2025-10-21 18:03:23"Melissa, are you sure mentally okay? You have been in a suspiciously good mood since you returned from work. Like you are you and what have you done to my friend," A girl on a couch was telling Melissa until she showed her what she got from work that day.
"WHAT?! I KNOW YOU CANNOT AFFORD THAT!" The lady barked at Melissa, but Melissa simply smiled. "And you are right to assume that. I didn’t buy it. There was this guy…" Melissa said, keeping the smile on her face, and it turned crimson as she recalled the encounter. "A guy bought you all of that? You know he will expect you to give him your cookie, right?" Her roommate said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Don't be such a cynic and a pervert, Rhianon! He has no such intention! I was the one that even gave him my number," Melissa pointed out, but Rhianon was even shocked by what her friend just said. "You, you made the first move?" Rhianon questioned with a raised brow. This isn’t something her friend is capable of doing. Unlike Melissa, Rhianon is a typical hippie with long brown hair covered with scarfs that had psychedelic patterns, wearing a muted coloured shirt with the inscription “NO MORE WARS” Rhianon had piercing blue eyes and was by every means a beautiful lady with quite the bust that almost ripped her shirt apart. "I know! I feel so awkward thinking about it! I don't even think he will call…me," Melissa said, but the excitement in her voice faded as she concluded this sentence. "If he got you all of that and took your number. Girl, he is going to call you, but I am curious to see what kind of man can make innocent Melissa make the first move," Rhianon teased, trying to cheer up her friend. Rhianon was the same height as Melissa, but she was older by a year. She was the one covering the majority of the rent with Melissa helping around with other bills. Rhianon didn't mind the major contributor because she saw Melissa as her sister, her person. She had once joked that if they were both into women that she would marry Melissa. Rhianon sees her as a pleasant person to be around, and this is a great addition to her otherwise sad life. "You can not meet him! You will hypnotize him with that chest of yours!" Melissa barked, prompting Rhianon to giggle. "Lisa, you know, not all men like them this big, yours are just fine," Rhianon responded, but she couldn't help but worry that this man would break her friend's heart. There was no reason for him to buy her all of this, but then again, he didn't attempt to even get her number, which piqued her interest. Rhianon was the lead singer for an upcoming Alternative Pop band called The Spinsters, and she had a gig later that night. Rhianon was a woman who truly believed she had what it took to top billboard charts and tour the world with her music and message of love and peace even though her numbers said otherwise. "OH MY GOODNESS!" Melissa screamed, dropping her phone, but thanks to Rhianon's position and sharp reflexes, she was able to snatch it out of the air before it hit the ground. She was yet to make the transition to her new phone, but Rhianon noticed that the number wasn't saved. Without hesitation, she picked up the phone on behalf of Melissa. "Hello…?" A voice said behind the phone, but before Rhianon could respond, Melissa snatched the phone out of her hand before running to a different room in the house. "You are so extra," Rhianon said with a smile as she watched her friend close the door behind her. ****** Melissa managed to get away from her roommate, but she had no idea what to say as her mind went blank. "Is everything alright?" Harry asked her, and Melissa could feel her heart pound like it was about to tear out of her chest. "I-I am fine… I didn't know you would call so soon…" Melissa said, her voice almost hushed. "It was hard not to. What can I say? I am very much into girls that know what they want and are bold to go for it," Harry responded, and this sent Melissa's mind into a frenzy. She couldn't even give a verbal response, but Harry found this refreshing. "I was thinking, maybe you and I could get something to eat tonight," Harry proposed, and this brought the biggest smile on her face. "I would love that… Harry," Melissa blurted out before covering her mouth shut once she realized that Harry never told her his name. She got it by asking the person who had swiped his card. It showed his name on the pop-up. "Hey, it's cool, you know my name," Harry said, and Melissa could feel the second-hand embarrassment creeping up on her. "You are beautiful, bold, and you are also a stalker…" Harry teased her, and Melissa couldn't contain her giggle. "Text me your address and get ready by 7," Harry instructed, to which Melissa complied as the conversation came to an end. "Damn, he really has done a number on you," Rhianon said behind the door. “Shut up!" Melissa barked, but this was a byproduct of her embarrassed state. None of this mattered right now. She had a date to prepare for. ****** Harry was done with the phone call, and there was a sense of relief that came with it. He didn't know women could act this way around him. When he was in that one-sided relationship with Alicia, she had never been this way with him unless she wanted him to do her assignments It wasn't something he was used to, but he could totally see himself getting used to it. Harry knew at that moment that he needed to go shopping, he didn't have any clothes worthy of a date. But he also had no idea what would be appropriate to wear or even the restaurant they would go to. Harry knew it had to be expensive. It had to be very expensive so he could spend as much money on her as he could. A cyan screen soon appeared as usual, but Harry wondered what this could be about. [Update in affection bar!] [Melissa's affection: 15%] Harry was surprised it went up at all because all they did was have a little conversation over the phone. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Either way, this worked to his advantage, and he planned to milk the heck out of it as he headed to a store to get some clothes for his date with Melissa.
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Chapter 528. The System, Reconsidered
The system's presence had always felt different from anything else in Harry's life, less like a voice and more like a pressure behind his eyes that resolved itself into meaning once he stopped fighting it. He hadn't summoned it deliberately in weeks, not since the island, not since it had given him everything it had left and gone quiet and spent in the aftermath. He wasn't even sure it would answer.It answered.[You called.]"I need to ask you something," Harry said, alone in his room, door locked, feeling faintly ridiculous the way he always did talking to something that lived somewhere behind his own thoughts. "About the Guardian tier. About what it actually was, out there."[A narrowed function. Protection only. No accumulation, no leverage, no return. You asked for something to keep people alive, and I gave you the smallest version of myself that could answer that specific need.]"Can it be permanent?" Harry asked. "Not the rest of it. Not the wealth stuff, not the harem trackin
Chapter 527. Why I Needed It
Harry sat on the back porch with a cup of coffee going cold in his hands, watching the sun come up over a neighborhood that had no idea what had happened on an island a few hundred miles away, no idea how close things had come to going a different way. He'd been doing this most mornings since he got back. Sitting. Thinking. Trying to sort through everything that had happened before the day made him move and act like a person who had his life together. He kept coming back to the system. What it used to be. What it had become out there when it mattered. For years, the system had meant money. Rebates on his own emotional labor, cashback on kindness he barely had to fake anymore, a strange economy built entirely around making his life bigger and softer and easier. He'd used it to build an empire out of nothing, and somewhere in the middle of all that wealth he'd lost track of what any of it was actually for. It had felt, for a long time, like the whole point of having power was simp
Chapter 526. What Happened to Me
Dr. Gail's office had a window that looked out over a parking lot, nothing special about the view, and Harry found himself staring at it anyway during the long stretches where he couldn't make himself talk."You don't have to fill the silence," Dr. Gail said, the third session in, when Harry had spent most of the hour saying almost nothing at all. "A lot of people think therapy means talking constantly. Sometimes it just means being somewhere safe long enough to notice what's actually there.""What's there is a mess," Harry finally said."Tell me about the mess, then. However it comes out."He told her about the sound of the shot first, because that was the part that came back to him most, sharper than the memory of pulling the trigger itself. The crack of it across the water. The way Tyrone had gone down like something had simply switched off inside him."I don't regret doing it," Harry said, careful, like the words might mean something different depending on how he arranged them. "I
Chapter 525. Kathryn Closes the Case
Kathryn had been chasing this case long before Harry ever knew her name. He learned that properly for the first time sitting across from her in a diner booth that smelled like burnt coffee, watching her turn a folder over in her hands like she wasn't quite ready to open it in front of him. "Six years," she said finally. "Six years of wealthy men going missing, and everyone telling me to let it go because none of the families wanted the attention, or the money made the disappearances look like choices instead of crimes. Six years of being told I was chasing shadows." "You weren't," Harry said. "You were the only one who saw it." "I was the only one who couldn't stop seeing it," Kathryn said. "There's a difference. Half the department thought I'd lost the plot. My captain pulled me off it twice. I kept working it anyway, on my own time, because every time I tried to file it away, I'd see one more name that fit the same pattern and I couldn't make myself walk past it." She opened the
Chapter 524. Desmond Cole's Family
Harry found out Desmond's last name from a folder Kathryn handed him without being asked, like she understood he needed it and would never manage to ask for it himself. Desmond Cole. Thirty eight years old. Two tours before he came home and started doing private security work, the kind that paid well because it was supposed to be safe, the kind that had gotten him hired onto a job that turned out to be nothing like what he signed up for.He had a wife. Her name was Renee. And a daughter, seven years old, named Iris.Harry sat with that folder open on his kitchen table for a long time before he could make himself do anything with it.He didn't know what right he had to show up at a dead man's door. He hadn't known Desmond long, only the length of the island, only the length of a handful of days that felt now like they belonged to some other, longer life. But Desmond had shielded them from gunfire that should have found Harry instead, had put his body between danger and people he'd kn
Chapter 523. Sophie and Elena
Harry checked himself out of the hospital two days earlier than the doctors wanted, mostly because the beeping of the monitors had started to sound too much like a countdown to something, and he needed to be somewhere that didn't feel like waiting. Melissa didn't argue with him about it. She just packed his things while he signed the forms with a hand that still wasn't entirely steady, and drove him home without asking any of the questions he could see sitting behind her eyes. It was three days after that when he finally worked up the nerve to visit Sophie. Her mother answered the door, and for a second neither of them said anything at all. Then she pulled him into a hug so tight it nearly folded him in half, and he heard her say thank you into his shoulder, over and over, until the words stopped sounding like language and just became sound, raw and grateful and a little broken. "She's out back," her mother finally said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "She talks about
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