There was a pause on the line, not the casual kind. The kind that stretched, weighted with calculation.
"What kind of something?" Ryan asked
Kai's jaw tightened. He turned toward the window, the city lights below blurred into streaks of gold and shadow. His reflection stared back at him from the glass—sharp, controlled, unyielding.
"I want Alina Carter's call records."
There was a silence, the kind that wasn't empty but crowded. Ethical boundaries. Professional consequences. Lines that, once crossed, could not be neatly redrawn.
"You're crossing a line," Ryan said at last, his voice measured, careful. "That's private information."
"I don't care," Kai replied. The words left his mouth without hesitation.
He took another pause. "I don't want speculation," Kai continued, his voice steady, almost cold. "I don't want theories or gut feelings. I want facts. Numbers. Dates. Frequency. Who she's talking to—and when."
"And if you find nothing?" Ryan asked.
Kai closed his eyes for a brief moment; the silence inside his head was louder than the one on the line. Images surfaced uninvited—Alina's guarded glances, the way she ended calls the second he appeared, the laptop she shielded like a secret body part.
"Then I stop," he said.
But even as he spoke the words, something inside him shifted—subtle, treacherous. Because instinct didn't loosen its grip, it tightened. Alina Carter wasn't reckless. She wasn't sloppy. She didn't make the kinds of mistakes people made when they were panicking or improvising.
She was deliberate; every movement she took was measured. Every silence is intentional. Every retreat was calculated just enough to look natural. And whatever she was hiding—she was hiding it well enough to make him doubt himself. That, more than certainty, frightened him.
Ryan exhaled slowly on the other end of the line. "I'll get them," he said.
Kai remained where he was, phone still pressed to his ear long after the line went dead. He stared out at the night, aware—fully, unmistakably—that he had just crossed a moral boundary he had once sworn never to touch.
Not because he enjoyed control. Not because he distrusted people by default. But because Alina Carter had unsettled something in him that logic couldn't silence. And if the truth existed, he would find it even if it meant discovering that the most dangerous thing in the room wasn't her secrets. But his own.
Kai Arden told himself that waiting was a discipline. He had built entire empires on the ability to wait—on patience sharpened into a weapon, on timing calculated down to the second. But tonight, waiting felt less like control and more like exposure, as though every minute that passed without answers peeled something raw inside him.
Ryan had gone quiet after the request. Kai sat alone in his study, the lights dimmed, the wall of monitors casting a muted glow across the room. One screen displayed the live CCTV feed of the house. Another showed archived footage. The rest were dark.
Alina's room filled the central monitor. She sat on her couch, laptop open, posture forward, shoulders slightly hunched. The glow of the screen reflected faintly against her face. She hadn't moved in thirty minutes.
Kai leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes unblinking. Thirty minutes. He checked the timestamp. She didn't stretch. Didn't reach for her phone. Didn't lie back or shift positions the way someone watching a movie inevitably would. Her focus was rigid, almost disciplined.
Fifty minutes passed. Still nothing. She hadn't stood, hadn't gone to the window, hadn't taken a break. Kai felt the familiar tightening in his chest—the old instinct flaring again, sharper this time. People did not remain that still unless they were absorbed in something precise. Something that demanded attention. An hour crossed. His jaw clenched.
"Not a movie," he murmured to himself.
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, eyes narrowing as though proximity might yield clarity. The camera angle wasn't perfectly placed high in the corner of the room for security, not surveillance—but it was enough to read posture. Enough to note tension.
Alina shifted barely once, and Kai noticed immediately. She glanced toward the bathroom. Her fingers paused over the keyboard. She closed the laptop halfway.
Kai straightened. The unease spiked. Something in the timing felt deliberate, rehearsed. As though he had been waiting for a moment rather than reaching one naturally.
His mind raced ahead of the footage, theories colliding, unravelling, rebuilding. She had been on secret calls. She guarded her screen. She worked late into the night. She adapted to his presence too quickly.
This was it. The thought arrived fully formed, resolute. This was the last night. Whatever Alina Carter had come here for—whatever her angle, her handler, her purpose—ended now. He was done circling shadows. Done humiliating himself with half-formed accusations and collapsed hypotheses.
As he stood, the chair slid back softly, controlled. He didn't rush. He didn't grab anything. Just moved with intent. As he stepped into the hallway, the house felt different—too quiet, as though it were holding its breath with him. His footsteps were measured, deliberate. He stopped once, outside her door, listening, and he ended up hearing nothing.
His hand wrapped around the handle, and he pushed the door open. The room was dim, lit only by the bedside lamp and the faint glow from the laptop screen—still open on the couch.
Alina was not sitting in front of it. She stood near the bathroom door, frozen mid-step. For half a second, neither of them moved. Her eyes widened—not in guilt, not in anger—but in raw, unfiltered alarm. Her breath caught visibly, chest rising sharply as though she'd been startled awake rather than discovered.
"Kai—" she began.
He didn't respond as his gaze locked onto the laptop. Her body reacted before her mind could catch up. She moved from her place too fast.
She lunged toward the couch, arms extending, desperation sharpening her movements. But Kai was already there. He crossed the room in three long strides, reaching the laptop a fraction of a second before she could.
He closed the distance and picked it up. Alina stopped abruptly, hands hovering uselessly in the air.
"No—wait," she said, voice breaking into breath rather than sound.
Kai didn't look at her. His eyes were on the screen. "What is this?" he said quietly. The words landed heavier than a shout. His breath left him slowly. Shock didn't explode inside him. It hollowed him.
"This—" He swallowed. "This is what you've been hiding?"
Alina stood rigid, hands clenched at her sides, colour draining from her face. She looked smaller somehow—not diminished, but cornered like someone caught mid-escape.
Kai lowered himself onto the edge of the couch without realizing he'd moved. The laptop remained in his hands, screen still open, still accusing. All the theories he'd built—agents, agendas, infiltration—collapsed inward with crushing force.
"Kai!" Ryan's voice cut sharply through the quiet.
The door flew open. Ryan stood in the doorway, chest rising rapidly, hair dishevelled, one hand gripping a thick stack of papers. His eyes flicked from Kai to Alina to the laptop screen.
The silence was deafening. Kai didn't look up. Ryan stepped inside slowly, confusion tightening his expression. "I tried calling, but you didn't answer."