces herself to meet my eyes. “I’m fine, really. Just…family stuff.” Her voice is quieter, and the exhaustion creeps into her tone, betraying what she’s so clearly trying to hide.
Family. The word lodges like a thorn in my mind.
Over the past few days, I’ve seen the stream of messages from her mother—relentless, demanding, piling on task after task as if Olivia were a servant rather than their daughter. It’s pathetic, really, the way they cling to her. My blood simmers knowing they are drawing her focus away from where it should be.
On me. Onus.
Her eyes flicker with an unspoken thought, a heaviness behind them that she isn’t ready to share. She’s guarding something, and that deflection only sharpens my focus, pulling my attention like a taut wire that threatens to snap. She looks down, pretending to refocus on her notes, but I can feel the tension building between us, a chasm she has created.
What else is she hiding? The thought of her retreating even an inch from me is infuriating. I want to close that gap, to pull her back where she belongs.
