Sweet Hatred-Chapter 212: AN OFFER

"Tell me, Aria," he said, swirling the liquid in his glass like it was her life he held between his fingers. "Has Kael ever mentioned a man named Ivan?"

My blood ran cold.

He saw the flicker in my expression, the barest slip in my face and smiled like a wolf catching the scent of blood.

"I thought so."

He leaned back, so leisurely, so pleased with himself. "Back when Kael still believed he could outrun his blood, he ran off to join the army. Naïve little rebellion, really. Trying to be something else. Someone else. That’s when he met Ivan."

My chest tightened.

"Ivan was gentle," he went on. "Persistent. Kind, even. And Kael... well, Kael was lonely. So they latched onto each other. For Kael, it was a lie he liked to tell himself. That he could love. That he was soft underneath all the blade and bone. But that’s the problem with lies, Aria. They don’t last."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to block my ears. But I couldn’t move. I remembered how Kael had talked about Ivan like if he came back from the dead, he’d run back to him in a heartbeat and leave me in the dust.

He sipped from his glass. "Ivan fell for him. Completely. Foolishly. Just like you." I stared straight ahead. Eyes dry. Hands curled into fists beneath the table.

"In the end," Mr. Roman continued, voice colder, "Kael drove him to his death."

The world stopped.

"Kael picks toys, Aria. He pretends to cherish. But consumes instead. He presses until they break. And you, you’re breaking already, aren’t you?"

Something cracked inside my chest. Not enough to shatter but deep enough to bleed.

"His affections?" Ewan smiled. "They’re not acts of love. They’re calculations. Chains in silk. The more he touches, the more he owns. Until you can’t remember what it felt like to breathe without him in the room."

I couldn’t take it anymore. I looked at him, eyes burning.

"If all that were true..." I said, voice steady even though my body trembled, "you wouldn’t have called me out here."

He paused mid-sip.

"You’d have waited. Let me destroy myself, and watched from your throne."

The glass paused at his lips and I kept going.

"I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell this dinner was for. But I don’t believe it’s just to talk shit about your own son."

A long silence stretched between us like a wire pulled taut.

Then, he laughed. A rich, cold, slow sound. It echoed off the wooden walls like a blade unsheathed.

"Oh, Aria..." he murmured, setting the glass down with a click. "You really are something."

I didn’t smile. I didn’t flinch. He leaned forward, eyes sharp. "But that won’t save you." He smiled again, softer this time. Too soft.

"You can keep pretending not to see it," he said. "Even when it feels real. Even when he kisses you like you’re the only goddamn thing in the world. That’s how he works. That’s how he traps you."

I stared at him, but the pulse in my throat gave me away.

"Why am I really here?" I asked, low and firm, even though I already felt the answer crawling in the back of my throat.

He tilted his head like I was a curious little thing, some puzzle he’d already solved.

"Because I’m offering you freedom."

My blood ran cold.

"I understand," he said, sitting straighter, "that you and my son have some kind of... arrangement. No set expiration. Open-ended. Indefinite."

My breath hitched. No one else knew that. No one.

Mr. Roman kept going, like he was simply reading headlines off a paper. "You live under his roof. You work under his name. You’re bound to him by terms only the two of you understand—and only he enforces."

He let that sit between us like poison in the air.

"But I’m willing to offer you a way out."

I blinked.

He said it so casually. So effortlessly. Like he was doing me a favor.

"I’ll dissolve your contract with Kael. Quietly. Efficiently. Permanently. You’ll owe him nothing. Not a word. Not a cent. No more leashes around your neck."

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. His voice dropped lower. "You’ll have your life back, Aria. The one he took."

My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

He smiled again. "All you have to do... is say yes."

I didn’t speak for a long time.

My chopsticks lay forgotten on the plate, the food suddenly tasting like paper. Mr. Roman sat across from me, sipping his drink as if he hadn’t just carved into my chest with a butcher’s knife.

But I knew better than to bleed in front of a man like him.

I picked up my napkin slowly, wiped my mouth, folded it neatly, and placed it beside the plate like we were still pretending this was dinner.

"Thank you," I said, and my voice didn’t shake, "for the meal."

His brows lifted, just slightly, but he didn’t stop me when I stood.

"I won’t forget the kindness," I added, like I was closing a business deal and not walking away from the kind of offer that would’ve made sense to anyone else.

But not me.

Because even if Kael Roman had ripped me open a thousand times, even if I wasn’t enough, even if I was nothing but a contract to him...

He was mine.

And the idea of anyone else even looking at him like I do made me sick to my stomach.

I left without another word.

The hallway was quiet. My footsteps were silent.

But inside?

I was screaming.

Because I wanted him.

And that was the real tragedy. I loved Kael more than I could survive.

I set my chopsticks down gently on the plate. My fingers shook, just a little.

"Thank you," I said to Mr. Roman, voice calm even though everything inside me felt like a shattered mirror. "For the meal."

His expression didn’t change, but I could feel the amusement bleeding from him.

"I understand your offer," I continued, standing slowly, deliberately. "And I appreciate the clarity. But... no."

His brow lifted, mildly intrigued.

"I’m not saying no because I want the contract," I said quietly. "I’m saying no because, despite what you think you know about him—" I swallowed the lump in my throat, "—I’ve seen the look of love in his eyes"

When he talked about Ivan.

Even if he didn’t see me. Even if I didn’t feel like enough. Even if he never told me how he felt for me... And I never asked... Even if I believed he deserved better.

But I didn’t want anyone else touching him. I didn’t want anyone else near him. Not Ashlyn. Not anyone.

And just as I prepared to push my chair back fully and leave...

The wooden door slid open with a violent thud.

Kael.

His presence hit like a storm, dark, tall, thunderous in silence. And shocking too. But it was the look on his face that froze me.

Fury. Barely caged. Fire in his green eyes, rage clenched in his jaw. It felt like it had been a long time since I really looked and lost myself in those green depths.

What was he doing here?

And how did he know?

Mr. Roman didn’t even flinch. He just leaned back with a smug sip of sake like he’d been waiting for this.

Kael’s eyes didn’t move from me. Not once.

"Get up," he said to me, voice low. Sharp. Dangerous.

But it wasn’t a threat.

It was a command laced with something else, something trembling and raw underneath.

I was already standing. But I couldn’t move. My breath snagged in my throat.

"Well I was almost thinking you wouldn’t show up?" his father asked idly, not even looking at him. "After all you’ve got eyes on the girl don’t you?"

Eyes on me?

Kael didn’t answer. Didn’t look away from me either.

Because whatever he heard... it broke something.

Or maybe it bared something. He stepped forward once, and I almost stumbled back.

But I didn’t. I stood there.

Frozen in this sick triangle, between the man who made him, and the man who was slowly unmaking me.

Kael didn’t say a single word after he ordered me up.

He just grabbed my wrist and walked, stormed, more like dragging me out of that goddamn room like the walls were on fire. And maybe they were. Maybe we were.

My legs moved without thought, my chest rising and falling like it was trying to keep me from falling apart.

Behind us, his father called out in that lazy, cruel drawl of his.

"Don’t forget our little chat, Aria."

Kael stiffened. His fingers tightened around mine.

And for the first time, I saw what it looked like when he had to hold himself back from murder.

The sleek, obsidian-black Aston Martin Valkyrie sat parked like a blade outside the restaurant. He didn’t wait for me to catch up. He opened the passenger door, shoved me inside gently but firmly, slammed his own shut, and then—

Silence.

Hot, suffocating, skin-prickling silence.

The engine wasn’t on.

The air was thick with everything neither of us had said in days.

I finally turned toward him, my voice rough from dryness, from shame, from aching confusion.

"Have you been watching me?"

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