Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 163

How She Breathes.

Diego

head won’t agree. The

ve poked it long enough. I slip

Sleep shoves at me and doesn’t take. It’s that hollow kind, the kind where you’re tired of being a cabin makes soft noises, groaning in the wind… But the girl in grey sits behind my eyelids like a sp out, bare feet on cold wood, jacket over my shoulder. The gravel path crunches under my boots as I walk toward the infirmary, Nico and Winnie’s place, because if I’m honest, I don’t want to ask Connor or Sissy for help. Nico doesn’t pry unless you ask him to, and Winnie has a way of seeing what you won’t say. The door’s old, the lock a cheap thing meant to look intimidating. It’s funny how many people still forget to change a lock code. I’ve practised fingers for years; it takes two soft snaps and a twist. Inside is dim; the lamp by the bed is enough to cast shadows on their bodies. They look ridiculous and perfect together, limbs tangled, soft exhalations. Love in this family isn’t gentle; it’s absolute. It’s gruff hands and ill–timed tenderness and whole days ruined because someone needed to be held. I watch them for a second, and something in my chest loosens. Nico is small in sleep and fierce awake. His hand is wrapped around Winnie’s waist; her hair is a dark halo on the pillow. They’ve been like this forever: his logic against her steady hands. When he’s been running numbers, she’s been fixing the wounds. The two of them balance each other like breath and heartbeat. It’s the kind of pair that makes other arrangements look stupid. I stand in the doorway and let the scene burn into me. Love’s always fascinated me, not like some soft headline, but as a machine. How it cranks people open and rearranges their insides. In our world, loving is a practice of totality: you give everything or you don’t give a thing at all. They love like that. It’s dangerous and beautiful, and for a moment I want to hate them for being human, for letting themselves be revealed.

Nico stirs; he’s not subtle. His eyes snap open like a trapped animal, and then he’s taking in the room in a single, precise sweep. I can see the beat of his pulse at the neck, it’s frenzied. He says before he’s fully risen, “What the fuck, D?”

I grin because it scares people and comforts me. “I need help,” I tell him, honestly.

He blinks, trying to calibrate the time. “What time is it?”

I shrug. “Early, late. I don’t know. Are you going to help me?”

For a second, he just stares, and I see the calculator whirring behind his eyes: risk versus reason, sleep versus loyalty. Then Winnie groans, half–turns, and mutters like she’s not really awake: “Go and help him, Nico, before he burns someone’s house down doing it

himself.”

That’s how our family is. We don’t ask why. We ask when. We don’t send each other away for being dangerous; we hand a rope and a plan.

Nico swings his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing at his face. He glances at the small clock, the red digits like a dare, “It’s three in the morning, Diego.”

“So?” I say.

“So, you’d better have a good reason to wake me at this hour.” He’s trying the mild voice, the one that works on everyone else. It doesn’t

work on me.

I step in the floor creats in a way I find comforting. “There was a woman at Ricci’s tonight.” My words are blunt because everything want hooks better when blunt. “The one at the meeting. She’s not just… there. She reads files. She moves differently. I watched her

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How She Breathes.

through her window.”

Nico’s eyes narrow. He’s calculating now. “You… you watched her?”

“Yeah.” No pride in the admission. Just fact. “I was patient. I watched. I don’t want her to know my tongue. “I want to know what she is.”

The truth its easy t

Winnie sits up, hait in a messy halo, and rubs an eye. “You idiot,” she says fondly. “Go to sleep for five minutes and then tell me

everything.”

Nico’s hand comes to his temple. “We can trace her. I can retrieve shipments, financial records, and phone logs.”

I shake my head. “Data’s dry. I want living things what kind of tea she drinks, the way she folds a letter, if she keeps a gun in the kitchen drawer or under the mattress and…her name. Yeah, I want her name. The small things.”

Winnie hums, considering. “That’s not how we usually operate,” she says.

I grin. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I came to you two. I just want to watch how she breathes.”

Winnie gives me a look halfway between pity and warning, but she doesn’t tell me to stop. None of them ever do.

Nico sighs, dragging his hands down his face. “So, what exactly do you want from me, Diego?”

I crouch beside the bed, elbows on my knees, grin fading into something quieter. “I want to see how she moves when she’s not aware of the world watching, how she looks when she reads, when she eats. If she hums when she’s alone. What kind of shoes she kicks off first. What side of the bed she sleeps on. Those are the details that matter.”

“That’s surveillance,” Nico says flatly.

“Observation,” I correct. “Surveillance sounds cold. This isn’t that. I just want to… understand her.”

He stares at me, and I know he’s trying to decide whether to call Connor right now or let me spiral in peace. He won’t call. He knows

better.

Winnie rubs her temple. “You don’t get to understand people by watching them sleep, Diego.”

I tilt my head. “Don’t you? Isn’t that what you and Nico do every night? Study each other until you know where the other’s pulse skips?”

She opens her mouth, closes it, then laughs softly, shaking her head. “You’re mad.”

“I’m curious,” I say simply. “You know what curiosity built in this family.”

“A dynasty or a grave,” Nico mutters, standing.

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How She Breathes.

hermes both.” I say, smirking.

glares at me over his shoulder. “I’ll get you the name. That’s It. Nothing more.”

“Where,” I say, knowing it’s a lie the second it leaves my mouth.

sighs again, resigned, muttering something about ghosts and idiots. Winnie curls back under the blanket, already half asleep. I stand, setch, and head for the door. The night outside smells like rain and trouble.

Just want to know what kind of tea she drinks,” I murmur to myself, smiling into the dark, “and maybe her favourite flowers.”

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