Sweet Hatred Chapter 371: New threats

KAEL

Work had beco my only way to breathe.

Very predictable wasn’t it?

The stack of reports blurred into each other; the numbers, the signatures, the constant hum of air-conditioning.... noise I used to hate, now the only thing keeping the thoughts at bay.

By the ti I looked up, the glass walls of my office reflected nothing but the city’s dim rain-light. Everyone else had gone ho. Only a few of my n lingered outside, silent and waiting, shadows that moved when I moved.

The phone on my desk buzzed once, then again.

Aria.

Her na pulsed across the screen like a heartbeat I couldn’t answer.

I stared until it stopped ringing, until the silence ca back heavier than before. Then the voicemail icon appeared.

For a mont, I thought I’d let it sit there.... just another thing I’d ruin by touching. But my thumb moved on its own.

Her voice filled the room, soft and uncertain. "Kael, it’s . Just... call when you can, okay?"

It hurt more than it should have.

Because I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

But I couldn’t make my mouth shape the words, couldn’t trust myself not to bleed sothing through the line that would make her worry more.

I shut the phone off instead, grabbed my coat, and left.

The building was nearly empty, the corridors echoing under my footsteps. Outside, the rain had thickened, drumming against the windows like static. By the ti I reached the underground garage, the world felt sealed in steel and storm.

I was halfway to my car when I heard it, the rhythm of heels cutting through the sound of the rain.

"Mr Roman."

Her voice was honey wrapped around glass.

I turned knowing who it was already.

Sarah stepped out from the shadows, coat drawn tight, that sa smile on her lips.

Every muscle in my body locked. "What do you want."

She tilted her head. "Relax. I work here, rember?"

"I don’t care."

"Oh, but I think you do." She started walking, slow and asured, her heels clicking closer. "I knew you’d still be here. I’ve noticed you always stay late when you’re trying to forget sothing."

I clenched my jaw. "Say what you ca to say and leave."

Her smile widened. "We never finished our last conversation."

"We have nothing left to say to each other." I turned, reaching for my car door.

Her voice sharpened, slicing through the space between us. "Oh but you might want to hear out this ti."

Sothing in her tone froze , the casual confidence of soone holding a loaded gun behind her back.

"What are you talking about."

She ca closer, until the perfu I once couldn’t stand filled the air again. "Let’s just say I’ve got sothing new. Sothing the board, the press, your precious Aria would love to see if I decided to share."

The dread landed like a punch to the ribs. "What are you implying?"

She only smiled. "I’m saying that if you want to disappear from your life, Kael, you’ll do one simple thing for ."

I t her eyes, the storm outside flashing behind her. "What."

"I thought a little misunderstanding between you and my best friend would be enough to break you two apart." Her voice dropped lower, sweeter. "Apparently not. So now I’m changing my thod."

She stopped a few inches from , close enough that I could see the rain glistening on her lashes.

"This ti," she whispered, "you’re going to end it yourself.

You’re going to break up with Aria."

Break up with her.

The taste of iron rose in my mouth before I even realized I was biting down on the inside of my cheek. My jaw tightened.

"If you think you can make —"

"I’m not thinking Mr Roman," she interrupted softly. "I’m promising."

I stepped closer, letting the threat in my own voice sharpen. "Whatever you think you have, I can bury it and you with it."

She didn’t flinch. "You could try." Her smile was thin and knowing. "But you’d only prove right. The mont you fight back, I release everything. You don’t get to control anything anymore, Kael. Choices have consequences."

My hands curled into fists. "You don’t know what consequences look like."

"Don’t I?" she murmured. "Then consider this your last warning. If you won’t do what I’m asking willingly, I’ll make sure it happens by force."

I stood dumbfounded, replaying her words until the last syllable curdled in my mouth.

Break up with her. Or I’ll make you.

The threat was thin on the surface but loaded underneath... a promise dressed as an ultimatum. I’d faced a hundred kinds of nace in my life; most ended with force or bluff. This one slled different: confident, clinical, backed by sothing I couldn’t see.

I stepped in until our chests almost touched. "Tell Sarah, why exactly are you doing this?," I asked, my voice a low thing I used to make people move. "Isn’t this too much work to sabotage soone you claim to care about?"

"I already told you, you wouldn’t understand..." She shot back, matching my gaze. "So why waste my breath?"

"I will never leave Aria." I ant it. The heat of it was honest and ugly and imdiate.

She watched like she’d expected the answer. "It’s my word against yours sir." she said, almost conversationally. "All it takes is just the right audience. If you won’t give what I want, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your life." Then she turned, heels ticked, and walked away.

I didn’t move for a long ti. Regret washing over like the rain with the afterthought. I could have recorded her words. Yet I didn’t. I was too busy getting caught in her web. Right where she wanted .

The wet parking floor reflected a hundred small lights. My hands found my keys only when the adrenaline began to fade and the small, clean part of my brain clicked back on, thod over madness.

I hit the line as I slid into the car. "Niko." My voice was steadier than I felt. "What’s the update on Sarah?"

"We ran everything sir," he said quickly, the professionalism cutting through. "Public records, employnt history, social traces. She’s clean on surface checks. Parents run a small Logistics company... reputable, long-standing company. No lawsuits, no liens, no criminal records. Nothing that looks actionable."

Although it should have been a relief for soone who breathed close to Aria but It wasn’t. Clean paperwork can hide corners of a life; legitimate businesses can have skeletons in the contracts, partners with compromises, paynts routed through third parties, people on paper who aren’t the real decision-makers.

Her confidence suddenly made sense if she’d grown up inside a comfortable network, she’d know how to move around scrutiny. And I wanted to crush her where it hurt the most.

"Dig deeper," I said. "And do it right. No noise. Legal and forensics on standby." Then I began to rattle off specifics, because when panic slides a person toward a blunt instrunt, they forget the things that win wars: patience, data, perfect timing.

"Get compliance and in-house counsel to pull corporate filings on Brown Logistics internationally... beneficial owners, shell companies, recent property acquisitions, vendor lists, any goddamn thing you can find. Pull supplier contracts and any anomalies in paynt flows. I want bank routing trails run by an external forensic accountant if legal can secure the orders. Cross-check donors, charitable wings, trustees... any pathway that could mask funds or quid pro quo." I breathed once; the commands sharpened as I spoke. "Open-source intel: past press, travel manifests, social connections. Check for any patterns, schools, clubs, recurring vendors, heck- even what they had for lunch today. Run credit and corporate background through licensed channels. No illegal hacks, no leaks. We keep this clean and airtight."

"Understood," Niko answered. "I’ll assemble legal, compliance, and a small forensics team. We’ll start with corporate registries, dostic and offshore and move outward. Surveillance requests will be routed through legal if needed."

"Good." The plan steadied the way action always did. It didn’t take the pit out of my stomach, but it turned the panic into sothing I could manage.

I paused, thinking of Aria’s voicemail sitting on my phone like a cold coin. "And Niko... discreet. I don’t want this slling like a war. If she’s got a trick, I want to uncover it before she ever thinks to use it. And put a privacy sweep on Aria’s accounts and devices, make sure there’s no backdoor leaking anything personal. We protect first, probe second."

He acknowledged it. I killed the call, started the engine, and watched the rain blur the city into streaks of light. Fear had been a pulse in my skull a minute ago; it had cooled into a hunger for clean facts, for leverage frad in court-ready docunts rather than threats.

I drove into the storm with a list running through my head and a promise I ant to keep: to make Sarah regret.

I couldn’t go to Aria, she would figure out imdiately that sothing was up. And I couldn’t tell her yet so I headed to where I would least be expected.

To that bastard who always made my life hell.