NOVEL NEXT Chapter 360: Kidnapped
He kept driving, the hum of the engine filling the silence, the mortal radio cycling through love songs that were far too on-the-nose for his liking.
Ariel—if that was even her real name—sat stiff beside him, eyes locked on the window like it could shield her from whatever hell she'd stumbled into. She wasn't trembling, not exactly. More like… bracing. The kind of quiet that wasn't peace at all, but the aftermath of someone who'd had their fight already beaten out of them.
Lux sighed through his nose, fingers drumming the wheel.
"Lux Vaelthorn," he said finally, deliberately.
Her head turned slightly, lashes wet but her voice steady. "What?"
"My name," he clarified. "You didn't even ask me. Aren't you worried I'll kidnap you? Sell you off? You know, diversify my portfolio with live assets?"
Her lips twitched, but no smile came. She shook her head, weakly. "No."
That earned a frown from him. "No?"
"My name is Ariel Delmar," she whispered.
Lux's frown deepened. Delmar? Really? His fingers tightened on the wheel, suspicion sharpening like a blade. "You lying to me?"
She shook her head again. "No. Well…" she hesitated, and her shoulders dropped. "They disowned me. So maybe… I'm not Ariel Delmar anymore. Maybe I'm just Ariel."
Lux huffed, low and annoyed. Disowned heiress? Her scan didn't match that. Something stank here.
'System,' he ordered silently.
[Yes, sir?]
'Investigate Delmar and Avariel family records. I want to know if she's lying. If there was ever an Ariel in their bloodlines. If she's bluffing, I'm kicking her out of my car before she bleeds desperation all over my upholstery.'
[Processing…]
He waited, knuckles tapping the wheel in rhythm with the music. Ariel didn't look at him, didn't speak. Just kept staring at the glass like maybe her reflection could tell her who she was.
[Result: No record of "Ariel" in the Avariel family. However, the Delmar family archives confirm an "Ariel Delmar" once registered. Status: terminated. No longer considered active family member.]
Lux's brows twitched. 'Terminated? As in—dead?'
[Clarification: Delmar registry notes one heiress. Born twenty years ago. Deceased entry filed this year.]
Lux muttered under his breath, "So she didn't lie."
[Correct.]
'Tell me more.'
[Additional note: The Avariel family had a daughter, presumed stillborn at birth, around the same period. Possible correlation flagged. Probability: 72%.]
Lux exhaled hard, eyes narrowing. "So… kidnapped."
"What?" Ariel asked, blinking at him.
He shot her a sidelong glance. "Nothing you need to panic about yet." His voice was light, teasing, but his mind raced with numbers and angles.
"Do you know why they kicked you out?" he asked after a beat.
Her lips pressed together, her gaze falling back to the window. For a long moment she was silent, and Lux almost repeated himself. Then—
"Because I was useless," she said quietly. "I can't produce pearls anymore."
Lux blinked. Pearls. Of course. He tilted his head, calculating. "So you're twenty now?"
She nodded once.
"And they only kept you around because…" His mouth twisted. "Right. Pearls."
"Yes," she whispered.
Lux tapped the wheel again, smirking bitterly. "You do realize only mermaids produce pearls, right? Sirens can't. They can sing, but pearls? That's exclusive mermaid trade. Any half-wit financier in the abyss knows that."
Her eyes snapped toward him, wet and sharp. "What do you mean? I'm a siren. Just… a weird one. They said I was cursed, that's why I produced pearls. I can't even sing well."
Lux's smirk vanished. Oh. Ohhh, this was worse than he thought.
She wasn't lying. He could feel it in the way her voice cracked, the way shame colored her tone. She really believed that lie.
Which meant only one thing… she wasn't a siren at all. She was the missing heiress. A mermaid stolen as a baby, dumped into the Delmar household, paraded as a "cursed siren" and milked like a pearl-cow for twenty years. And now that she couldn't churn out profit, they'd cut her loose.
Lux leaned back, a sharp, humorless laugh escaping him. "Well, damn. You've been running a deficit your whole life and didn't even know it."
She frowned, not understanding. "What?"
"Nothing," Lux said smoothly, but his mind spun. This was a scam centuries old. A forged ledger of flesh. A pearl factory disguised as family. He almost admired it. Almost.
But then he looked at her again, pale, broken, believing she was cursed for simply being born what she was. And something in his chest tightened in the worst way.
"Listen, Ariel—if that's even your name," Lux said dryly, "you're not cursed. You're not weird. You're not some failed siren project. You're a mermaid. A real one. The pearls weren't a curse, they were the cash flow. And once the revenue dried up…" He flicked his fingers in the air like tearing a contract. "So did their interest."
Her lips parted, her face paling even further. "No… you're wrong."
"Sweetheart," Lux muttered, "I don't do wrong. I do numbers. And the numbers don't lie."
Ariel stared at him, bewildered, lips parting like she wanted to argue but had nothing to hold onto. Her hands tightened on the hem of her plain dress, wringing the fabric until her knuckles paled. That confusion wasn't fake—she truly didn't know what he was talking about.
Lux glanced at her again, sharper this time. Her neckline had shifted when she leaned back against the seat, and he caught a glimpse of pale lines across her skin. Not fresh—but scars. Thin, healed, but unmistakable. His smirk faded into a colder line.
"You got abused," he said flatly.
She flinched, immediately tugging her dress higher to cover them. "I'm fine," she said too quickly, too tightly.
Lux huffed through his nose, his hand flicking the wheel lazily as he pulled them back into traffic. "Right. Fine. Just like a bankrupt company says they're 'fine' while pawning off the office chairs and crying in the break room."
"I'm not—" she tried, but her voice cracked halfway. She stared out the window again, body curling inward like she could make herself disappear.