Page 67

Buying Silence

Adrian

Lorenzo’s voice was silk-wrapped arrogance as he presented his grand design to the Senate. A luxury diving destination, he called it. A tribute to Thalassa’s future.

The island gleamed on the screen behind him like a lure—coral reefs, hidden caves, a tapestry of ancient history.

And secrets.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just stared through the glass of my water like it was crystal, watching him twist lies into applause. The ice stayed still. So did I.

Because he didn’t know.

Didn’t know what still slept beneath that island. What it meant to her. What it meant to me.

If you want to protect a secret, you buy the silence around it. Preferably in acres.

The gala was a vision of gold. Chandeliers spilled light like melted sunlight, violins hummed above champagne flutes and crocodile smiles. The elite of Thalassa basked in their reflections, pretending their masks were skin .

I moved through it like a shadow, smiling when I had to, listening always.

Malia stood by the quartet, laughing, her flame-red dress igniting the air. She burned as she always did, bright, unafraid.

And Lorenzo hovered too close. A glass of wine, a joke too smooth, a touch just shy of presumptuous. He leaned in.

My jaw locked.

He wasn’t here at the party. He was here for leverage.

And my sister was just another piece on his board.

But I had games of my own. Senators scattered like bones across velvet, waiting to be arranged.

I slipped into the conversation like a blade between ribs.

I spoke of legacies, of timeless reefs and historic preservation.

Of headlines that would etch their names beneath words like visionary and savior .

They swallowed it whole.

They didn’t care about reefs. They cared about being remembered.

I did as my father taught me, manipulated every word, made promises I’d never keep. For her , I’d do all of it. Play dirty. Stain my hands in red. Burn every bridge.

Pay every price.

I don’t just want her safe.

I want her free.

I want her happy .

My father stood alone on the balcony, the sea a black mirror behind him. With a glass of something expensive in hand. Bitterness seeped into every line of his posture.

Philip Nikolai. Governor. Kingmaker. Liar.

And once, long ago, something like a hero.

He didn’t turn as I stepped up beside him. “You weren’t bad in there,” he said.

“Comes naturally,” I muttered .

He glanced over, eyes cutting. “You used to hate this.”

“I still do.”

The wind picked up, tugging at the curtains. Salt. Storm. An underlying change.

“My father built his empire on blood and deals,” I mumbled. “I built mine on silence. And survival.”

He swirled his drink, watching it spin as if it held all the answers. “I almost lost your mother to duty,” he said after a beat. “Don’t make the same mistake with yours.”

And then he walked away—leaving that one sentence behind like a knife buried in bone.

It hit harder than I wanted. Not because it hurt.

Because it mattered .

I stayed on the balcony, nursing a glass of whiskey that did nothing to ease the burn in my chest, when Lorenzo found me again. Wine untouched. Smirk in place.

“Well, we both knew you’d win the bid,” he drawled, oozing false humility. “As much as it pains me, I can’t beat you politically. Your father would never allow it.”

I didn’t respond. He was baiting me.

“You’re alone tonight,” he noted, voice all knives and amusement.

Something within me went still.

Then he added, soft as venom, “Striking woman, that one. White silver-hair like the moon, eyes like deep green forests. Beautiful. Dangerous, striking like a blade. You outdid yourself, Adrian.”

The glass shattered before I knew it, and my hands were on him, fists clutching his lapels, our faces inches apart.

“If you came here to provoke me,” I said, voice low, lethal, “congratulations. I’m this close to snapping—and if you don’t get the hell out of my face, you’ll wake up in a hospital. Or maybe you won’t wake up at all.”

He didn’t flinch. Just smiled wider.

“My, my. Such a temper.”

God, I hated that grin.

“You want that island so badly, you’re even playing nice with Daddy dearest. What I can’t quite pin down is… why ?”

Fuck.

Exactly what I didn’t want: his curiosity.

“It’s a time-sensitive matter,” he went on, like a man admiring a chessboard he couldn’t yet beat. “And I’m here to make a deal.”

No. Not him. Not this.

“Not interested,” I growled, shoving him back.

He adjusted his suit. Calm. Calculating. “Or I drag this out. You’ll win the bid eventually, but how long are you willing to wait?”

I said nothing. But something inside me went cold.

He wasn’t wrong. I’d win, but a political war with Lorenzo could bleed for years. Decades. The Senate was a fickle, selfish beast, and he knew exactly how to slow its heart.

Bastard.

He had me. Let me with no choice.

A deal with the devil or a lifetime trapped in chaos.

Anything for her.

“I’m listening,” I said, barely above a whisper.

“One favor,” he said. “To be called in at a time of my choosing. No questions. In return, I step aside. No more interference. The island’s yours.”

I swallowed hard. A favor. His leash around my neck.

This would cost more than money.

But I would pay.

Gladly.

“All right,” I said at last, every word an oath I hated. “You have your deal. ”

He smiled as if he’d just won something.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you.” His voice was like velvet hiding a blade.

“Let’s hope you forget it,” I said, brushing past him.

He laughed under his breath. “I won’t, Adrian.”

Across the room, Malia danced. Spiraling. Carefree. Trusting.

“You don’t know him like I do,” I murmured.

As promised, Lorenzo backed off.

Thirty-two votes. One speech. Five billion credits. The Senate applauded.

The island was mine, bound in red tape, guarded by regulations and eco-preservation acts no one could breach without bleeding for it.

The public cheered. The government fed. And Iryen’s world stayed buried beneath the tide. There are many ways to protect a kingdom. I just bought one. Some victories taste like ash. Like the silence after a scream. Like every choice, you can’t undo.

But they count. Because I did what I had to do. I protected her .

And no one—not my father, not Lorenzo, not the world. Would take that from me.

* * *

Chaos .

That defined my life for these past two weeks.

Between countless board meetings and my mom educating me into royal politics, merfolk culture and control over my powers—per her request—I was exhausted, and the pain never left, an awful reminder I was incomplete.

I still felt her, even more than before, but so far away.

I felt her pain, her sadness, her doubt, and then I felt a void, nothing coming from that thread that linked us, I nearly lost my mind, hence why mommy dearest insisted in training me, and when I felted her again, the rage she shoved down the bond almost knocked me down.

I regretted letting her go, not fighting for her, accepting so easily. I was a fucking mess, confused about all the life-change revelations, and I knew in my gut something wasn’t right. So when despair I had never felt before mixed with shattering grief, panic constricted in my throat.

I was done with this city, drifting in a shallow—empty life.

With my head pounding as every situation played in my mind, I allowed myself just a few minutes before storming out of the conference room and calling my sister on the way to my car.

“Hi, big bro.” my sister’s cheerful voice rings in my ear.

I was glad she had returned to herself. She struggled with her identity after our mother explained to her about our origins.

“Hi. I need you to take care of the company for me.”

“What happened” Her tone shifted, and I could visualize her brows pinched in concern.

“Can’t explain, but I need to find her.” I hadn’t had the time to explain the combination of emotions I felt from the bond.

“Okay, tell me about it later.”

I hung up as soon as I reached my car and drove straight to the docks.

The only way I knew to get to her was from the island, from the cave. Aetheria was beyond that pond.

It is laughable that I had to return to where all of it began.

Months ago, I sailed in search of a peaceful vacation.

Instead, I found a hurricane of a woman that shook my depths, changed my view of the world I knew and showed me what I had known to be myths were living, breathing creatures.

Mother educated me in her world, taught me how to shield my mind, how to talk telepathically and adapt to the shift.

The journey to my island was quick and smooth. Soon I found myself on the trail to the cave entrance, hidden deep in the woods.

Iryen once told me that a barrier protected the cave of the moon pond, but that barrier didn’t hide the monstrous entrance from my eyes.

The path to the pond was the same.

And I had to rethink my strategy. Diving in had a hundred percent chance of losing myself in the maze.

The unpleasant memories of both times I almost lost my life to those waters assaulted me, but her pain smoldering in every fiber of my body didn’t give me time to dwell in the past.

Taking a deep breath, I shifted, bones reshaping, flesh turning into navy-blue scales, and after a few hard breathing my tail came into view, splashing water onto the shore where I sat.

I need to see her, tell her I would rather risk dying than spend a life in endless despair without her.

Pitch darkness bathed the waters, interrupted only by the occasional glow of plankton. Every turn I took led me to dead ends and rock walls, just as the day she saved me from drowning the first time, the day I saw her tail.

Lost. I was lost. Again.

She had been right .

This labyrinth was deadly for anyone who didn’t know how to navigate or didn’t have a tail. The main issue is that I’m losing time.

Precious time away from her.

Fuck.