Chapter 525: Misplaced Trust
Cecilia had worked hard.
That was what was in Arkai’s mind when he opened the manila folder.
After that last meeting with Arzhen following the court proceeding, Cecilia hadn’t touched the folder at all. Not once. It sat in her cabinet like a grave she refused to visit, and genuinely, Arkai was worried.
No, he didn’t open the folder out of curiosity. He was worried that Cecilia hadn’t touched it because of her disgust for Arzhen and everything connected to him.
He understood. How could he not?
Even after his death, Arkai understood that Cecilia might never want to touch anything that bore Arzhen’s stain.
But this folder wasn’t just about Arzhen. It was about her mother. Summer Silver. The woman who had raised her and loved her when she was a child, lost alone in the world.
The investigation shouldn’t end just because the man who had compiled it was a monster.
So he thought, I’ll silently investigate further for her. I’ll tell her when I find something.
Although his memory was obscured by the Scenario, Arkai had this feeling that Cecilia had never put off something so important before. She was relentless when it came to the people she loved. She chased answers like a hound on a scent, never stopping, never resting.
So why was she so silent now? She hadn’t touched the folder. She hadn’t mentioned it to him, or Eastiel, or Oathran. It sat in her cabinet like a forgotten thing, and that was not like her at all.
It was because of that scum, right?
Of course it was.
Arzhen had poisoned everything he touched, and now even the search for Summer’s killer was tainted by his involvement.
That was fine. She doesn’t have to touch filthy things herself. There’s still me. She can rely on me more too.
He opened the folder, confident he was doing right by his girlfriend. He would find the answers she couldn’t bear to look for, and when he had something solid, he would bring it to her with gentle hands and a steady heart.
He would prove that she could lean on him, that she didn’t have to carry every burden alone.
He read. Page after page, nothing caught his eye. Just reports, timelines. He read on, waiting for something to emerge from the data.
Then he reached the customer list.
Sienna Dawnoro. The name leapt off the page like a brand pressed against his retina.
Sienna had been a customer.
Everything unlocked. The Scenario’s fog lifted, and his true memories crashed back into his mind. But it wasn’t the return of his memories that broke him, it was the realization that followed.
Sienna killed his wife’s mother.
Heat suppressant. Special heat suppressant.
How could he not have realized? It was so clear now.
The drug Summer Silver had helped develop.
The drug that could suppress even the most unique heats, the drug that could’ve been a breakthrough in beastman medicine—
Sienna had a unique heat, a biological anomaly that no suppressant could touch.
Arkai himself had scoured the world to find special heat suppressants for her to try. He had spent years searching, years hoping, years bringing her vial after vial of experimental compounds that all failed.
Nothing ever worked. Nothing ever came close.
Eventually, Sienna stopped trying. She gave up on finding a suppressant suitable for herself. Before, she would still agree to try a new one when he asked. But one day, she simply refused. She said she had made peace with her condition.
Bullshit.
Could it be that suddenly, one of those suppressants had worked? No, that made no sense. He had tested them all. He had been there for every failure, every disappointment. None of them had ever worked.
But it made more sense if Sienna had found a suppressant that worked herself. If she had discovered Summer Silver’s formula, tried it in secret, and realized with dawning horror that it actually functioned.
And because she didn’t want her heat to ever be suppressed, because her heat was the one thing that might one day bind him to her, she killed the only person who could make it.
Just because she wanted to be with him—
Just because she couldn’t bear the thought of a world where her heat could be controlled, where her biological claim on him could be erased by a simple dose of medicine...
Cecilia’s mother died because of him.
Because of Sienna’s obsession with him.
Because he had been too blind to see what was growing in his own house—
Arkai fell into a rampage.
He ran. He tried to run away, his massive black wolf form tearing through the estate with no destination in mind, only the animal need to escape. To put distance between himself and the truth. To flee from the woman he had failed so completely.
How—how could he stay there, with her?
How could he stay as Cecilia’s husband, when his own blindness had cost her everything? When his own misplaced trust had allowed a murderer to walk free for years, living in his house, smiling at his table, calling herself his sister?
He was angry. Angry at himself.
The rage burned through his veins like acid, corroding every excuse he had ever made.
Just like how he had banished Roarke but couldn’t find it in his heart to kill him, he had let Sienna be.
He had seen the manipulation, the obsession and he had done nothing. He had told himself she was just troubled. He had told himself she would grow out of it. That she was still his sister.
He had told himself a thousand comfortable lies, and now the truth was staring him in the face.
Sienna, who was capable of enticing her own stepbrother to rut every month just to fulfill her own desire. Sienna, who had weaponized her heat like a blade and aimed it at everyone around her.
Sienna, who had tormented him for years and years and years—
Of course. Of course! How could he not have seen it?
She was someone like that. She was exactly like that!
How could he have been so blind? It was his fault. All of it was his fault.
Not only had Sienna hurt Roarke, seducing him, using him, exploiting his biology to manipulate him against Arkai, all to provoke Arkai’s attention and reaction, she had created Rinne, an innocent child, a victim of her malicious seduction, and in doing so, she had driven Arkai and Roarke apart...
Not only that. That wasn’t enough!
She had also killed the only person who could cure that very heat. The one doctor who had developed a suppressant that could work on Sienna’s unique biology.
If it happened in that alternate world, it must’ve surely happened in this world too!
Summer Silver, the woman who had raised the love of his life, who had taught Cecilia to be brave and kind and relentless—murdered.
Because Sienna didn’t want to be cured. Because Sienna wanted her heat to remain a weapon. Because Sienna wanted him, and anyone who stood in her way was disposable.
Arkai couldn’t take it. His mistakes kept piling higher and higher, stretching further and further back into a past he had been too foolish to examine.
What was next? Would he discover that Sienna had killed others too, for different reasons, at different times?
The sister he thought he was protecting—the sister he had truly cherished, defended, made excuses for—was a monster!
And he had been blind. Willfully, catastrophically blind!
He had ruined everything.
Now, he was the last one to remember, the last one whose memories were still locked behind the Scenario’s veil. And because he had been the last, Sol was...