[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my":3,"chapter-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-273":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","[BL] Bound to My Enemy: The Billionaire Who Took My Girl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1735707,2219,"Chapter 273: The ghost in the room","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-273",273,"\u003Cp>CASSIAN\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The grass was the first thing I felt, thick, cool, and smelling of a recent rain that had left the earth damp and heavy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a familiar scent, the scent of the Wolfe estate in mid-summer, stretching out in every direction like a manicured kingdom that I was allowed to inhabit but never truly own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I lay there for a long time, my eyes closed, feeling the specific, startling lightness of a body that hadn’t yet been broken. My limbs felt long and lithe, unburdened by the scars and the stiffness that I somehow felt I should have.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I was waking up, but the process was slow, like hauling myself out of a deep, dark well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There was a residue clinging to my skin, the greasy remains of a dream so vivid it felt more like a life I had lived than a trick of the mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In that other place, there had been blood. So much blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There had been a coldness that settled in my chest, a hunger for revenge that tasted like copper, and a name that hummed in the back of my throat like a prayer: Noah.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I tried to hold onto the fragments, the image of a man with blonde hair and eyes the color of a forest after a storm, but they dissolved as soon as the afternoon light hit my eyelids.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The waking world was asserting itself, flat and demanding. I was Cassian Wolfe, I was seventeen years old, and I was currently hiding from a life that felt like a cage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The footsteps across the lawn were rhythmic and purposeful. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The staff at the estate had a specific way of walking when they were looking for me, a gait that suggested they were already annoyed by the time they found me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"There you are,\" a voice said. It was one of the senior housemen, his tone dripping with the barely concealed contempt the servants reserved for the \"problem child.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked down at me as I finally sat up, his face a mask of weary professionalism. \"Your father is requesting your presence in the study. Immediately.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I just stood up, feeling the blades of grass clinging to my trousers. I didn’t brush them off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I knew it would irritate Seraphina to see me looking unkempt in the main house, and at seventeen, small rebellions were the only currency I had.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I followed the man toward the looming stone shadow of the manor, the weight of the dream still sitting heavy in my stomach, making the manicured gardens look like a stage set that was about to fall over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The study was a room designed to make you feel small.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was all dark mahogany, leather-bound books that no one ever read, and the suffocating scent of expensive cigars.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Charles Wolfe sat behind the desk, his expression as unmoving as a mountain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had already decided how this conversation would end before I even crossed the threshold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Preston was there, of course, standing by the window with that smug, self-satisfied smirk that seemed tattooed onto his face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He lived for the moments when I stumbled. And then there was Seraphina.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She was holding the pieces of a porcelain figurine in her trembling hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was an old piece, something from her family’s estate, fragile and useless and probably worth more than the lives of half the people in this house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I remembered the night before. I remembered the white-hot flash of rage that had surged through me when she’d made a comment about my mother.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I remembered how my hand had found the shelf, and the sickeningly beautiful sound of the porcelain shattering against the floor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It had been the best thing I’d heard all week.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The bastard child,\" Seraphina began, her voice a sharp, jagged edge. \"The stain on this family’s name. You are a common thief of peace, Cassian. A parasite.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She went on, her words chosen for maximum impact, eventually circling back to my mother.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She used her name like a slur, a reminder that I was born of a mistake, that my very face was a grievance she had to endure every day. Preston added his little nods of agreement, enjoying the theater of it all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Charles remained quiet until the air in the room felt like it was about to catch fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he spoke, it wasn’t loud. It was worse. It was the voice of a man dealing with a faulty piece of equipment that he was tired of repairing. \"You are a disappointment, Cassian. Not because you are mine, but because you refuse to be anything else.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stood through it all, my face a mask of bored indifference. The inside of me was a hollowed-out cavern, cold and still. This wasn’t new. It was the script we had been following since the day I arrived.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"So what now?\" I interrupted, my voice flat. \"What’s the punishment? Should I go fetch the belt, or are we trying something more creative today?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The punishment was predictable: three days of confinement in my room with no food. The door was locked from the outside, the click of the bolt sounding like a final judgment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two of the estate’s security men had escorted me, their hands heavy on my arms. I had stopped feeling the indignity of their touch a long time ago.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My room was the smallest in the house, a space Seraphina had carefully selected to ensure I never forgot my place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and that was when the dream began to seep back in. It didn’t come in a narrative; it came in sensations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I felt a love so fierce it made my actual heart ache, a specific, chosen love that spanned years I hadn’t lived yet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I felt a loss so profound it felt like a limb had been torn away, leaving me to bleed out in a world that didn’t stop to notice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I saw the eyes again. Noah. Bright colored hair, green eyes, a specific, vibrant green that I could see even when I closed my own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t understand why these shadows felt more like memories than the actual memories of my life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t know how I could miss someone I had never met, or how I could mourn a man who still existed. It made the walls of my room feel even tighter, the silence even louder.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Knock Knock.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first sound on the window was soft, almost like a bird hitting the glass. I ignored it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The second was louder, more persistent, carrying a rhythm I knew by heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the third knock, a strange warmth had started to spread through my chest, a feeling of recognition that arrived before I even turned my head.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I opened the window. Julian was there.\u003C\u002Fp>",1158,"2026-06-06T16:23:43.455Z",1,"novelbin.me","b5f391f00bb2c484712e5a171a1ca21ebc9ed6f7c946a5dd2099df65bba19eaf","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-274","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-272",307,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fbl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-cover.jpg"]