Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

KIERAN

+10 Free Coins

Tokyo was thirteen hours ahead of home, which meant that when the group thread exploded at what felt like a reasonable evening hour for me, everyone else was operating at various stages of morning chaos.

I was in the hotel room reviewing the final terms of the Tanaka-Rohl trade agreement, which had taken four days of careful negotiation and was now sitting on the desk in front of me in a state that was almost final. Almost. The last two clauses needed one more round before I’d sign anything.

My phone buzzed.

Then buzzed again.

Then continued buzzing with the specific frequency that meant Lena had found something to say and had decided to say it comprehensively.

I picked it up.

Lena: okay I need answers

Lena: I have been patient

Lena: I have waited the agreed forty eight hours plus additional time because I am a generous person

Lena: Kieran I need to know what is happening with Denise

Callum: same question different timezone

Reyes: I watched the Grand Aldric footage three times. The dress. The wave. Rosaline’s face when Lyra started talking. I need to know everything.

Maddox:** The Silvermoon patriarch was seen leaving the event forty minutes early. Sources say he had an unscheduled conversation with someone before leaving that left him visibly recalibrated. Anyone want to speculate on who.

Lena: Kieran.

Lena: Kieran answer me.

Lena:I will call your mother.

I set the phone down and went back to the trade agreement.

it buzzed four more times.

I picked it up again.

Noor: Practical question. The Lyra Blackwood situation is now formally processed. The misrepresentation charge has procedural teeth. Dante Blackwood’s team filed three separate appeals overnight and all three were declined on procedural grounds. This is not an accident. Someone built this carefully. Kieran, the legal architecture here is yours.

1/5

1:22 pm P PPP

Chapter 44

+10 Free Coins

tena:KIERAN

Jayce:He’s in Tokyo. Give him a moment.

Lena: Jayce you were THERE. You tell us.

Jayce: Not my story to tell.

Reyes: okay but the hand on the waist, Jayce. The hand on the waist.

Callum: yeah that wasn’t nothing

Maddox: That was very specifically something.

I put the phone face down on the desk.

Picked it up thirty seconds later because leaving it was not actually an option,and I knew it.

Kieran:It’s a contractual arrangement. Mutually beneficial. She needed an exit and a platform. I needed a Luna. The terms are being finalized.

Lena: that is the most words you have ever used to say nothing.

Reyes:contractual. he said contractual.

Callum: the man flew his personal legal team to process her release in under two hours and he’s saying contractual

Maddox: The dress, Kjeran. You sourced the Aura Phoenix. For a contractual arrangement.

Kieran: She needed something appropriate for the event. It was a practical decision.

Lena: I cannot believe what I’m reading.

Lena: Kieran Emery Nightshade-

Reyes: EMERY

Lena: –you introduced her to your parents FIRST. Before any announcement. Before the paperwork is even signed. Your mother held her hand. Your father asked her two questions and looked at her for the rest of the conversation.

Lena: your FATHER, Kieran, Who looked at the last three women your family suggested with the energy of a man reviewing tax documents.

Kieran:My father wants the succession settled. Denise made a good impreThat’s the function of the meeting.

Noor: He’s not going to tell us.

Lena: I know he’s not going to tell us. I’m going to keep asking anyway.

Maddox: The footage from the police station. The way he watched it. Jayce described him on the floor of the car.

Lena: Kieran. Last question. Is this still purely contractual,

I looked at that question for a moment.

2/5

Chapter 44

Kieran: Yes.

Lena:okay.

Lena: I don’t believe you but okay

Callum:same

Reyes: same

Maddox: same

Noor: noted.

Jayce: I’ll talk to him.

I put the phone down and went back to the trade agreement.

The words on the page were the same words they’d been ten minutes ago. They didn’t resolve any differently..

+10 Free Coins

Jayce called at eleven.

I was still at the desk. The trade agreement was now final in all the ways it needed to be final-I’d gone through the last two clauses twice, made three small changes, sent it to my legal team for morning review. The room was quiet in the specific way that hotel rooms in foreign cities were quiet, which was a silence with unfamiliar texture.

I answered.

“You don’t have to do the contractual thing with me,” Jayce said, without preamble. “We’ve known each other for eleven years.”

“It is contractual,” I said.

“Kieran.”

“The paperwork is being drafted. The terms are clear. It’s a structured arrangement with defined-”

“I watched you,” Jayce said. “For months. You watched her.”

I said nothing.

“I was there the night at the business function when you gave her your number,” he continued. “You came back to the table and you were quiet for the rest of the evening, which you only are when something is actually occupying you. I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t my business.” A pause. “Then she blocked the number and you didn’t push it and I thought, okay, he’s moving on. Except you didn’t move on. You kept track of her.”

“I keep track of a lot of things.”

“Not like that.” His voice was even, not pushing, just stating, “When the accident happened-the car accident-you knew within the hour. You called me that night. You said you were thinking about reaching out.”

“I didn’t.”

3/5

Chapter 44

+10 Free Coins

“No. You waited. But you knew.” A pause. “When I asked you about the Luna situation, last month, when your mother was starting to say things-you had already decided. Before you told anyone, before you told me, you had already decided it was her. Not someone from an allied family. Not someone strategically obvious. Her.” He paused again. “And it wasn’t only to draw Dante Blackwood out. That part was a bonus. But it wasn’t the reason.”

The hotel room was quiet.

Outside the window, Tokyo was doing what Tokyo did at eleven o’clock-fully, completely alive, indifferent to whatever was happening in a hotel room on the fourteenth floor.

“You’re reading into things,” I said.

“The Aura Phoenix,” Jayce said. “You sourced it three weeks ago. Before she agreed to anything. Before the dinner at Seren.” A pause. “You had it before she called.”

I looked at the window.

“Jayce,” I said.

“I’m not asking you to say anything,” he said. “I’m just telling you what I observed. Because you’re my closest friend and you’re currently in Tokyo at eleven o’clock at night having sent your legal team a trade agreement, and I know you’re not sleeping.” He paused. “And I know what you do when you’re not sleeping.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify