He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 296

He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly

Chapter 296

{Daisy’s POV}

I had never in my life wanted to claw my own skin off quite this badly.

The veil sat heavy and suffocating against my face, the fabric scratching at every point of contact, thick enough that my own breath kept bouncing back into my face in warm, damp little waves.

The gown underneath swallowed me completely, layers of black fabric I had to actively fight not to trip over with every step. I looked, I assumed, exactly like every other veiled woman currently wandering this

base.

I felt like a very itchy, very terrified ghost.

Aria walked beside me completely undisguised, moving with the same unbothered confidence she’d probably perfected as a small child running these same halls. Nobody looked at her twice. Nobody looked at me twice either, technically, which should have been reassuring and instead just made my skin crawl with the specific horror of blending in with an actual crime family’s private religious ceremony.

We were deep in now. Properly deep, past hallways lined with framed portraits of men who all shared the same cold, calculating eyes, past a room stacked floor to ceiling with crates I didn’t want to guess the contents of, past a wing that smelled faintly of gun/oil and bleach in equal measure.

Aria had explained the destination in a low murmur as we moved. Her father kept a personal set of holding cells deep in the base, reserved for people who owed him, betrayed him, or otherwise displeased him in ways that required a locked door and an audience of no one. My mother, Aria was certain, would be there.

We’d already survived more near misses than I felt entirely comfortable counting. One man had taken a single glance at me and greeted me by a name that clearly wasn’t mine, and I’d simply nodded and kept walking before my nerves could give the whole thing away.

Another had waved me over toward a cluster of veiled women being ushered somewhere, and Aria had smoothly steered us both around it without missing a step.

At one point a decorative wall hook had snagged the edge of my veil hard enough to nearly rip it clean off my head, and I’d caught it back into place with a speed that genuinely surprised me.

11:39 am

He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly

Chapter 296

{Daisy’s POV)

I had never in my life wanted to claw my own skin off quite this badly.

The veil sat heavy and suffocating against my face, the fabric scratching at every point of contact, thick enough that my own breath kept bouncing back into my face in warm, damp little waves.

The gown underneath swallowed me completely, layers of black fabric I had to actively fight not to trip over with every step. I looked, I assumed, exactly like every other veiled woman currently wandering this

base.

I felt like a very itchy, very terrified ghost.

Aria walked beside me completely undisguised, moving with the same unbothered confidence she’d probably perfected as a small child running these same halls. Nobody looked at her twice. Nobody looked at me twice either, technically, which should have been reassuring and instead just made my skin crawl with the specific horror of blending in with an actual crime family’s private religious ceremony.

We were deep in now. Properly deep, past hallways lined with framed portraits of men who all shared the same cold, calculating eyes, past a room stacked floor to ceiling with crates I didn’t want to guess the contents of, past a wing that smelled faintly of gun/oil and bleach in equal measure.

Aria had explained the destination in a low murmur as we moved. Her father kept a personal set of holding cells deep in the base, reserved for people who owed him, betrayed him, or otherwise displeased him in ways that required a locked door and an audience of no one. My mother, Aria was certain, would be there.

We’d already survived more near misses than I felt entirely comfortable counting. One man had taken a single glance at me and greeted me by a name that clearly wasn’t mine, and I’d simply nodded and kept walking before my nerves could give the whole thing away.

Another had waved me over toward a cluster of veiled women being ushered somewhere, and Aria had smoothly steered us both around it without missing a step.

At one point a decorative wall hook had snagged the edge of my veil hard enough to nearly rip it clean off my head, and I’d caught it back into place with a speed that genuinely surprised me.

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1:39 am P PP

Chapter 296

None of that, somehow, felt like the actual problem right now.

The actual problem was the itching. The terrible scratching menace

“I need a minute,” I whispered to Aria. “Somewhere private. This thing is killing me. I need my face to

breathe for like ten seconds before I lose my mind completely.”

Aria nodded and led us down a side passage, weaving between a few more black–robed figures who glanced her way and moved on without a second thought, entirely unbothered by her presence in a way that told me exactly how normal it was for her to be seen wandering this place.

She finally ducked into a small alcove tucked off the main path, quiet, private, mercifully empty.

I ripped the veil off the second the door shut behind us.

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