Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 525

Chapter 525

ARIA

"They're not connected," Kael said.

"My lab," Ivory said, "which was destroyed on Saturday, contained research that I've been conducting for four years. Some of that research is recoverable. Some of it is gone." She looked at him steadily. "The research that's gone was the most recent. The part that was getting close."

"I know," Kael said, and this version of those two words had the weight.

"We need to rebuild the research," Ivory said. "What I remember, plus what I had documented elsewhere, plus what we can reconstruct from Killian's information and Vela's information and everything Vesper told us before—" she glanced at Kael's hands, "—before the conversation ended."

"The information is in the intelligence files," Jordan said. "Everything we got from Vesper. I organized it while we were on the break."

"Recreationally," Kael said.

"I enjoy organizing," Jordan said. "It's meditative."

"Killian," Ivory said, turning to the corner.

Killian straightened slightly. The awareness of being addressed directly in this room, by Ivory specifically, carrying its own weight.

"What do you know about the original caster," Ivory said.

"Less than you'd think," Killian said. "The network doesn't talk about the origin openly. I know there's someone at the top. I know the network reports to that person through several layers. I know the caster is still alive because the root wouldn't be usable otherwise — it's tied to the caster's continued existence."

"The root deactivates when the caster dies, all of them" Ivory said.

"That's consistent with everything I found," Ivory said, to Jordan and Nina. "Which means—"

"Find the casters or the original one who did it," Jordan said.

"Find the caster," Ivory confirmed. "And the root is resolved."

The room processed this.

"We need to find a specific person," Nina said, "who has been hidden for at least four years, who we've been unable to identify despite four years of research, and who is actively protected by a network that we've been dismantling from the outside but haven't reached the center of."

"Yes," Ivory said.

"That's the Monday agenda," Nina said.

"That's the Monday agenda," Ivory confirmed.

"Also the budget discussion," Jordan said.

"ALSO the budget discussion," Ivory said.

Kael was looking at the books on his desk with the expression of someone who'd had a very full morning already and could see that the afternoon was going to be equally full.

"The book club," he said, very quietly.

"What," Ivory said.

"If I agree," he said, "to the book club—"

"You don't get to negotiate with the book club," Ivory said. "The book club is not a concession. The book club is a right."

"I bought the books," he said.

"With pack's money," Ivory said. "Effectively."

"The discretionary—"

"Kael," Ivory said.

"We have common ground with our enemies," Jordan said. "That's diplomatically interesting."

"We are not using this as a diplomatic—" Kael started.

"Book club," I said.

Everyone looked at me.

"We can discuss the book club later," I said. "Kael agrees. We all know he agrees. Ivory will organize it. Jordan and Nina are already in and Killian apparently has opinions. That's a later conversation." I looked at the room. "The root. The caster. Finding the person who can undo what's been done to Kael and remove the ability of anyone to use him as a weapon again. That's today. That's what we're doing today."

The room settled.

"She's right," Elite said.

"She's right," Jordan confirmed.

"The caster," Ivory said, reaching not for book eleven but for her clinical notebook, the one with the compressed handwriting and the color-coded tabs. "This is what I know, and this is what I need, and this is where we start."

She opened it.

The office settled into the specific quality of a room where real work was beginning — the noise of the morning absorbed into the focus of people who knew how to do what they were about to do and were doing it.

Silver was warm and present.

The bond thread was warmer than yesterday.

Monday had arrived.

We were in it.

a/n: When will Aria learn that the most important thing , is actually the least important thing for the circle. A zombie apocalypse can be happening and they would huddle in the bunker just to argue about irrelevant things. Nina was like, Aria the wolf has given us ptsd, it is not a new thing at this point. i love showing how the team is a group of competent people outside or when they are alone being all serious and feared by people. and when they are together in the same room, they actively share one single brain cell and the brain cell is never in the room. Not Jordan bringing a bat to a wolf fight, A for efforts truly, he tried. Kael is so petty, when it comes to killian and i am loving it. And before you guys actually come for me, they had their meeting, they talked about it too.