Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 620

Chapter 620

ARIA

The meeting was called for ten in the morning.

Ivory's message had come through the link at nine-forty-five — the specific channel she used for inner circle communications, the one that reached all of us simultaneously without the formality of a general pack announcement. The message was brief. *Meeting room. Ten o'clock. Root removal discussion.*

Four words per sentence. No preamble. The specific economy of someone who'd made a decision and was moving toward implementation.

Silver said: *She's ready.*

*I know,* I said.

*Two days wasn't enough,* Silver said.

*I know,* I said.

*Aria,* Silver said.

*I know,* I said.

I'd had one day. Twenty-four hours since the garden bench and the file and Silver's instinct about the gap in the analysis. I'd spent most of those twenty-four hours doing the thing Silver had said we needed — examining the root architecture, feeling the attachment point, trying to locate the specific gap I'd seen in the pages.

The gap was real.

I was certain of that. I could feel it in the way Silver could feel it, the specific quality of something that wasn't quite what the analysis said it was, the place where Ivory's research had assumed binary and the reality was — potentially not binary. The redirection possibility, the idea that the anchor could be moved rather than broken, that the failsafe might be tied to the breaking specifically rather than to the anchor's existence.

Real.

But not confirmed. Not understood fully enough to bring to Ivory and say *here, look at this, you missed something.* The gap existed and Silver could feel it and I could feel it and what I couldn't yet do was articulate it in the specific language that Ivory would require to take it seriously.

One day was not enough.

And Ivory was calling a meeting.

---

Killian found me in the corridor outside the meeting room at nine fifty-eight.

He appeared from the secondary stairwell with the specific quality of someone who'd received the same message and had the same calculation running.

"You saw it," he said. Not a question.

"The gap is real," I said. "I can feel it. Silver can feel it. I can't articulate it well enough yet to—"

"She's not going to wait," he said.

"No," I said.

"What do we do," he said.

I looked at the meeting room door.

Kael's voice was audible from inside — the low even register of someone already in conversation, Jordan's dry responses, Nina's efficient contributions. The meeting was already partially in session and we weren't in it yet.

"We delay," I said.

"How," he said.

"I don't know yet," I said. "But we delay. We get Kael to agree to wait." I held his gaze. "And we don't tell Kael why. Not yet. Not until I can show Ivory the gap in terms she can engage with."

"Kael will ask questions," Killian said.

"I know," I said.

"He's smart," Killian said.

"I know," I said.

"Ivory is going to know something is wrong," he said.

"She already suspects something," I said. "She's been watching me since yesterday morning. The link—" I paused. "She's very careful with her link presence but she's been doing the specific kind of watching that happens when you've noticed something and can't ask about it directly."

"Can't ask because Kael is always there," Killian said.

"Yes," I said.

Silver said: *Go in. And don't say what you know. Say only what you can defend.*

*Which is,* I said.

*That you're not ready,* Silver said. *That you haven't had enough time with the architecture. That the root is complex and rushing it risks the outcome. All of that is true.*

*All of that is also what someone would say if they were stalling,* I said.

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