Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 459

Chapter 459

Chapter 459

Chapter 459

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“The full hierarchy,” I said. “Who they report to. What the plan for the root was — didn’t destroy the root of the curse, there’s still something structural in you that could theoretically be activated if someone who understood the construction wanted to try.” I watched the dark road. “That’s the actual problem. Everything tonight was distraction from the actual problem.”

“Which is,” he said.

“Someone still knows how to activate what’s left of it,” I said. “And that someone hasn’t been in this operation directly. The people we’ve dealt with – Vela’s network, the attacker, Vesper – they’re not the origin. They’re the people the origin sent.”

“The origin,” Kael said.

“Is still out there,” I said. “And knows we’ve disrupted the operation. Which means they’ll adjust.” I looked at the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Kael. I thought I could get to them before they got to us. I thought if I found the origin I could address it before it became―” I gestured vaguely at the night, at everything the night had contained. “This.”

“You thought you could handle it alone,” he said.

“I thought I was handling it alone,” I said. “Right up until I was on a floor with chains on my wrists.”

The silence that followed was not comfortable and wasn’t meant to be.

“Killian was there,” I said. Because it had to be said before we arrived.

The car went a specific quality of quiet that was different from the conversational quiet of the past thirty minutes.

“I know you said tomorrow,” Kael said. “But tell me the part you need to tell me tonight.”

–

or they came to him, I’m not “He weakened the chains,” I said. “He came there with them. certain of the full sequence. He made a deal with Vela’s network that included his presence and his cooperation in exchange for whatever he wanted from it.” I paused. “When they were going to hurt me again, he objected. They pushed him to choose sides. He chose-” I stopped. “He chose to weaken the chains and leave before you arrived.”

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Chapter 459

“Stop monitoring my wrist,” I said.

“No,” Elite said.

“The treatment is complete,” I said.

“I know,” Elite said. “I’m monitoring to make sure it’s doing what it should be doing.”

“The compound does what it does regardless of monitoring,” I said.

“I’m aware,” Elite said. “I’m monitoring for my own peace of mind.”

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I looked at her. Eight years of knowing her. Eight years of working alongside the specific contained competence of Elite, who didn’t do unnecessary things and didn’t claim to do things for her own peace of mind because peace of mind was not something Elite usually filed as a relevant factor in operational decisions.

“Elite,” I said.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I’m not going to say anything complicated,” I said.

“You were going to say something that acknowledged that I’m doing this because I was frightened tonight,” she said, “and you were going to say it in your clinical voice to create distance from the fact that you were also frightened and that the frightened people in this car care about each other in ways that are apparently expressed through monitoring wrist treatments and documenting approach timing variations.”

I closed my mouth.

“So don’t,” Elite said. “I know. You know. Let’s let it be what it is without naming it.”

“Alright,” I said.

She went back to monitoring the wrist treatment.

I went back to looking at the road and thinking about everything that was cracking.

—

The damage I’d done. Not the physical kind that was documented and treatable and already being managed. The other kind. The long slow accumulation of decisions made in other people’s interests without their knowledge or consent, of costs distributed to people who hadn’t agreed to bear them, of protection offered in ways that removed the protected person’s

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Chapter 459

“He helped you,” Kael said.

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“He helped me,” I said. “Against the people he’d been cooperating with. I owe him one, which I told him, and I intend to resent it at length.”

“Why did he help you,” Kael said.

“Because I asked him to,” I said. Not the full answer. The partial one, the accurate one, the one that didn’t require the rest of the conversation tonight.

Kael drove.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow,” I agreed.

“The full version,” he said.

“The full version,” I said.

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready to hear it,” I said. “All of it. The things I know about him and the things I’ve understood since tonight and the things that are going to be complicated regardless of how they’re framed.”

“I’m going to want to kill him,” Kael said.

“Probably,” I said. “But I don’t think you’re going to.”

“Why not,” he said.

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