《The Apex's hidden mate》全部章節：第 121 章 - 第 130 章

Aria’s POV My head throbbed dully as I leaned against the cold, damp wall. The air in the room was thick, heavy with silence and something that smelled like metal. I remembered waking up, barely able to open my eyes. My face had been covered in something rough, maybe a sack or a cloth, cutting off all light and most sound. There were voices and hands that weren’t gentle. I’d been lifted, carried, jostled. Then thrown. Literally thrown into this room like a bag of trash. And now here I was. No windows. Just a door with four walls, gray and blank, pressing in from all sides. Where the hell did Selena take me? This was bad. Very bad. I didn’t need to hear the chaos in the outside world to know what was happening. I could feel it. Like something in my chest had cracked open, like the bond I shared with my mates had been stretched, frayed… silenced. I had no idea what was happening out there. Were the Apex brothers okay? I hugged my knees to my chest, breathing through my nose,

Priscilla’s POV Her words hit harder than I expected. “Because I know Selena is hiding something for you. A secret… so big… so damning…” I felt Dread. Real, primal dread. I moved before I could stop myself, fury crawling under my skin like fire ants. My footwear collided with Aria’s ribs “Shut up,” I snapped. “You think you know everything? You’re delirious. You don’t know anything. Stop spouting nonsense!” She grunted but didn’t scream. “Make sure she starves,” I barked at the guards. My voice echoed in the room. “I want her weak and useless.” They nodded. I stormed out, but my mind screamed louder. How. How did she know? No one knew about that. Not even Damon. Only Selena. Unless… Unless Selena told her. But no, that’s impossible. Selena wouldn’t. She can’t carelessly tell Aria that. She’s not a blabbermouth. Or was Aria guessing? I bet that’s what she was doing, to get a reaction out of me. And she did. But for what?But I needed to confirm. I needed to see Selena.

Eliza’s POV I was in the academy’s computer room, the place that had practically become my second home. The whir of servers and faint hum of cooling fans filled the silence as I sat hunched in front of three monitors, eyes scanning every pixel on the screen. Quin and Tyla were behind me and they were just as on edge as I was. Sheila had sent the video, and I’d wasted no time uploading it into every video verification tool I had at my disposal. If there was something off, I was going to find it. I had to. Quin leaned over my shoulder, arms crossed, eyes narrowed at the paused frame of the video on my monitor. “It’s just too realistic,” she muttered. “If it’s fake, it doesn’t have a single flaw. The way she moves, the lighting, even the reflections all lines up. Are we sure it’s not real?” I didn’t look at her. “That’s what we’re still trying to find out.” I’d already run the video through half a dozen detection programs. Tools built for spotting deepfakes, inconsistencies in audi

Eliza’s POV I sat in the hospital’s waiting area, elbows on my knees, hands clenched so tightly my knuckles ached. The sterile scent of antiseptic made my stomach twist. I stared at the double doors that led to the emergency wing, hoping they’d open with good news, but they never did. Tyla had whispered something before she passed out. “Traitor…” That one word kept echoing in my head. What had she meant? Who was the traitor? What had happened in that bathroom? I didn’t understand. None of it made sense. Quin’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “Eliza,” she said quietly. I looked at her. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the floor, but her voice was steady. “I need to stay here. I’ll wait until Tyla wakes up.” “But the doctor said they don’t even know when she’ll wake up,” I said, my voice sharp. “Her injuries were—” My throat closed up. “She looked like they wanted to kill her.” Quin finally met my eyes. “I know. And I hate this too. But you have to go. Keep looking for Aria.

Thane’s POV I looked at Eliza and all I could see was unwavering belief. It was etched into every line of her face, sitting in her eyes like a fire that wouldn’t go out, no matter how many storms tried to drown it. She believed Aria was innocent. There was no hesitation in her voice, no faltering in her stance. And the painful truth was…I believed it too. Even when the evidence stacked up like a wall we couldn’t break through. Even when every lead led nowhere. Even when our bond ached and twisted inside me like a dying thread. I still believed. But we had stopped. We’d all slowed to a crawl. Because our hearts—our hearts were bleeding. The more we chased answers and found none, the heavier the weight grew. Hope kept slipping through our fingers. And at some point, though none of us dared say it aloud, we thought… maybe we were wrong about her. Maybe— No. I gritted my teeth at the memory. No. Aria didn’t do this. Still, we stopped because if we hadn’t, we might have shattere