Chapter 11
ARIA DAWSON
My office hums with quiet—night’s lull settling in like static across glass.
The overheads flicker slightly, then stabilize, casting a sterile glow on the mountain of legal tablets scattered across my desk.
I’m elbow-deep in witness analysis, timeline reconstructions, forensic overlays.
Anything to drown out the taste of him still clinging to my memory.
Then the chime buzzes.
Low. Sharp. A single ping from the delivery tube slot behind my office panel. I frown. I’m not expecting anything.
Sliding the panel open, I find a sleek, anonymous courier box. No label. No signature. Just a single black seal with a red dot—a marking I’ve never seen in official logs. My pulse quickens. This could be a trap.
But I crack it anyway.
Inside: a data cube. High-end. Military-grade encryption, coded to dissolve on playback. I slot it into the reader. The holo-projector whirs to life, sputtering blue light into the room.
And then he appears.
A Nar’Vosk informant. Mid-rank. Tattooed, sweating, eyes darting like prey. He stares directly into the lens.
“My name is Korrin Val-Tai. I served under the elder arm of the Nar’Vosk Syndicate for fourteen cycles. What follows is my full confession—unsolicited, uncoerced, of my own volition...”
I blink.
He names names.
Dates.
Codes. Drop locations. Smuggling corridors. Payments made. Officials bribed. And then the line that nearly makes me drop the tablet:
“I provide this information as recompense for my role in the attempted assassination of Aebon Rexx. He is the only reason I’m alive to speak it.”
My breath leaves me in a rush.
I replay it.
Once. Twice. Then ten more times. Every detail checks out. The timestamps align with known movements. Facial recognition pings confirm identities.
It’s real.
Unbelievably real.
I lean back, staring at the holo now frozen mid-frame. Aebon did this. He got this man to talk. Somehow. Somewhere. In some undoubtedly reprehensible way.
But the result?
Unimpeachable.
I can’t stop shaking.
The next morning, our system bursts.
The Nar’Vosk case cracks open like a rotten egg under a boot. My office, for the first time in years, has enough to issue full system-wide warrants. Extradition petitions flood in. Interplanetary judges grant authorization with a speed I’ve only dreamed of.
Media outlets eat it up.
“The Golden Prosecutor Who Took Down the Nar’Vosk.”
My face plasters half the newsfeeds. Colleagues stop me in the halls with congratulations. The Justice Minister shakes my hand so hard I think he’s trying to dislocate it.
And still, all I can think is—
The bastard helped me.
Aebon Rexx. Monster. Criminal. Predator. Protector.
And now… partner?
I don’t feel victorious.
I feel like I’m being dragged into his orbit. One iron truth at a time.
The champagne flutes clink like tiny bells in every corner of the Justice Ministry lounge, laughter rising and falling like lazy surf on a shore I can’t reach. They're celebrating. Toasting. Calling me the “savior of Glimner.”
But inside, I’m a vacuum.
Hollow.
The air smells of synthetic citrus, expensive and impersonal, trying too hard to erase the scent of law clerks who’ve sweated through twenty-hour shifts.
I nurse a flute of something effervescent and pink, the sweetness cloying on my tongue.
My smile feels borrowed, fragile. The kind of smile you wear at a funeral.
Because I didn’t win. Not really.
The Nar’Vosk evidence didn’t come from legal sleuthing, diligent groundwork, or moral perseverance. It came in a black box with a red dot. A whisper from the underworld. A ghost in Aebon’s pocket. And I never asked how he got it.
I haven’t reported it either.
I haven’t even filed a statement flagging it as an anonymous tip. No chain of custody. No declaration of source. Just a glowing cube dropped in my lap and a silent understanding.
Aebon made this happen.
He bent the world and delivered it to me gift-wrapped in blood and shadows.
And I said thank you by keeping my mouth shut.
Why?
Why didn’t I drag that cube down to internal affairs and scream until my throat bled? Why didn’t I demand an inquiry, cite the judicial code line by line? Why didn’t I burn it all down, like I swore I would if he ever compromised my integrity?
Because the truth is—I don’t want to.
Because the truth is—his arms still haunt me.
I feel them. Even now. Wrapped around me in the darkened archive hall, shielding me from a blast that could’ve torn me in half. The weight of him. The unyielding power, coiled like a beast and yet so gentle when he whispered, “You’re safe.”
And his eyes.
Those impossible red eyes, bright as murder, soft as absolution.
I should be afraid.
I am afraid.
But it’s not fear of him anymore.
It’s fear of what I’m becoming.
My morals used to be iron. I built my life on them. And now... I’m dreaming of his voice, the way he calls me sweetheart like he’s branding it into my skin. I lie in bed at night replaying every word from that elevator—Because you like it.
I want to argue. I want to scream. But I can't.
Because he’s right.
And that, more than anything, is what terrifies me.
I swirl the champagne in my glass, watching bubbles rise and burst like hopes I don’t recognize anymore. Around me, the Ministry celebrates like a pack of wolves in silk. They see me as pure. Victorious. Golden.
But I know the truth.
I'm cracked.
And Aebon Rexx is the hammer that did it.
The night air crackles like static on my skin, thick with ozone and promise. Glimner’s neon skyline shimmers behind the Supernova Casino, a siren’s crown atop a den of devils. I stand at the edge of the sidewalk, frozen beneath the pulse of the sign that bathes the street in bloodlight.
SUPERNOVA—the name hisses in brilliant fire across the sky, daring anyone to forget who owns this place.
I know I should leave. I want to leave.
But my legs won’t move.
Something in me has unraveled, quiet and deep.
The city’s thrum presses in from all sides—hovercars gliding like silver fish through the skyrails above, the distant boom of club bass bleeding into my bones. Even the air smells dangerous. Burnt caramel, expensive cologne, plasma discharge from security pylons.
But the worst scent?
Him.
Aebon’s presence wraps around this place like smoke. It’s in the glint of the marble tiles, the velvet throb of the low-lit lobby behind the glass, the sensual thrum vibrating beneath the soles of my shoes. I can feel him. Like gravity. Like heat.
The balcony doors above hiss open.
And there he is.
Aebon Rexx. In a black-on-black suit with no tie, shirt undone just enough to reveal the faint gleam of bone-spur ridges at his collarbone. He doesn’t need armor. He is the weapon.
He steps into the glow of the overhead sconces with a crystal tumbler in hand—amber liquid swirling like molten defiance. And then… he looks down.
Right at me.
He doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t smile.
Just lifts the glass in a slow, deliberate toast.
My stomach flips.
I should walk away. Turn on my heel and vanish into the safety of the law, the code, the life I carved with blood and sacrifice.
But I don’t.
Because standing here, watching him watch me with those red eyes full of hunger and heat and something older than sin—I realize the truth.
I’m already halfway in.
Lightning shivers on the horizon, low and blue, casting his silhouette in stark relief. The storm is coming.
And I think I want it.