closer to the truth

---

Aiden couldn’t sleep.

The warning message, Lyra’s vague answers, her sharp deflection—it all clawed at him. He’d built his life on logic and rules, contracts and clean negotiations. But Lyra didn’t operate in that world. Not anymore.

And now he had to know.

He pulled out his phone and dialed someone he hadn’t spoken to in years.

“Yeah?” came the voice on the other end—gruff, skeptical.

“It’s Aiden Rowe. I need a favor.”

There was a pause. “You don't call in five years, and now you want something?”

“It’s about someone. Lyra Castell.”

A longer pause.

“Jesus,” the voice muttered. “You don’t just ask about her. Not unless you want trouble.”

“I think I’m already in it,” Aiden said quietly. “Can you dig?”

“Only if you’re sure you want to know what you’ll find.”

“I’m sure.”

---

Two days later, a manila envelope arrived under his door—no return address.

Inside were a few black-and-white photos. Grainy, long lens surveillance shots. One of Lyra stepping out of a black SUV, flanked by men with tactical gear. Another showed her shaking hands with someone Aiden recognized from a Interpol Watchlist article. There was a third—Lyra in the shadows of a warehouse, giving orders over a phone. Her posture was commanding. Dangerous. Unmistakable.

There was no denying it now.

His Lyra... was a queen. Not of boardrooms, but of back alleys. Of bullets and secrets.

The final photo made his blood run cold. It was taken just three nights ago—the night of their date. In the background, barely noticeable, was a man watching them. And in the corner of the photo, scrawled in red ink:

“Still think she’s innocent?”

Aiden sat down heavily, staring at the photos. The truth weighed like lead in his chest. Every instinct told him to walk away.

But his heart whispered something else.

She didn’t deny loving you.

He looked at the final photo again and whispered to himself, “What the hell have you gotten into, Lyra?”

Then his phone buzzed. A single message.

Unknown Number: “You should’ve stayed gone.”

---

Lyra was in her private lounge when the doors burst open.

Not knocked. Not buzzed in.

Burst.

Cass shot to her feet, hand instinctively brushing the pistol at her side, but paused when she saw who it was.

Aiden.

His face was unreadable, but his eyes—burning, sharp—locked on Lyra like a man walking into war.

“It’s alright, Cass,” Lyra said quietly, not taking her eyes off him.

Cass hesitated, then slipped out of the room, leaving the two alone.

Aiden walked in and dropped the manila envelope on the glass table between them. “You forgot to tell me about this side of you.”

Lyra looked down at the photos spilling out. A pause. Then she leaned back, expression unreadable. “So you found it.”

“You’re a criminal, Lyra. Not just connected—you’re running the entire goddamn web.”

“I am the web.”

His voice cracked slightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have stayed if I had?”

He didn’t answer.

Lyra stood slowly, walking around the table, calm and deliberate. “You think I wanted this? That I planned to be some mafia queen when you left without a word ten years ago?”

Aiden’s jaw clenched. “Don’t flip this on me. You could’ve told me. Trusted me.”

“And what? Risk you becoming a target? Getting pulled into this world just because I still love you?”

The words hit the air like thunder—heavy, loud, impossible to ignore.

Aiden’s shoulders stiffened. “You still love me… and yet you’re out there ordering hits and making enemies that now know I exist.”

Lyra stepped closer, gaze softer now but no less intense. “You have no idea how many times I’ve protected you from behind the curtain. How many people have wanted to use you just because you’re close to me. You think you're discovering the truth? I’ve been burying it to keep you alive.”

“Is that why I got this?” Aiden held up the final photo—the one of them on the date. “Because you’ve protected me so well?”

She hesitated. Just long enough for the silence to twist like a blade.

“I didn’t know they were watching you,” she admitted. “But I do now.”

“And what happens next?” he asked. “You cut me off again? Disappear? Or do I become part of this twisted empire too?”

Lyra stared at him, torn between love and the razor-thin edge of her reality.

“You’re already a part of it, Aiden,” she said quietly. “Whether you want to be or not.”

---

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