Chapter 13
ARIA DAWSON
Iwake to the bitter aftertaste of red wine and regret curled in the back of my throat.
The ceiling above me is all too familiar—sterile white with a single hairline crack that’s been staring at me every morning for the last three years.
But today, it doesn’t look like a crack.
It looks like a fracture line. Like the start of something breaking.
My sheets are tangled, sweat-damp, and cling to my legs like a second skin. I shove them off, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars spark behind my lids.
Not until you ask.
Precursors damn him.
The words won’t stop looping. Not even when I scrub my skin raw in the sonic shower. Not when I dress in my most no-nonsense blazer and high-necked blouse. Not even when I fill my mouth with the bitterest kaf in the cabinet—burnt and black and barely drinkable.
He didn’t kiss me.
That’s what infuriates me the most.
He could have. I would’ve let him. I don’t know what that says about me—what kind of woman stands on the edge of a crime lord’s mouth and aches for the fall—but I would’ve taken the plunge. Just to know how it felt. Just to see if I’d survive it.
But he didn’t.
Not until you ask.
It’s not a refusal. It’s an invitation. A slow, smoldering dare.
And I hate him for it.
I throw myself into work with the desperation of a drowning woman. My office feels too warm, too close. The window’s too clean, showing me every smear of my own reflection, like a ghost watching her own undoing.
I queue up the witness recordings. Dive into sealed transcripts and cross-reference the Nar’Vosk timeline with what we now know. There’s enough data to bury them. Enough to tie a bow around a century of blood and call it justice.
But my hands shake as I type. My fingers slip on the screen. And every few minutes, my gaze drifts to the corner of my desk where the glass he poured for me still sits—half-drunk, forgotten.
I didn’t pour it out.
Gods, I should’ve poured it out.
“Dawson?”
I jump. It’s my assistant—Kyla—poking her head in with a datapad and a look that says she’s already walked in on one too many awkward silences.
“Yeah,” I croak. “Come in.”
She eyes me. “Rough night?”
“You could say that.”
She sets the pad down, and as she leaves, I catch her smirk in the reflection.
They all think they know. That I’ve finally fallen for the devil I spent half my career chasing. Maybe I have. Maybe I’m too far gone to tell the difference between being burned and being warmed.
My comm chimes. New file. No sender.
I open it.
It’s a security vid—grainy but clear. Aebon, last night, walking the Virelli Club corridor alone after I left. He stops under a light, stares at nothing for a long moment.
Then he says, “Soon,” like a prayer. Like a promise.
My hand clamps over my mouth. I don’t know if I want to scream or laugh or sob.
Not until you ask.
I’m not asking.
Not yet.
But I’m not saying no, either.
He’s already there when I arrive. Of course he is.
Sitting like he owns the goddamn galaxy, long frame draped across the reinforced polymer chair like it’s a throne carved out of skulls and silk.
Tailored navy suit, black shirt open just enough to show the curve of his collarbone—and that infernal smug expression that has no business looking so good in the sterile white light of a secured legal conference room.
The moment I step through the threshold, the air changes.
I hate it.
Hate the way his eyes rake over me like he’s collecting sins he intends to cash in later. Hate the slow, indulgent tilt of his mouth, like he knows something I don’t.
Hate that he does.
“Prosecutor Dawson,” he drawls, standing with a languid grace that’s all predator. “You’re looking particularly... uncompromising today.”
I toss the folder of deposition prep onto the table harder than necessary. “Cut the crap, Rexx. I’m not in the mood for games.”
His brows rise. Just slightly. “That wasn’t a game. That was a compliment.”
I ignore it. “You think dressing up in three thousand credits of suit and quoting mob films makes you respectable?”
“I think it makes me entertaining.” He closes the distance between us in three slow steps. “Respectable is for politicians. I’m something else entirely.”
He’s close now. Too close.
The room feels smaller with him in it. No windows. No outside sound. Just the gentle thrum of climate control and my pulse banging in my ears like a riot baton on a riot shield.
“You’re manipulating the system,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “Feeding us just enough to stay clean, to walk away a hero.”
“Didn’t know I needed to be a hero,” he says softly. “Wasn’t aware that’s what you were looking for.”
“Don’t twist my words—”
“Then stop giving me ones worth twisting.”
I push past him, furious at the way his scent follows—smoke and glassteel and something uniquely him. I should report him. I should scream at him. I should do anything except stand here, breathing like my lungs forgot how to work.
“You think you’re in control,” I hiss. “You think just because you held back last night—”
His hand slams the briefing panel, locking the chamber door. The click echoes like a gunshot.
Then he steps in front of me. Trapping me. His body not touching mine, but there—heat and threat and sanctuary all at once.
I stare up at him, fists clenched. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he whispers. “Don’t tell you the truth?”
“I know what this is,” I spit. “You are playing power games. Cornering me so I forget who I am. So I forget what you are.”
“And what am I?” he asks, voice velvet-wrapped steel.
“A monster.”
“Maybe.” He leans in, so close I can feel the words brush my cheek. “But I’m your monster now, aren’t I?”
My breath hitches. God help me, I don’t move.
He doesn’t touch me. Not yet. Just stands there, letting the weight of what we’ve become choke the space between us.
“I don’t need to manipulate you, Aria,” he says. “You’re doing that just fine on your own.”
He steps back. Unlocks the door. Doesn’t say another word as he walks out.
I’m left trembling.
Not from fear.
From knowing.
I slam the conference room door shut behind me like it’ll hold back the avalanche, like it’ll do anything to slow the tide that’s already broken loose inside me. My hand’s still on the panel, blood thrumming in my fingertips like they remember his skin before my mind’s caught up.
I turn.
And he’s standing there—Aebon. Still. Silent. Watching me like I’m something divine and doomed all at once.
My feet move before I tell them to. My pulse is a drumline, pounding wild in my throat. My mind screams at me to stop, to think, to breathe—but my body has other ideas.
And for once, I don’t fight it.
I cross the room in three strides, grab his lapels, and pull him down to me.
The kiss hits like an explosion.
Hard. Fierce. Devouring.
It’s not sweet. It’s not careful. It’s years of hate and heat and hunger finally finding a home. His mouth opens against mine, and I taste wine and danger and a promise I never wanted to understand.
He groans—deep and low—and the sound shudders through me like a tremor. His hands clutch my waist, not tight, not controlling… just there, like if he doesn’t ground me we’ll both shatter.
And maybe we will.
But for those few seconds, I don’t care.
Then I shove him.
Hard.
We break apart, gasping, staring at each other like strangers who’ve been lovers in another lifetime.
“That never happened,” I snarl, breath ragged, heart slamming so loud it drowns everything else.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
Then, softly, with the ghost of a smirk that feels like it’s carved into me already, he says, “Say it again… and I’ll pretend to believe you.”
My hands tremble.
But not with shame.
I turn. Flee the room before I let myself do something worse—like kiss him again. Or stay.
The corridor is cold. Bright. Brutal.
But nothing out here can touch me the way he just did.
And as I walk, pulse thrumming and lips still tingling from the contact, I whisper to no one—
“I don’t regret it.”