Page 25 of Naughty List Delivery
“Because who we were together was destroying what you needed to become.” His voice goes rough with understanding that came two years too late. “You needed to grow, and I was trying to keep you in a cage made of our shared past.”
His fingers in my hair feel like absolution, like forgiveness I haven’t dared hope for. The gentle way he’s touching me—like I’m something precious instead of prey—is undoing knots in my chest that have been there since the day I left.
“I need to tell you the whole truth,” I whisper. “About Meridian Station. About why I really chose to expose Krax instead of selling that information.”
His hand stills in my hair. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.” I turn slightly in his arms, just enough to catch his alien eyes in the pod’s dim lighting. “Because you deserve to understand what destroyed us. And because I’ve been carrying this alone for two years.”
His tail tightens around my thigh—not possessively this time, but supportively. “Tell me.”
The words come easier than they should, maybe because the small space and his surrounding warmth make me feel safe in a way I haven’t in years. “The information we found wasn’tjust about his smuggling operations. It was about his ‘family separation services.’”
Ober’s inhale is sharp. “What kind of services?”
“The kind where desperate parents paid him to make their children disappear. Fake death certificates, false transport records, adoption through untraceable networks.” My voice cracks slightly. “He was tearing families apart for profit, Ober. Making children vanish from parents who thought they were dead.”
The silence that follows is broken only by our breathing and the hum of life support systems. When Ober speaks, his voice is carefully controlled. “How many families?”
“Hundreds. Maybe thousands over the years.” I close my eyes, feeling the weight of that knowledge all over again. “Children as young as five, taken from parents who couldn’t afford to keep them safe. Sold to families who could pay premium prices for ‘untraceably clean’ adoptions.”
His arm tightens around me, and I feel the controlled fury radiating through his alien frame. “And you chose to expose him instead of selling the information.”
“I couldn’t let it continue.” The words come out fierce, unapologetic. “Not when I saw those files. Not when I understood what he was really doing. Those children had faces, Ober. Names. Families who were still mourning them while they were alive and being raised by strangers.”
“So you destroyed him.” His voice carries no judgment, only understanding. “Sent the evidence to the authorities and watched his empire crumble.”
“Along with his marriage.” I’ve never spoken this part aloud before. “His mate left him when the truth came out. Took their twin daughters and disappeared into protected custody. The investigators said she’d had no idea what he was really doing.”
Ober goes very still. “He had daughters.”
“Twin girls. About seven at the time.” I feel tears threaten and blink them back. “The irony wasn’t lost on me—he was separating other families while building his own. When I exposed him, his mate realized she was married to a monster. She took his children and vanished, exactly like he’d made hundreds of other children vanish.”
“And that’s when he started hunting you specifically.”
“Not immediately. First he had to rebuild his operations, figure out how to work around the increased security. But yes—eventually he realized that I was the one who’d destroyed his family. That I’d made his wife look at him the same way those grieving parents looked at empty graves.”
The honesty hangs between us in the small space, and I realize I’m holding my breath waiting for his response. Waiting to see if he understands why I made the choice that destroyed us.
“Three families broken,” he says finally. “Krax’s, ours, and every family he’s systematically destroyed since.”
“I know.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “I know the cost of what I did. But I couldn’t live with the alternative.”
“Which is why you’ve been carrying this guilt.” His voice is gentle, understanding in a way that makes my chest ache. “Wondering if doing the right thing was worth the consequences.”
“Wondering if I was a fool for choosing conscience over keeping us together.”
His hand in my hair tightens, and when he speaks his voice carries absolute conviction. “You weren’t a fool. You were someone becoming better than who you’d been. And I was too selfish and too stupid to see that what was eating you alive was the weight of your own moral evolution.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense it’s almost painful. “You really understand?”
“I understand that you chose to save hundreds of families you’d never meet over preserving the partnership we had.” His voice drops to that harmonic register that makes my bones vibrate. “I understand that you were becoming someone who couldn’t live with profiting from child trafficking. And I understand that I was a selfish bastard who couldn’t see past his own wants to support the woman I claimed to love.”
“Ober...” His name comes out like a prayer, like a plea.
“I spent two years thinking you’d chosen justice over me,” he continues, his thumb stroking across my cheek with careful reverence. “But you’d really chosen to become someone I could be proud to love. Someone who wouldn’t compromise their conscience for any price—even keeping me.”
The admission breaks something open in my chest that’s been sealed tight since the day I faked my death. “I missed you,” I whisper. “Even when I hated what we’d become, I missed you so much it felt like dying.”
