Ch. 48 – A Maybe Is Never a No

A nauseating wave of déjà vu crashed over Rhys, heavy and suffocating. Behind his eyes, the dark, menacing silhouette of Vespera flickered into view—her ruthless calculation, her predatory patience, her terrifying ability to corner him until he had nowhere left to turn. Rhys could suddenly see the old, immovable rock of Vespera settling in firmly on one side, while this brand-new hard place named Shula pressed in ruthlessly from the other. And sitting right between them, bruised, exhausted, and utterly trap-jawed, was Rhys, about to be helplessly crushed into dust.

He was aghast. Horror and disbelief warred in his chest as the scale of Shula’s obsession laid itself bare. She hadn’t just conceived a bizarre, boundary-crossing idea over dinner—she had meticulously planned this for months, perhaps years. She had uprooted her high-society life, purchased a sprawling estate in this specific suburban town, and strategically positioned herself right across the street, all to stalk her target with surgical precision.

And on top of that monstrous violation, she had used her vast wealth and high-tier clearance to go behind his back, infiltrating the Apex Spire’s private vaults to run genetic compatibility tests on his biological samples without his consent.

Without my DAMN permission! Rhys screamed internally, his blood boiling behind a mask of forced composure.

He stared down at the glowing crystal data-drive resting silently on the glass coffee table, then snapped his gaze back to Shula. She sat there with an unbothered, radiant expression, looking every bit like a grandmaster who had already declared checkmate before the middle game had even finished.

“I never gave you—or anyone else—the authorization or the rights to pull my genetic code from the High League vault, Shula,” Rhys said, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm, authoritative tone that used to make mid-level supervillains drop their weapons.

Shula kept right on smiling, waving a dismissive, manicured hand through the air as if his outrage were nothing more than a mild, adorable formality. “Oh, I am so sorry, Rhys. Truly, I meant no offense. But you must understand... I simply had to be sure before I uprooted our lives to come here.” She paused, her dark eyes glittering with a predatory, triumphant spark. “And you’re entirely right, of course. Protocol dictates that I needed explicit permission to run full genomic diagnostics on those specific classified samples.”

Shula stopped there, letting her statement hang out in the open like an active landmine waiting for a stray footstep.

“Then who exactly gave it to you?” Rhys demanded, his jaw tight, his entire posture primed to explode.

Shula said nothing. She simply leaned back, her glowing smile softening as her eyes shifted slightly past Rhys’s shoulder, looking directly behind him.

Rhys froze. A cold, sickening knot formed in his stomach as he turned to look at his wife.

Lira looked like a deer caught in high-beam headlights. Her face was entirely drained of color, her bright blue eyes wide with sheer panic and overwhelming guilt. Tears welled at the corners of her eyelids as she looked up at her husband, her lips trembling as a desperate, breathless plea burst out of her.

“Rhys... please, let me explain...” Lira stammered, her voice cracking under the weight of her own mistake. “Shula called me personally... months ago. She was crying, Rhys. She was breaking down, telling me about her and Darius’s struggles, about how desperate they were and how every medical attempt had failed. I... I was the one who originally suggested she look into biological donors! She was terrified of the physical risks with her Ifrit physiology, and I just wanted to help my friend...”

Rhys listened in stunned silence, his heart aching as he tried desperately to process how his sweet, devoted, perfect wife could have accidentally invited this terrifying curse into their sanctuary.

“She... she called me again a few weeks later,” Lira continued frantically, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “She sounded so inspired, so hopeful. She told me she was going to ask all the active heroes and retired couples in our circle to voluntarily donate samples for compatibility testing. She asked if we would authorize the Apex vault to release your old archive samples to be included in the control group. Rhys... I swear to you, I didn’t think for a second that you would ever be a match! You’re human! I only said yes back then because... because I didn’t want to crush her hopes. I didn’t want to block my friend’s dream...”

Especially a dream that you accidentally started, Rhys thought to himself, a heavy, tragic weight settling over his chest.

There really was no way around it. Shula had played them masterfully. She had manipulated Lira’s boundless empathy and good nature, backed her into an emotional corner, and used her consent as a golden key to unlock Rhys’s sealed biological data. They had taken Lira hostage in her own home, weaponizing her kindness against her husband.

Rhys turned his gaze away from Lira. As furious and overwhelmed as he felt, he was a man of strict principle; he refused to berate or argue with his wife in front of an audience, especially not in front of the vultures sitting on his couch. They would handle this private disaster together, alone, after these people were out of their house.

Rhys rounded on Shula again, shifting back into tactical battle mode and searching for another logical angle to tear her crazy proposal apart.

“Fine,” Rhys growled, glaring at the Ifrit socialite. “You ran the tests. But let’s be realistic here, Shula. Given my burned-out kinetic storage, my degraded cellular structure, and your volatile Ifrit heat, those simulation results came back at what? A forty? Maybe a fifty percent chance of success at absolute best? It is not going to be worth the physical or emotional odds. The conversation ends here.”

Shula blocked his tactical argument effortlessly, leaning forward with a smooth, terrifyingly serene grace.

“Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent chance of full cellular harmony and successful gestation,” Shula said quietly.

What the absolute... FUCK?! Rhys screamed in the silent, suffocating chamber of his own mind. His breath hitched in his throat, his heart slamming against his ribs like a sledgehammer.

“There is no way,” Rhys blurted out loud, his voice tight with pure denial. “That’s biologically impossible.”

“Oh, but there is a way, my dear Rhys,” Shula purred, her smile blooming even brighter, radiant with an unhinged, starry-eyed devotion. “If anything, the data proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this isn’t just a viable option... it is the ONLY right way for Darius and me to bring a child into this world. Your former kinetic absorption capabilities created a unique, hyper-adaptive cellular matrix. Your genetic material doesn’t just survive my elemental heat, Rhys—it thrives in it.”

It didn’t make sense. None of this made any goddamn sense. Rhys’s mind spiraled, searching frantically for a sanity anchor in a room that had devolved into pure madness.

He finally turned his eyes to Darius. His old war brother. The man who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him through alien invasions, apocalyptic battles, and the brutal grind of superhero life. Surely Darius had some remnant of self-respect left. Surely he wouldn’t stand for his wife sitting in another man’s living room, declaring another man to be her only biological salvation! Right?!

Rhys looked at him, desperately searching his face for a spark of anger, a flash of protest, anything.

Darius just looked back at him with a completely blank, hollow expression. It was the face of a man who had fought his battles, lost his spirit, and accepted the cold, agonizing reality of his life years ago. He was a defeated soldier who had surrendered his autonomy to his wife’s unyielding, immortal will, willing to endure any level of public humiliation if it meant giving her what she wanted.

Rhys felt his entire worldview crack around the edges. The pedestal he had built for his old hero friends crumbled into dust right before his eyes.

“I... I need to think about it,” Rhys finally forced out, the words tasting like ash on his tongue.

He didn’t mean it. He didn’t want to think about it for a single second. He just wanted them out. He needed them to leave his house before he completely lost his mind or threw the coffee table through the front window.

Shula’s smile softened into something deeply satisfied and intensely intimate. She slowly rose from her seat, her movements fluid and regal as she smoothed down her dress.

“That is definitely not a problem... Omen,” Shula said, her voice dropping into a low, purring tone that carried a terrifying weight of finality. “Take all the time you need. After all... a ‘maybe’ is never a ‘no.’”

A sharp, violent pang struck Rhys’s chest.

Hearing her call him by his old mantle while echoing that exact, predatory philosophy sent another terrifying flashback of Vespera ripping through his mind. A deep, chilling sickness settled in his gut as he realized just how terrifyingly similar Shula and Vespera actually were—two impossibly powerful, manipulative women who viewed the world as a game to be won and Rhys as a prize to be collected.

Uncharacteristically cold and utterly silent, Rhys walked the couple toward the front entrance.

Darius looked utterly mortified as he walked, his head bowed, his shoulders stooped in shame. Yet, bizarrely, there was a tragic, desperate satisfaction in the man’s posture—knowing that his wife was leaving with a “technical victory” to take home, a sliver of hope that would keep her content for a little while longer.

Lira followed them to the foyer, doing her absolute best to salvage the deeply wounded friendships. She offered a strained, bittersweet goodbye at the threshold, her voice hovering on the edge of tears as she tried to keep up the polite facade of a good hostess.

But the final dagger came as Shula stepped over the doorway into the cool evening air.

She turned back around, stepped back into Rhys’s personal space, and pulled him into a tight, lingering, highly affectionate hug. Rhys stood stiff as an iron board, his hands remaining firmly at his sides, refusing to wrap his arms around her or return the gesture.

As she slowly pulled back, Shula looked directly into his eyes. She leaned close and gave him a slow, incredibly knowing, highly intimate wink.

She truly believed she had already won. She thought she had him completely cornered, trapped between her flawless scientific data, his wife’s innocent mistake, and her own relentless determination.

Rhys stared back at her silently as she turned and walked down the pathway with Darius. He gripped the heavy brass handle of his front door, his knuckles turning bone white, his heart pounding a fierce, angry war rhythm against his ribs.

He slammed the heavy oak door shut, the loud BANG echoing through the empty entryway like a gunshot.

Like hell you’ve won, Rhys thought, his eyes darkening with a cold, ruthless resolve as he leaned his forehead against the cool wood of the door. I am definitely not letting you get your way.