Chapter 692 The Kind of Quiet That Costs Something
But the matter was far from over.
Of all the people Ayla didn’t want watching her, Draven was at the top of the list.
+20 Free Coins
She couldn’t reconcile it. The man she remembered had been steady and warm, the kind of presence that made a room feel safer just by being in it. And yet for months he had been surveilling her in secret while making no attempt to reach out, no word, no explanation. She didn’t know what he wanted. She didn’t know what any of it meant.
The discovery hit her harder than she expected. It was like watching a familiar face rearrange itself into something unrecognizable. Everything she had felt with him, everything she had seen and touched and trusted, had pointed to someone genuinely good.
But this wasn’t that.
She could have accepted curiosity. She would have understood if he’d asked a mutual friend how she was doing, what she’d been up to.
She planned to do the same about his time in Zheron, and there was nothing wrong with that.
What she couldn’t accept was the camera-eye surveillance, the silent and total observation of her private life. Everyone had moments they didn’t want witnessed. Even people you loved, maybe especially them, didn’t get to take that from you.
Ayla spent the day trying to absorb it. She knew she needed to confront him, but she hadn’t figured out how to begin that conversation, and so the hours passed badly.
What made it worse was that she’d had to find out herself. He should have come to her. He should have explained. Instead he’d said nothing, and if she hadn’t uncovered it, she wondered how long it would have gone on.
Her so-called initiative was just being forced into action by someone else’s silence.
That evening at dinner, a man approached her and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had her bodyguard remove him and left.
The next morning she learned the man had been flagged by the tax authority. His company had irregularities. He’d been taken in for questioning and was likely facing a protracted legal fight, possibly prison if the charges were serious enough.
Ayla’s instinct told her immediately. Draven.
Then she found him in the parking garage footage, a brief shape moving through the frame and gone. But it was him.
He had come to Silvoria in person, seen what happened at dinner, and made the man pay for it.
Once she knew Draven was behind the surveillance, Max’s sudden departure from Silvoria the following day stopped looking like coincidence. By the time she confirmed Draven had been there himself, she was certain-he had sent Max away.
So when James called and Max was there beside him, only one explanation made sense-James had done it on Draven’s behalf.
What gave it away was the phone call itself. Max took the handset from James and spoke to her directly, and within a few exchanges they were trading signals only they would catch.
Max was sharp enough to know she’d figure things out soon, and she knew him well enough to trust that even an offhand remark would land. It did. They understood each other without having to say it plainly.
1/2
3:36 pm
Chapter 692 The Kind of Quiet That Costs Something
+20 Free Coins
During that call, Ayla traced James’s IP address. He was in Zheron. She decided to fly out, find Max in person, and deal with Draven and the surveillance question face to face.
But when she went to leave, she noticed another tail.
Her guard was already up because of Draven, so she caught it quickly. She assumed at first it was still his people. It wasn’t. It was Troy.
She genuinely didn’t understand him. They were both raising children under the same roof. Why was he having her followed? What was he looking for? Did he have nothing better to do?
VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Divorce me I'm done serving you (Ayla)