Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 96

POV: Killian

I left her there, in the cold, blue light of the medical center. Her hitched breath, a sound of such profound, silent agony, echoed in my mind long after I had walked away. I returned to the guest suite they had provided for me, a luxurious but sterile space, and stood for a long time on the balcony, watching the unfamiliar constellations glitter in the dark, southern sky.

I had made a mistake. A significant, strategic error.

All my life, I have dealt in logic, in assets and liabilities, in calculated risks and predictable outcomes. I had assessed Seraphina—or Siren, as she now called herself—as a high-value, high-risk asset. A brilliant strategic mind trapped by circumstance. My plan was simple: provide the resources to free the asset, and then leverage her talent for mutual gain. The offer to heal her father was a logical extension of that plan—a way to remove a distraction, to solidify her loyalty, to make a further investment in her stability. It was a sound, logical, and entirely compassionate move.

And it had been a catastrophic failure.

I replayed our conversation on the docks, and then our final, quiet exchange by her father's bedside. I saw it now with a painful clarity. I had approached her as a problem to be solved, a victim to be rescued. My offer, however well-intentioned, had been the classic move of a powerful Alpha bestowing his favor upon a weaker subject. I had offered her a gift, a form of charity. And in doing so, I had inadvertently cast myself in the same role as the man who had so clearly shattered her soul. Damian Blackwood.

I looked at the complex risk assessments, the failed projections, the red ink. And then I thought of the elegant, ruthless brilliance of the anonymous business plan that had first caught my eye.

I began to type. I was not drafting a letter of apology or a gift certificate. I was drafting a contract. A formal, legally binding offer of employment, with clearly defined terms, responsibilities, and deliverables. It was cold, professional, and utterly devoid of pity. I would not offer her my healers as a gift. I would offer them as payment, as a bartered exchange for a service that only she, in my estimation, could provide.