40. SYNTHÈTE
alistair
The shower runs cold over my skin, needles of icy water striking my shoulders and sliding down my spine.
I tilt my head back, letting it hit my face with my eyes closed to savor the grounding chill. It keeps everything quiet and peaceful.
Now I have everything. Money. Fame. An expensive roof over my head. A body that never goes hungry.
But there’s no her. My mother.
The absence settles heavier than the water ever could. For a fleeting moment, I let myself imagine it—just me and Ma. A life stripped of everything else.
No Synthète. No Dominion. No experiments.
Just a quiet kind of peace.
But the image doesn’t last long.
Ariella intrudes into the space uninvited, slipping into the picture with an ease that shouldn’t exist. It’s supposed to be just the two of us, but somehow she makes it three.
I open my eyes instantly, forcing myself out of it.
I don’t entertain illusions I can’t control. And yet I’m waiting for her.
Waiting for her to watch me like this—naked, exposed beneath the spray. The thought alone coils low in my gut, heat cutting through the cold. I like how it ends.
Surprisingly, Ariella loves to watch me fuck that piece of Synthète. That’s what fascinates me the most.
The way she creeps in afterward, thinking I’m asleep, cleaning me off with that quiet reverence—it borders on something primal.
Ownership. A claim she hasn’t spoken aloud.
I’m no one’s to claim. No one’s to chain.
And yet the fact that my mind conjured her in a moment meant only for my mother and me unsettles me more than I’d like to admit.
Tonight I asked Delilah to wear a black leather bodysuit tonight. The cat ears too—just like hers for a controlled provocation.
Now that she knows I know it’s her, I want to see how far her curiosity would bend into something darker. How possessive my little kitty would become when she sees someone else dressed in her likeness.
A faint sound cuts through the steady rush of water.
My lips curve into a smirk. She’s here.
I angle my head slightly, listening more than looking, then flick my gaze toward the half-a-jar bathroom door.
Nothing.
No shadow slipping past. No movement reflected. Where the hell is she hiding tonight?
Suddenly, a sharp, high-pitched scream echoes from downstairs. Delilah.
For a split second, irritation outweighs everything else.
Then a thought slides in, colder than the water running over my skin. What if it’s not her?
If it were Ariella, she’d be here—already inside my bedroom, pressed somewhere unseen, watching me with that obsessive focus of hers. She wouldn’t waste a damn on my synthetic wife.
Another scream tears through the house. What if it’s an actual breach tonight?
“Fucking Christ,” I mutter under my breath.
It’s not concern that drives me. Delilah could die mid-fuck, and I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
What was I thinking, leaving the door open like that?
For her. Ariella.
A humorless exhale escapes me as I shut off the water and step out, dragging a towel roughly over my skin before pulling clothes on while I’m still damp. I hate the feeling—fabric sticking to wet skin, but I don’t waste time correcting it.
Another muffled cry downstairs.
Grabbing my glasses from the nightstand, I’m already moving in haste.
The stairs blur beneath my steps, controlled speed masking urgency as I head straight towards the source of the commotion.
“Alistair…” Delilah’s voice breaks when I near in. “Help”
I stop in the doorway. For just one moment, I can’t process what I’m seeing. Which is rare.
There are only a few things in this world capable of interrupting my comprehension. This is one of them.
Ariella stands behind Delilah in the center of the living room. One arm curled around her, holding her wrists in place, the other presses a knife against her throat.
The blade glints under the overhead light, kissing skin just enough to promise damage.
Delilah is shaking. Her entire frame is trembling, breaths uneven, barely held together.
I’ll give credit for her top-notch acting. I’m just surprised seeing her playing the role of a meek housewife when I know how I designed her—a highly trained assassin.
Ariella is too calm and composed for her age. Wrapped in black from head to toe, her presence cuts through the room with unmasked authority.
“Hey there,” she chirps lightly, as if we’re meeting over coffee instead of blood. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
It’s the first time I’m hearing her voice like this—lowered just enough to carry a sultry edge that doesn’t belong to innocence.
It hits harder than it should.
A sudden, intrusive urge to put her on her knees and fuck her throat crosses my mind—force that voice deeper, choke it out of her the way I did that night until all that remains is breath and submission.
The thought flashes fast. The following second, it’s gone just as quickly. Delilah’s whimper cuts through it, grounding the moment back into reality.
“What are you doing?” my tone steadier than the situation deserves as I take a step closer towards the scene.
Her grip tightens slightly around Delilah’s neck, the blade shifting just enough to press a fraction deeper, not cutting—just reminding me who has the upper hand.
“It’ll be a mistake if you come any closer,” she coos softly, but it halts me mid-motion.
My gaze flicks to the knife, then back to her masked face. “You walked into my house, threatening to kill my wife, and still dare to think I’m the one making a mistake?”
“I had to make sure you’d look at me,” she murmurs, almost absently, like she’s thinking aloud instead of speaking to me.
“You never really do… not when it matters. I’ve been inside your life longer than she has… and you still don’t really see me.”
Delilah lets out a broken sound, her fingers twitching uselessly against Ariella’s hold.
I nearly scoff. She could turn the tables at any moment if she wanted. Then again, I still don’t know what training Ariella had back in Sydney.
“Shh,” Ariella hushes her gently, tilting her head just slightly as if the sound itself irritates her.
“Do you see me now?” her attention snaps back to me. “Or do I still have to bleed for it?”
There’s something underneath the facade—unsteady, fractured, real.
My jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “This isn’t the best way to get my attention.”
A soft, broken gasp slips past her lips, dissolving into something shakier.
“You were easier to notice when you stayed in the shadows.”
Delilah’s body begins to tremble violently—or rather, it’s Ariella. The tremor runs through her entire frame, not just her shoulders.
Her instability bleeds into the way she holds Delilah, dragging her into it.
The knife remains in place, unwavering despite the visible fracture in her composure.
She’s crying openly now.
Tears slip unchecked, her breathing uneven, breaking on quiet, jagged inhales—yet her grip doesn’t loosen as I anticipated. If anything, it steadies as though she’s anchoring herself through Delilah’s body.
Meanwhile, Delilah sobs in silent, trembling breaths, her eyes squeezing shut every time the blade presses too close against her throat.
It never breaks skin but lingers at that edge long enough to make the threat unmistakable.
I need to handle this situation with absolute calmness.
Drawing in a slow, measured breath, I force everything into alignment before opening my eyes.
“There’s still time to clear out the misunderstanding.”
“I fed my besties to piranhas for you, and this is how you dismiss me?” the sobs thicken around the accusation.
The words spill out unevenly, fractured between mockery and something far too real.
Is this a performance? Or is she unraveling in layers I haven’t accounted for?
“You still care about her, don’t you?” she presses, emphasizing the last word as the blade finally breaks skin, drawing a thin, deliberate line across Delilah’s throat.
She gasps sharply, her body jerking in Ariella’s hold.
Ariella doesn’t react. Rather, almost absently, she smears the blood across Delilah’s skin with the blunt edge of the knife, rougher this time—dragging, tugging at the torn synthetic skin with intentional pressure.
Reaching for Delilah now would provoke her to swipe the blade again. And this time, there would be no restraint.
She’s already proven that.
I open my mouth, forcing myself to speak, to redirect, to pull her focus back to where I can control it—even if it means feeding her the words she wants to hear.
Even if it means lowering myself to something I’ve no intention of honoring—if it ensures Delilah’s survival. If it protects the loyalty I have against the Triarch Dominion until I turn the tables against them.
“She’s my wife. But you can be more.”
Her breathing stutters. Not from the words alone, but from the way they land.
She wants me? Fine, she can have me. But in my terms only.
“Let her go, and I’m all yours, Ariella.”
A fragile sound breaks from her throat, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob, while Delilah tries to turn her head, recognition flickering in her wide eyes the moment she hears the name.
Her grip tightens just enough to draw another bead of blood from Delilah. The knife presses deeper into the wound, stopping her from looking directly at Ariella.
“Please, please, please…”
“She’s in my place, Alastor,” Ariella cuts over. “She’s even dressed like me,” she spits the words with disgust.
The misspelling of my name slips from her lips through tears. Her voice is heavier now, roughened by emotion, carrying something deeper than before.
The wrongness of it, the mispronunciation hits immediately, though it’s the second time. The first time, I thought it wasn’t deliberate since she moaned my name in the heat of the moment.
Still, the way she said my name drags against old memories in my head again, ones that I never willingly touch.
It fractures my focus.
“What did you just call me?” the question leaves me before I can suppress it.
“Alastor,” she repeats, the distortion lingering in the way her voice curls around it.
I can’t tell if it’s the rasp from crying or intentional this time.
For a brief second, my thoughts don’t align. Though it’s not the first time, the simplest thing—my own name—feels displaced.
I missed it.
My eyes close briefly to rein it in, shutting down whatever tries to surface with it. That’s when she begins reciting a poem with melody. No, she’s singing something like a lullaby.
“You could say I’m hatin’ if you want to
But I only hate on her ’cause I want you.
Say I’m trippin’ if you feel like…
But you without me ain’t right…”
The edges begin to warp, collapsing the melody in on itself in my head.
“You could call me crazy ’cause I want you
And I never even ever fuckin’ met you.
Say I’m trippin’ and it ain’t right
But you without me ain’t nice, yeah.”
For a moment, the world distorts.
Hazel shifts toward blue. Golden-brown bleeds into blonde. All wrong in a way that doesn’t fully manifest but lingers just beneath the perception.
For a fraction of a second, something pushes through.
Not a full memory, just fragments of it.
My mother’s voice doesn’t surface, nor does her face. But the absence of it does, suffocating me with a familiarity that feels too close, too invasive, too real.
Only she used to sing to me like this. Only she ever called me Alastor.
I force my eyes shut, drawing in a slow, measured breath, holding it there until the stupid beating organ inside me calms down.
When I exhale, it leaves just as controlled, just as precise. Only then do I open my eyes again, locking onto Ariella’s. Consequences be damned.
“Do it.”
The knife moves as if she was waiting for my permission. A single, swift motion—clean in intent, brutal in execution.
“Alist—” Delilah begins, but the name fractures mid-syllable, collapsing into a wet, choking sound.
Blood spills immediately, rushing out of her throat faster than her synthetic brain can process.
The blade is too sharp, the force behind it too unforgiving to allow anything resembling precision. It tears through the skin rather than gliding over it.
Ariella releases her.
The body immediately hits the floor with a dull, heavy sound, lifeless in weight but not yet in function.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
We stand there, facing each other, utterly still, while Delilah fights for something she’s already lost. Her body convulses against the inevitable, choking on her own blood, each attempt at breath weaker than the last.
Blood pools outward from her, spreading across the floor in slow, deliberate expansion, reaching the black soles of Ariella’s platform boots, staining them without resistance.
My gaze flicks down briefly.
For a fleeting second, it aligns too closely with something else—the night I realized what I love to do. Playing with their insignificant lives till I chopped them to death.
Seeing the body today like this—red glistening against her bodysuit, red spreading on the floor, vividly reflecting light—it awfully reminds me of how I found my mother that night.
Surprisingly, I feel calmer. Sober even.
It feels good to finally tear off the leash. The next is the chains—the head Triarchs.
“Thanks,” I say at last, lifting my gaze back to Ariella. “But you made a mistake.”
“Thanks?” she repeats, the word slipping out softer this time, edged with confusion rather than accusation.
“That’s the only part you focused on?”
“Yeah, because I just killed your wife and you… thanked me,” her voice dips, searching for something in my expression. “Why?”
A humorless chuckle leaves me. “Well, thanks because you killed my wife, and a mistake because you killed my wife,” I clarify, holding her masked gaze.
The words settle between us, carrying more than what sits on the surface.
“I don’t understand you, Alistair.”
The knife falls from her grip and clatters aloud amidst the tranquility as she slowly backs away. “I never did,” and turns around to leave.
Ariella steps into the corridor, her movements almost detached, as if she’s leaving something far more personal than a fresh crime scene.
She doesn’t look back, just strides toward the main door as fast as she can with steady feet.
Each step leaves bloodied imprints on her wake, trailing after her in uneven, darkened marks.