Chapter 403: It costs nothing to be cruel 2
ALDRIC
I had not looked deep enough.
Had not asked the right questions.
Had not connected the dots that were sitting right in front of .
But now I saw it.
Now it was clear.
And it gave
exactly what I needed.
A way to take out my enemies.
All of them.
At once.
Fleshcraft was a sin.
A cri against the supernatural society.
The kind of cri that carried consequences so severe that even ntioning it in certain circles could get you killed.
And Fia.
A whole Luna of Skollrend was hiding the fact that she was a healer.
It would only make sense if she were not a creation of the goddess.
If she were sothing else...
Sothing unnatural...
Sothing made.
It did not even matter if she actually was.
If I sold the story correctly, it would be bought.
I was a returned Alpha with plenty of secrets to tell. Secrets I had learned while imprisoned. Secrets about Valentine. About Pauline. About the experints they had conducted in the dark.
I was a saint right now.
A victim. A perfect victim.
Soone who had suffered and survived and co back to tell the truth.
People would listen to .
They would believe .
And when I told them that Fia was a product of fleshcraft, and there had been so conspiracy to create her, that she was an abomination walking among them, they would act.
The supernatural council would move.
The royal family would intervene.
Cian would be stripped of his position or worse.
Fia would be taken.
Studied and dissected before being exterminated.
And I would be there to watch it all burn.
But first, I needed those files.
The leverage I had kept on Valentine and Pauline.
The proof of their cris.
The evidence that would make my story undeniable.
Without those files, it was just my word against theirs.
And while my word carried weight right now, it would not be enough on its own.
I needed proof.
Concrete, undeniable proof.
Which ant I needed to get back into my office.
Into the hidden compartnt where I had kept everything. It had one of my secret key.
I turned another corner and started heading toward the wing where my old chambers had been.
The hallways were quiet.
Most people were still recovering from the trial. From the executions. From everything that had happened.
Good.
The fewer people who saw
moving around, the better.
I reached the door to my chambers and stopped.
My hand hovered over the handle.
For a mont, I just stood there.
This room had been mine for years.
Decades.
It had been where I planned. Where I sched. Where I built my empire piece by piece.
And now I was walking back into it wearing soone else’s face.
The irony was not lost on .
I pushed the door open.
The room was exactly as I had left it.
Dark wood furniture. Heavy curtains. A desk positioned near the window with papers still scattered across its surface.
No one had touched anything.
No one had dared.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind .
Then I moved toward the desk.
My fingers traced along the edge of the wood. Searching. Feeling for the small indentation I had carved into the underside years ago.
There.
I pressed down hard.
A soft click echoed in the quiet.
A panel in the wall beside the desk slid open.
Inside was a small compartnt. Hidden, secure and... empty.
I stared at it.
My chest tightened.
The key was gone.
The missing piece that would lead
to every piece of leverage I had spent years collecting.
Gone.
I stood there for a long mont.
Then I let out a slow breath and closed the compartnt.
Soone had taken them.
Cian, maybe. Or one of the sentinels acting on his orders.
It did not matter.
It did actually, considering I had fortified the room against magic and reinforced the entirety of that room with titanium.
But Ronan’s version was still out there, and I had a feeling I knew where it was. If it was not there... I could rebuild.
I always did.
I turned away from the desk and walked back toward the door.
That was when I heard it.
A soft sound.
Quiet and almost imperceptible.
It sounded like soone was crying.
I stopped.
The sound was coming from just outside the door.
I opened it slowly.
And there she was.
Elara.
My daughter.
Fuck!
She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. Her knees were pulled up to her chest. Her face was buried in her hands.
Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs.
I stood there for a mont.
Just watching her.
She looked so small.
So broken.
Pathetic, really.
But also useful.
I stepped forward.
The movent must have caught her attention because her head snapped up.
Her eyes were red. Swollen. Tears streaked down her cheeks.
"Uncle Gabriel?" she said.
Her voice was thick. Choked.
I forced my expression into sothing softer. Sothing kind.
"Elara."
She dragged the back of her hand across her face quickly, trying to wipe away the evidence, trying to gather herself into sothing more presentable, though the tremor in her shoulders betrayed her.
"What... what are you doing here?" she asked, her voice quieter now, cautious in a way that suggested she was already trying to make sense of my presence.
I let out a small breath, letting just enough uncertainty slip through to make it believable, tilting my head slightly as though the answer was not entirely clear even to .
"I’m not sure," I said, my tone softer, almost reflective. "I just... wanted to check on my room."
Her gaze flickered past
briefly, toward the door I had just stepped out of, before returning to my face, studying
with a kind of careful attention that felt older than she was.
"Oh," she murmured.
Silence settled again, though this ti it was different, heavier, threaded with sothing unspoken.
I took another step closer, closing so of the distance between us without crowding her, letting my presence feel intentional but not threatening.
"You shouldn’t be sitting out here like this," I said gently, my eyes lowering slightly as if in concern. "What happened?"
Her lips parted, then pressed together again as though she was debating whether to answer, whether to trust what she saw in front of her.
"I guess it is all true," she said. Her voice cracked slightly. "My father did imprison you."
I looked at her.
At the tears. The guilt. The self loathing written all over her face.
It disgusted .
This weakness.
This need to wallow in emotions that served no purpose.
But I pushed the disgust down and let sothing paternal rise to the surface instead.
Because she would have use.
Her phone, especially.
Because I knew that even now, Cian would not trust . Not fully. Not yet.
He would have traumatized himself thinking about family. About who could be trusted and who could not.
Whatever phone he gave
would be monitored. Tracked and restricted.
But not hers.
Not the grieving daughter who had done nothing wrong.
I moved closer and knelt down beside her.
"Elara," I said gently. "You have grown."
She sniffled and wiped her eyes again.
"I am sorry for what my dad did."
I reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It is not your fault."
She shook her head.
"But I did not notice," she said. Her voice broke again. "I should have. With how epileptic his personality was. But I just thought we were all like that. It never clicked."
Tears spilled down her cheeks again.
"Not even when my mom withdrew and started to fear him. I thought it was just a bad breakup. But it is all coming to light now."
She looked up at .
"My father is a monster," she whispered. "And I am probably just like him."
I squeezed her shoulder gently.
"You are not like him."
She blinked.
"You are good, Elara. I can see that."
Her lip trembled.
"You think so?"
"I know so."
I let the words sit for a mont.
Let them sink in.
Let her believe them.
Then I pulled her into a hug.
She went stiff at first. Then she collapsed against . Her arms ca around
and she cried into my shoulder.
I held her and said nothing.
I just let her cry.
Let her break.
Let her think I was soone safe.
Soone who cared.
After a while, her sobs quieted.
She pulled back slightly and wiped at her face again.
"Thank you," she said softly.
I nodded.
Then I hesitated. Like I was uncomfortable asking.
"I hate to ask," I said slowly. "But I was trying to find Cian. I still don’t have a lot of things and I sort of... I need a phone to call a friend. Can I use yours, Ela?"
Her eyes dimd slightly.
The brightness that had started to return faded.
But she nodded.
"Of course."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
Then she handed it to .
"I am sorry," I said.
"It is fine," she replied. "You can use it."
I took the phone from her hand.
"Thanks."
She nodded and looked away.
I stood and stepped back.
"I will return it soon," I said.
She did not respond. She just sat there, staring at the floor.
I turned and walked away.
The phone felt light in my hand.
Unrestricted.
Unmonitored.
Perfect.
I turned the corner and stopped.
Then I unlocked the screen and started scrolling.
Ti to make so calls.
Ti to finish what was started.
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