I'm In Love With My Bestfriend's Billionaire Fiance!-Chapter 76: The Voice In My Head

(Casey’s POV)

________ 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Have a nice night."

For a long time, after Ethan had driven off, I stood motionless, my pulse hammering against my skull. The words kept resounding in my head, looping over and over like a broken recording, each repetition scraping against my nerves. They weren’t just words anymore. They were a warning. A presence.

I could hear them with terrifying clarity—not just the syllables, but the voice that had delivered them. It was different from Ethan’s and any other voice I had heard so far. Deep, with a guttural rasp, a voice that lingered at the edges of my memory like a shadow just out of reach. But the longer I let the sound coil through my thoughts, the more certain I became.

Maven.

That was the voice. The same man whose face Ethan had shown me.

My stomach twisted. What exactly was happening?

Had I known Maven before? Was he someone from my past, buried beneath layers of forgotten time? And if so, why was he resurfacing now, through Ethan, through those words spoken in that familiar, unsettling tone?

Worse still—was I his link to Kira and Jace?

A sickening thought settled in my chest, heavy as lead.

Was I the reason my best friend and my boyfriend were about to be blackmailed? Was I the key to whatever nightmare was unfolding?

With a sigh that felt heavier than it should, I stepped off the porch and walked back into the house. The air inside felt different, charged as if the walls themselves knew something was wrong.

Jace was on the couch, completely absorbed in his phone. His fingers moved in a rapid blur across the screen, typing out something with sharp, deliberate urgency. I watched him for a moment, my mind flickering back to our time at the hospital—the way he had turned his phone away from me, the hesitation in his eyes when I’d asked what he was hiding.

I had pushed it aside then, convinced myself it wasn’t worth the trouble. But now? Now everything felt off. The tension in my chest refused to settle.

Still, I had a bigger problem on my hands.

I was barely inside the room when Jace finally looked up, his eyes locking onto mine. His fingers stilled against the screen. A slow frown crept across his face.

He knew.

Knew that something had changed. Knew that the way I had walked Ethan out of this house was not the same way I had come back in.

And for a split second, I saw something else in his eyes.

Not just concern.

Fear.

"Babe, what’s going on?"

I sighed, turning back to face Jace, my thoughts tangled in knots. For a brief moment, I considered telling him—laying everything bare, letting him see the unease clawing at the edges of my mind. But then I shook my head. No.

Jace and Ethan already thought I was their ace in the hole, their one ticket to tracking down Maven. They were convinced that, somehow, I would lead them straight to him, that the answers were buried somewhere in my memory, just waiting to be uncovered. But that was the problem.

I didn’t remember.

Not where I met him. Not how I knew him. Not why his voice had wormed its way into my head like a parasite refusing to let go.

And the worst part? The more I tried to grasp at the fragments, the further they slipped away, like whispers lost to the wind.

Jace studied me, his gaze too sharp, too knowing. He was waiting for an explanation.

I forced a weak shake of my head, swallowing down the tightness in my throat. "Nothing," I murmured. "I’m fine."

But the lie sat heavy on my tongue.

And by the way Jace’s jaw clenched, I knew he didn’t believe me.

I was about to walk to the bedroom when he got to his feet and grabbed my hand. He tossed his phone on the table and pulled me close, "Come on, you and I can clearly see that you’re not fine. What is going on? Talk to me."

I sucked in a deep breath as I looked into his eyes, "okay then. But first, you have to promise me that you won’t be weird about it."

"Me? Weird?" He made a show of being angry, causing me to chuckle. He then wrapped his hands around my waist, holding me tight against himself. "Come on, what’s bugging my sexy peanut?"

"It’s just about Maven... I think I remembered something else about him." I then went on to tell him about remembering the phrase. "It’s just... I know that I’ve spent enough time with the guy to have an actual conversation with him. Everything about him feels familiar, his looks and his voice. But I can’t seem to place where I know him from. That has got me thinking; maybe we’re not friends."

Jace thought about it, "of course now, you can’t be friends with such a scumbag!"

"Come on," I hit him lightly on the chest. "You know what I mean."

He pursed his lips, "Yeah, I do know what you mean. But I’m also being serious. You can’t know that kind of person personally because if you did, he’d be more remarkable and easy to remember. In the same way that you can remember all your friends easily. That’s how it should be."

I tipped my head to the side as I thought about it, his words made sense, "We may not be friends but we’re comfortable enough to exchange light greetings. And I’ll always recognize that face because it’s one that I see very well. Holy shit... what if this is like a security guard, or a waiter at the restaurant, or even the fucking busboy at the hotel? I’m nice to everyone, which could be the reason for that easy camaraderie I’m remembering."

"Well," Jace shrugged, "If that’s the case then the net has seriously been expanded because then you’d have to remember every place you’ve been to in the last few days. You’re sure that it’s not been too long since you met the person, right?"

I nodded, "it feels very recent."

"Good," Jace said. "We’ll work with that. Tomorrow we’ll get a list of all the places you’ve been to in the last few days, and we’ll see if any of them jar your minds."

"Hopefully, Ethan’s contacts will have an answer for us. I don’t like the fact that my memory will be the crux on which this whole investigation will stand."

"It is what it is, babe." He said, "And I’m sick and tired of all this talk of Maven. I’m here alone with my girlfriend, I want to enjoy my time with you."

He was right. We had spent the entire day drowning in Maven’s shadow, his name slipping through our conversations like a curse neither of us could shake. It was exhausting, maddening—like trying to claw our way out of a nightmare that refused to end.

But tonight... tonight had to be different.

I needed it to be.

I couldn’t keep letting him infect every part of my life, couldn’t keep allowing his ghost to twist itself around the things that mattered—the things that were still mine. He had already taken too much. I refused to let him take this, too.

I sucked in a slow, shaky breath and stepped closer, wrapping my arms around Jace’s neck, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips. His pulse was steady, grounding. For the first time all day, I let myself lean into it.

His eyes searched mine, flickering with something unreadable—caution, longing, something else I couldn’t quite place.

I tilted my head, my voice barely above a whisper. "So... what would you like?"

A pause. His breath hitched.

And for a moment, it almost felt like Maven wasn’t watching from the shadows.

Almost.

"For now?" He said after a while. "The night is still young, baby. I want us to continue from where we stopped earlier. I want to make love to you over and over again until you’re a screaming mess. I want to cuddle up with you as you fall asleep in my arms so we can wake up to a beautiful morning, and continue our love from where we stopped."

I chuckled at that, "You seem to have a lot planned for me."

"Yeah, I do. But like I said, the night is young. We don’t have to rush anymore like we did earlier. You and I have not had a proper date."

My face fell at that, "I know. But we can’t try that just yet. Everyone knows your face and being seen at a dinner date with a woman who isn’t Kira would cause a stink for all of us."

"I know... that’s why we’re not going to a restaurant. I’ll take you somewhere tomorrow, somewhere romantic that I’m sure you’ll love the heck out of. But for tonight, I want to treat you to something special."

I felt butterflies in my stomach, "aww, what is it?"

"Our first date would be right here in your living room." Jace told me, "I’m going to cook for you, my love."

At that moment, I knew for a fact that my heart belonged to no one else but Jace Blackwood!

Nothing was ever going to change that fact.