Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 107

Chapter 107

Chapter 107

Aurelia’s POV

“What do you mean?”

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“Think, Aurelia,” he whispered. “You must have seen something. A height. A build. Anything at all.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything.”

“You…”

“It was raining, Rieck. I was on the ground. I heard a shot and then two men were dead.” My voice came out flat and tired. “I didn’t see a face. I didn’t see a shape. I heard a gunshot and then I saw you.”

“So no sound of footsteps before the shot? No breathing? No shadow moving somewhere behind you?”

“I was trying not to die. I wasn’t taking notes for you.”

“I just need to know who was out there watching you closely enough to save your life.”

“Does it matter who, if I’m alive because of it?”

“It matters to me.” His jaw ticked, the muscle working the way it always did when he was holding something back. “Someone that skilled doesn’t act without a reason. I want to know what he expects in return, before he decides to collect it.”

“Maybe there is no return. Maybe he just wanted to help.”

“Nobody just wants to help, Aurelia. Not people who carry a rifle built for killing wolves.” He shrugged. “Everyone wants something. I plan to learn what he wants from you.”

I looked away from him, down at my hands folded in my lap, and said nothing.

Because I already had a name for the shooter. I just wasn’t ready to say it out loud.

It was Kaelen.

He had saved me once before. He had pressed a stolen drive into my hand and told me it belonged to me.

It fit too well to be anyone else.

But if I told Rieck, I would also have to explain the calls. The offer to come to Ridgeline alone. The conversation about my father that I had never once mentioned, the one piece of my own history I still had no answer for.

And once Rieck knew all of that, there would be no going back from it. He would lock every door in this penthouse before he let me near Ridgeline again, and some part of me wasn’t ready to let that door close yet, not until I knew the truth about Derek.

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16:25 Mon, Aug 3

Chapter 107

So I stayed quiet.

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I waited until Rieck left the penthouse the next morning before I picked up my phone.

My thumb hovered over the number for a long moment before I finally pressed the call button.

It rang once.

Just once, and then the line clicked open, like he had been holding the phone in his hand already, waiting for exactly this moment.

“Aurelia.” Kaelen’s voice was warm, almost amused, like he had known exactly when I would call. “Took you long enough.”

“How did you pick up so fast?”

“I like to be ready.” I could hear something behind him, wind maybe, or trees rustling somewhere far away. “You calling to take me up on my offer?”

“I’m calling because two men tried to kill me in an alley last night, and someone shot them both before they could finish it.”

There was a pause. Not a surprised one. A patient one, like he already knew the story before I finished telling

“My offer still stands,” he said. “Come find me. Alone. Bring nothing but yourself, and I will tell you everything you want to know about him.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting over the phone.” His voice dropped lower. “Some things need to be said face to face, Aurelia. Not through a wire where anyone could be listening.”

I closed my eyes, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. “Thank you,” I said finally. “For saving my life. Both times.”

Silence stretched out on the other end, long enough that I thought the call had dropped.

“Kaelen?”

Then the line went dead.

No goodbye. No confirmation. He had disappeared the moment I said the words out loud, like gratitude was the one thing he couldn’t sit still for.

I stared at the blank screen for a long time, my thumb still hovering over the call button, wondering if I had imagined the whole conversation.

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16:25 Mon, Aug 3

Chapter 107

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The mall was loud and bright, full of shopping bags and voices bouncing off tile floors, and for a while it felt good to just be a woman buying things.

I was turning a scarf over in my hands, some soft blue thing I didn’t need, when the feeling came.

The same prickle at the back of my neck, the sense of being stared at.

I looked up and saw blonde hair, pale coat, standing near a shop window two floors up, both hands resting on the railing, looking straight down at me like she had been standing there for a while, in no hurry to be noticed.

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