Chapter 6 - The Setup
The accusation hung in the air like a poisonous gas.
Seraphina felt the room spin. "You think... you think I did it?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "After everything you've done for me? After you saved me?"
"I don't know what to think, Seraphina," Ronan said, his voice flat. "The logs show that your user profile accessed the shipping files the night before the raid. At 2:00 AM."
"I was asleep!" she cried, tears finally spilling over her cheeks. "I swear to you, I was in my room. I didn't touch the computer!"
"I want to believe you," Ronan said, his voice dropping to a low, pained whisper. "But in my line of work, belief is a luxury that gets you killed. Until I find the truth, you will remain in your suite. Marco will be stationed outside your door."
For three days, Seraphina was a prisoner once again.
She sat by the bay window of her third-floor suite, watching the rain beat against the glass. The warmth she had felt over the past few weeks felt like a cruel joke. She had allowed herself to trust a monster, and now, the monster had turned his teeth on her.
But on the fourth night, the door to her suite opened.
It wasn't Marco. It was Ronan.
He looked exhausted, his hair messy, dark circles under his eyes. He walked into the room and shut the door behind him.
"It was Dominic Vance," Ronan said, his voice raw. "He hired a hacker to clone your phone’s IP address and access our servers. He wanted to frame you. He wanted me to kill you, or at least drive you away."
Seraphina didn't move from her spot by the window. She looked at him with cold, empty eyes. "Why? Why would he care about me?"
"Because he saw how I looked at you at the gala," Ronan said, stepping closer to her. He stopped a few feet away, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides. "He knew that the only way to hurt me was to destroy the one thing I value more than my empire."
He looked up at her, his eyes filled with a desperate, pleading look that she had never seen on his face before.
"I am sorry, Seraphina. I should have trusted you. My world... it forces me to doubt everyone. But I should have known you could never betray me."
Seraphina looked at him for a long time. She saw the guilt, the pain, and the genuine remorse in his eyes. She realized that his suspicion wasn't a betrayal of her; it was the tragic product of a life spent surrounded by enemies.
She stood up and walked over to him. She reached out, her hands resting on his broad shoulders.
May you like
"I forgive you, Ronan," she whispered. "But you have to promise me... no more cages. No more locks."
"I promise," he said, pulling her into his arms and holding her as if she were the only anchor in a storm.
