Storms of the Heart novel Chapter 18

"General Hauser? Are you awake?"

A guard's voice rang in his ears, filled with a mix of surprise and relief.

Julian struggled to open his eyes. Above him, the makeshift ceiling of the field hospital tent came into view, the air thick with the sharp scent of disinfectant and blood.

He moved his cracked lips, trying to speak, but his throat was so hoarse that no sound came out.

The guard, Lionel Woodward, quickly dipped a cotton swab in water and carefully moistened Julian's lips.

Julian took a long moment to gather some strength. When he finally looked at Lionel, a faint, almost unbelievable hope glimmered in his eyes.

He whispered hoarsely, "Does she… know my condition?"

He knew it was a foolish question. He was at the border, cut off from almost all communication, and she was across the ocean. There was no way she could know how he was.

Yet deep down, he still clung to a faint, fragile hope that she might care about news of him, even if just a little.

Lionel paused before he realized who Julian was referring to.

His expression darkened, and he shook his head slowly. "Mrs. Hauser… Ms. Shepherd didn't know. We followed your orders and kept everything to ourselves. We were afraid… of disturbing her."

The faint glimmer in Julian's eyes vanished in an instant, leaving only a lifeless void.

He slowly closed his eyes, turned his head to the side, and said nothing more. The dull ache in his chest was far more unbearable than any of the wounds on his body.

Even before his wounds had fully healed, Julian fought to return home. The military doctors strongly opposed it, but he remained resolute, invoking his authority as a major general.

On the bumpy journey back, he leaned against the back seat of the jeep, enduring the pain from his injuries. Under the dim light, he took out a piece of paper and a pen and began to write.

He wrote slowly and painfully, each word sapping the last of his strength.

He wrote of his regrets, his foolishness, and the truth his heart had only realized when he was on the brink of death.

He wrote of the one he had loved all along—and lost, realizing far too late that she was the only one he had ever truly loved.

He wrote that he couldn't live without her and begged her to give him one more chance.

In the end, he had a thick stack of papers filled with words of love he had never spoken aloud and humble, desperate pleas.

It almost exhausted every ounce of emotion Julian, the usually cold-faced general, had ever possessed.

As he laughed, a single burning tear suddenly fell onto the icy letters spelling "Refused", quickly spreading into a blurred stain.

From that day on, Julian seemed like a different man.

He was still the cold, reserved major general, handling military matters with even greater decisiveness, his methods sharper and more ruthless, earning the respect and fear of his subordinates.

But only he knew that a part of his heart had completely crumbled, overrun by dark, obsessive vines of paranoia.

He began using his power and every resource at his disposal to build a secret intelligence network, stopping at nothing to obsessively gather all the details about Trina's life overseas.

From the classes she took to the paintings she created, who she spent time with, where she went, and even what she wore or ate each day, every detail was compiled into reports and discreetly delivered to his office.

The drawers in his office were packed with close-up photos of her taken without her knowledge—her profile as she read in the library, the intense focus on her face as she stood before the easel, and the lively spark in her eyes when she laughed with her friends.

He was like a dying addict, greedily absorbing every detail about her from the words and images he had secretly collected, soothing his nearly parched heart. Yet he was wracked with jealousy and pain when he saw the brilliant life she was living without him.

His obsession teetered on the edge of madness, yet he couldn't rein it in.

It was as if this was the only way he could convince himself that she hadn't entirely vanished from his world.