[{"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-284":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},1735718,2219,"Chapter 284: The Missing Bird pt 2","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-284",284,"\u003Cp>NICK\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My stomach was doing something strange, a slow, twisting motion that felt like illness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is just an inconvenience, I lied to myself. That is all this is. He is a problem that needs to be solved. I am a solver of problems. Once I find him, this feeling will stop. This is nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I exhaled sharply through my nose, trying to force the air back into my lungs. The hospital came into view, a giant block of glass and light against the dark sky.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t park the car properly. I just left it and moved. I didn’t use my measured, professional walk. I moved with the speed of a man who had stopped performing for the benefit of his colleagues.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I entered the building and headed straight for the elevators.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Dr. Bennett?\" someone called out. I recognized the voice, but I didn’t turn around. \"Wasn’t your shift over hours ago? Is everything alright?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t answer. I didn’t even look.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I was already scanning the lobby. I was searching every corner, every chair, every shadow. I moved through the corridors with a singular focus that made people step out of my way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I reached the ward and walked right up to the guards. They looked surprised to see me back so soon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Did someone come by here?\" I asked. My voice was rough. \"Pink hair. Earlier today.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The guards exchanged a look. One of them nodded slowly. \"Do you mean Mr. Devereaux, sir?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The name landed in my chest like a physical weight. I had been calling him Cyan in my head for forty-eight hours, but the guards knew him by a different name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Yes,\" I said. \"That’s him. Was he here?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He came this afternoon,\" the guard said. \"He didn’t stay long. Maybe five minutes. He left very quickly after that.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My stomach dropped. The confirmation was worse than the uncertainty. He had been here.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had been in this building while I was here. I had walked past him, and he hadn’t said a word. He had let me walk right by.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I turned and started moving again. I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t explain myself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Maybe he’s still sitting around like last time, I told myself. That’s right, he could be waiting for Cassian to wake up again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I searched the wings of the hospital.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I went to the waiting rooms. I checked the cafeteria and the garden area by the east wing. I looked behind every pillar and on every bench.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The people around me looked confused.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some looked concerned. They wanted to ask me what was wrong, but I didn’t have the words to tell them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I couldn’t explain that I was looking for a man who had stayed in my apartment for two days with my permission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I couldn’t tell them that I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his hair felt or the way he looked in the early morning light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I found nothing. Every space I checked was empty of him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I went back to the apartment. I don’t know why I did it. I knew he wasn’t there, but I had nowhere else to go.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I entered the code and opened the door. The dark was the same dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The couch was the same empty couch. The folded blanket was still sitting at the end of it, a mocking reminder of the order he had left behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stood in the doorway for the second time that night. I looked at the nothingness of my own home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then I remembered the phone. I had left my old one for him. I had put my number in it and given him the passcode.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I pulled my current phone out of my pocket and dialed the number. I didn’t think about it; I just did it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A ringing sound started. It was close. It wasn’t in another part of the city. It was in the room with me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I followed the sound to the couch. I lifted the cushion, and there it was. The phone was lighting up in the dark, ringing for a call that no one was going to answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He hadn’t even taken the phone. He had left the only link I had to him tucked away like a piece of trash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ringing stopped. The apartment went quiet again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I sat down on the couch. I felt the phone in my hand, still warm from the electronics.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The blanket was folded beside me. The grocery bags were still on the floor where I had dropped them. The bars of chocolate were still inside, bought for a person who didn’t want them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A laugh bubbled up in my throat. It was bitter and brief. It was the sound of a man realizing he had been played by his own mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You got me,\" I said quietly. I said it to the empty room. I said it to the folded blanket. I said it to the silence that was now louder than it had ever been.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The adrenaline was gone now, and the invoice was finally being paid. My headache returned with a vengeance. The pressure behind my eyes was a heavy, thudding weight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My muscles ached. My throat felt raw and tight, the warning having turned into a full-blown illness. I noted these things. I did what I always do; I put them in a box and told myself I would deal with them later. But tonight, the box wouldn’t stay shut.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The physical pain was less interesting than the thing happening in my chest. I sat there and looked at it for the first time without turning away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The apartment was exactly as it had been before Cyan arrived. It was clean. It was quiet. It was mine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the dimensions felt wrong. The walls seemed too far apart, and the silence had a quality to it that I didn’t like.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the wrong kind of quiet again. It was the kind of quiet that meant something was missing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I remained seated in the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My body was broken, and my chest felt like it had been hollowed out. I looked at the blanket he had folded with such care.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had left it at the exact end of the couch, perfectly aligned, as if he wanted to prove he could leave without leaving a trace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he had left a trace. It was everywhere. And I was the only one who could see it.\u003C\u002Fp>",1091,"2026-06-06T16:23:43.455Z",1,"novelbin.me","8805ca0f8c58abb2303352274e8e7309268294c18e8e9f7598ece7b919d17028","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-285","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-283",307,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fbl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-cover.jpg"]