CHAPTER 414: REGRET

KAEL

The apartment wasn’t just quiet; it was a vacuum. A sealed tomb where sound went to die.

The morning light didn’t stream in, it seeped, pale and anemic, through the thin curtains, illuminating dust motes that drifted like the ashes of a forgotten life. The silence wasn’t oppressive anymore; it was hollow. A cavernous emptiness that echoed with the ghost of a laugh that would never sound here again.

My phone was a cold, hard weight in my palm. The screen glowed, a lone beacon in the dim room, and her face filled it.

Aria.

It was the stolen picture I’d taken months ago, a secret moment of unguarded joy. And I had captured it, a perfect, fleeting moment of a happiness I hadn’t known how to cherish until it was gone.

A physical ache bloomed in my chest, so sharp and sudden it stole my breath. I wanted to reach through the glass. To feel the softness of her hair between my fingers, to trace the line of her jaw, to press my lips to the pulse beating at the base of her throat.

To whisper a thousand apologies, a million regrets, how the empty side of the bed was a cold desert, how her favorite mug sat unused in the cabinet, how every single breath I took was a reminder that I was breathing and she was not here.

But she was gone. And I was left,a king sitting alone in the ruins of a castle he burned down with his own hands.

"Mr. Roman."

Niko’s voice was a rope thrown into the abyss of my thoughts. I looked up, my eyes gritty and raw, to find him standing by the door, his presence a solid, steady thing in the shifting uncertainty. He held a simple manila envelope.

"What is it?" My voice was sandpaper, worn down from disuse and the silent screams that filled the night.

"Information on the institution," he said, crossing the room with quiet efficiency. "Where Sarah was admitted as a child."

I took the envelope. The paper was crisp, official. I tore the flap open, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness.

Inside were photocopies of documents that smelled of old paper and bureaucratic indifference. Admission records. Psychological evaluations. Handwritten notes from doctors long retired.

My eyes scanned the first page, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.

Patient Name: Sarah Brown Age at Admission: 8 years old Reason for Admission: Escalating violent behavior. Incident involving boiling water and a sibling. Incident involving family pet (drowning). Incident involving neighbor’s cat (mutilation). Shows no remorse. Diagnosis: Conduct Disorder with callous and unemotional traits. Suspected early-onset psychopathy. Treatment: Three years inpatient care. Behavioral modification. Medication management. Superficial improvement noted—appears to be learned mimicry of social cues, not genuine affective connection. Discharge Notes: Patient demonstrates high-functioning, socially appropriate behavior in controlled settings. Parents insisted on early release. Continued therapy strongly recommended but not pursued.

The words didn’t just sit on the page; they crawled off it and into my soul. They painted a picture of a little girl who was never a little girl at all, but a monster in the making.

She hadn’t gotten better. She had gotten smarter. She had studied humanity like a textbook and learned to wear its skin.

To mimic warmth. To counterfeit empathy. To perform the perfect pantomime of a friend.

The most brilliant, most terrifying disguise.

"There’s more," Niko said, his voice low, as if speaking too loudly might summon the horror the words described. He handed me another folder, this one slimmer but dense with a different, more calculated evil. "From Miss Sterling. Her assistant dropped it off this morning."

I opened it.

It was a ledger of corruption. Bribery records. Transaction logs. Bank transfers that formed a damning tapestry of purchased silence.

Payments from Sarah’s parents.... a river of money flowing to lawyers, private investigators, journalists. Every accusation erased. Every witness hollowed out.

The homeless man who took the fall for Cain Matthews’ brutal murder... his court-appointed attorney had received a deposit of two hundred thousand dollars the week before his client’s swift guilty plea.

The college incidents with Ryan and Damon... buried under six-figure nondisclosure agreements. Every ex-boyfriend who’d ever tried to whisper the truth... paid off,professionally discredited, or visited by men who made unspoken threats.

Millions of dollars, spent like water, laundering a soul of its stains.

And it had worked. For years, it had worked perfectly. She had been hiding in plain sight.

Until now.

I closed the file, the damning evidence feeling like a poison in my hands. I pressed the heels of my palms against my closed eyes, seeing stars, feeling the weight of this truth sink into my bones, a permanent, chilling frost.

My mind, usually a whirlwind of strategy and countermoves, was static. All I could see was her.

Aria.

The devastating, final look on her face the last time we stood in this room... the hurt I had put there, etched into her features, warring with a love for me that still, foolishly, stubbornly, trembled in the depths of her eyes. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg for a chance to tell her everything.To make her see that even in my worst moments, I had never, ever given up on her.

I drew a shaky breath, the air feeling thin. "Niko, contact—"

A knock at the door... firm, authoritative... cut me off.

Niko’s eyes met mine, a silent question. At my slight nod, he moved to answer. I heard the low murmur of voices at the threshold, a tone I hadn’t heard in this apartment in a long time. A tone that demanded.

When Niko returned, his face was a carefully neutral mask, but I saw the tension around his eyes.

"Your father is here, sir."

The words were a guillotine blade, dropping cleanly through the fragile peace I had carved out.

The air in the room thickened, grew heavy. My jaw locked, a familiar, bitter tension coiling in the muscle.

Ewan Roman stepped into my living room as if he still owned the deed to the air I breathed, as if the walls themselves should bend inward in deference. And perhaps they did.Some ghosts don’t need to be dead to haunt you.

But he was wrong. He looked...diminished. The formidable, sharp-edged titan of my childhood was... thinner. The expensive suit hung on him like on a coat rack. The fire of his arrogance was still there, but banked, like embers cooling in a hearth. He was a king whose kingdom was slowly abandoning him.