I Rejected My Obsessive Werebeast novel Chapter 89

Chapter 89

He paused, and his expression shifted from professional to something more personal.

“You took an enormous risk. You gathered intelligence that the Bureau themselves acknowledged was critical to the operation. The foundation has sent us a formal letter of appreciation–your name is in it. I know there’s still noise online, and I know some of it has been ugly. But your professional competence is not something I evaluate based on internet rumors. It’s something I evaluate based on results.”

He tapped the folder. “Once the hearing is concluded and the full record is public, we want to assign you as the lead on a dedicated beastman welfare communications project. Full authority. Your team. your strategy.”

The weight I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying since the night of the warehouse raid lifted off my chest so suddenly that I had to take a breath to recalibrate. I sat up straighter and kept my voice steady.

“Thank you for the confidence. I won’t let it affect my standard of work.”

He nodded. “Go get back to it.”

In the corridor outside his office, I nearly collided with Emily.

‘She was coming around the corner with a stack of files pressed against her chest, and when she saw me, her step faltered. For a second, we were just standing there, and I could see the conflict playing across her face- something between embarrassment and resentment, neither one winning. She dropped her gaze, muttered something that might have been an apology or might have been a curse, and walked past me quickly without

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Chapter 87

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making eye contact.

I watched her go and felt nothing particular about it. Whatever rivalry had existed between us before all of this happened had been rendered irrelevant by the sheer scale of what came after. She had competed with me for the Kane project. I had ended up testifying in a criminal case. The two things were no longer in the same universe.

Silas was waiting in the same spot when I came out of the building. He saw me coming and his tail gave one slow sweep against the car seat, the way it always did when he was relieved about something. I got in and shut the door, and before he even asked, I told him everything–the meeting with my boss, the project assignment, the foundation’s letter.

He listened with one hand on the wheel and a smile that grew slowly across his face, the kind of smile that started at the corners of his mouth and reached his eyes last. When I finished, he reached over and took my hand, his fingers curling around mine with a warm, unhurried pressure.

“You’ve been carrying this for so long,” he said. “The hearing isn’t for another week. Let’s use the time.”

“Use it for what?”

He turned the car onto the main road, and the city began to slide past the windows. “I want to take you somewhere. Away from this city. A small town, somewhere with mountains and a lake. No cases, no rumors, no phones blowing up. Just the two of us.”

The suggestion landed in my chest like something I hadn’t known I was hungry for. After weeks of safe houses and encrypted messages and tunnel blueprints and hearing rooms, the idea of going somewhere where nobody knew my name and nothing required my attention felt like the most luxurious thing anyone had ever offered me.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

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