Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 567

Chapter 567: Kayla’s Heart

Six weeks ago.

A cold knot formed in my stomach. Six weeks ago, I was still just Peter Carter. Still getting thrown into trash cans, still an invisible nobody. A week and a half later, I got the system. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"There’s more," ARIA continued. "Banking records show Kayla has made zero personal expenditures since receiving her signing bonus. No apartment lease. No condo purchase. No car payments until the Bentley two weeks ago. Cross-referencing building security logs from this address..."

She fucking lived here.

"Confirmed. Security footage shows Kayla using a visitor’s cot in the upstairs office for sixty-seven of the last seventy nights. She has poured her every single dollar of her salary into this studio. Everything. The food, the furniture... everything."

My cynical armor shattered. It didn’t just crack; it atomized. I looked at Kayla, really looked at her. At the dark circles under her eyes she’d tried to conceal with makeup. At the slight gauntness to her features.

"Too bad," she said suddenly, her voice a ragged, broken sound. "Too bad my apology is too late."

She came closer, and then she was hugging me, burying her face in my chest. I could feel her entire body shaking.

"I tried, Peter. I tried so fucking hard." Her words were muffled by my jacket.

"Imagine—imagine planning this for months. Building this. And then coming back and finding the person you’re apologizing to already has more wealth than you could ever offer. That the one genuine, sacrificial thing you’ve ever done in your life looks like a goddamn gold-digger coming back to manipulate you all over again."

Her hands gripped my jacket like a lifeline. "I tried. I worked every day. I slept on a cot upstairs. I ate instant ramen to save money for servers. I poured everything into this because I thought— I thought if I could just show you I was serious—"

She was crying now. Not pretty, silent tears. The ugly, gasping kind where someone’s entire soul just breaks apart, right there in your arms.

"And then Connor fucking Hayes told the entire school before I could even say a word. Everyone knew. Everyone was watching. And you... you were different. You had Madison. You had this... this life. And I showed up looking exactly like the person they thought I was."

"Master," ARIA’s voice was impossibly soft in my ear. "The timeline analysis is definitive: she began this project the week after her employment at Mirror Crypto House began. The LLC was formed before you ever activated the Dark Seduction System. While you were navigating your new powers in Lincoln Heights, she was here, building this for you. Before she knew you had anything.

"This is not manipulation."

She wasn’t manipulating me. She was trying to make things right in the only way she knew how. The timing was just catastrophically, cosmically wrong.

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her shuddering form against me. Let her cry it out. "I know," I said quietly, my voice a low rumble against her hair. "I know, Kayla."

She went still, pulling back to look up at me, her face a mess of tears and disbelief. "What?"

ARIA confirmed everything, a small, sad smile touched my lips. The timeline. The purchases. The contract she signed giving me half of this... six weeks ago. Before I had any of what I have now.

Fresh tears of a different kind streamed down her face—relief. Pure, unadulterated relief. "You... you believe me?"

"I didn’t want to," I admitted. "My first thought was that this was another con. That you saw I’d changed and decided to play a different angle. But the timeline doesn’t lie. You did this for the old me, Kayla."

"I’m sorry," she whispered, the words raw and real. "I’m so fucking sorry, Peter. For taking your work. For not making you a partner. For being the person who taught you the world only takes. I’m sorry. I realized how bad I hurt you too late to come back." She sagged against me, and I held her up.

"Show me the offices," I said after a moment.

I almost laughed. The girl who had once manipulated me without a second thought was now terrified I’d reject her apology, reject this. Me, who now had billions at my fingertips.

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