A/N: Aaaaaaand, I'm back! As to not ruin the feel of this particular chapter, I will have another note at the bottom. But, before delving into this update, I suggest you find and play the song "Broken Inside" by Broken Iris. The full song can be found on youtube posted under Dreginy Let's Plays. I feel that this particular song seems to encapsulate and embody Aden's story. So, enjoy!

'You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.'

-Oscar Wilde

It had all happened so suddenly. The way everything had come so spectacularly unraveled. Right before her very eyes. And she still couldn't believe even half of what she had just heard. Yet, as she watched the young woman stumble out of the interrogation room, Ria felt the ramifications of each and every word the man had spoken. It was written all over the young woman's face. Etched in the grief of her expression and the sounds of her anguished sobs. And Ria couldn't bear to even look. So she deviated her eyes towards Eli. But his expression was even more dismal. So filled with guilt and shame. Shaped in remorse. And Ria knew it was because he had brought the young woman here.

Had it been under different circumstances.

In any other situation.

Ria might have had the urge to say 'I told you so.' To gloat, and revel in the fact that she had been right. That...Eli having brought this woman to Cal's interrogation had been a terrible idea, and would end badly. But...as their eyes met...Ria couldn't quite bring herself to act on this knee-jerk impulse.

Not now.

Not with this.

Not with everything that had just happened.

That she now knew.

That they all knew.

The truth was just too awful.

And as Ria watched Eli escort the inconsolable young woman out of the laboratory, Gillian trailing behind to support, she was left in the wake of the momentary silence that followed before the sound of a disembodied voice filled the room. Muffled, as it came through the computer's sound system to draw her attention.

'This doesn't change anything...'

Ria heard this lowly murmured from the man's lips as she gazed upon him through the computer's monitor. An expression akin to hatred etching his beguiling features as his icy gaze narrowed along Cal's back.

'It doesn't change the fact that, no matter what I did, it was the kid's choice to jump.' She heard the man's low, muffled voice through the sound system as he continued. 'He did it to himself.'

'Yeah...' Cal's voice manifested in an oddly disembodied replied with a heavy sigh of resignation. 'He did.' Through the computer's monitor, Ria saw him give the hang of his head as it almost touched glass before turning away from the door to look the man in the eye. 'But you gave him a bloody good push, didn't you.'

'Yeah, well...' The man murmured, holding Cal's angered stare. 'Good luck in actually proving that.' He said with the small smirk of a smile. 'I doubt anything said here today has legal backing. And whatever I might have said or not said to the kid is purely speculative.' This came smugly confident as the man continued lowly. 'I mean...the last time I talked to the kid, it was just him and I in my office. So, really...' He murmured through a cocky side-smirk. '...it would be his word against mine and well,' The man uttered. 'he's not talking, now is he.'

'A slimy bastard like you?' Ria heard Cal's angered disembodied response as he scoffed towards the man's sense of superiority. 'I'm sure we'll get something to stick.'

Before the man had the opportunity to respond or so much as offer a snide retort to this threat, Ria watched Cal swiftly turn his back to him. He then stalked towards the door and threw it open before stepping out of that glass interrogation room and slammed it closed behind him. Leaving the man alone. And the look on Cal's face was absolutely unmistakable...

...even to the untrained eye...

He was livid. And...he was looking for someone to take it out on. As he locked eyes with her, Ria withered and shrank back. Fearful of coming under the fire of his anger.

"Oi!" He raised his voice to her as Ria attempted to hold her ground against his obvious animosity towards the man in the glass room. "Agent Reynolds in?" Cal asked, and Ria gave the slight bob of her head with furrowed brows.

"Yeah." She murmured lowly. "He should be." And she watched how the line of his lips grew taut.

"Right." He said dryly through the audible sigh pushed through his nose. "He can make himself useful then, yeah?" Cal retorted sardonically towards The Lightman Group's federal liaison, Ben Reynolds, before stalking off to find the man.

Leaving Ria alone in the wake of deafening silence.

With him, though she couldn't see him through the opaque, milky glass. But Ria sensed his all-consuming presence within the room before it was given life and breath through the muffled voice from the computer's sound system as he spoke.

'Cal.' The man called out to the empty room through the stifled muffle of the computer's sound system as Ria watched him on the monitor. 'Calvin.' The tone of his voice gave the slightest hint of irritation at having been left without something or someone to push against. 'Come on.' He lowly uttered this coaxing taunt that begged for a reaction as he gave a hard stare towards the door Cal had just left through.

As if he believed that Cal was just outside the room, listening to him.

'You can't keep me in here forever.' He said to the door as Ria watched him continue to seethe deep beneath the surface before he gave a short, sharp snort of exasperation. 'What exactly do you think you're going to charge me with?' The man asked to no one. 'Murder?' He scoffed sarcastically to this idea. 'The kid did it to himself. I didn't do...anything.' These words came slowed and deliberate before he fell into silence, as if waiting for a reply that Ria knew would never come.

Her legs seemed to gain a life of their own. Willing her into motion towards the calamity held captive within that room. Ria's slowed approach was filled with apprehension and the sound of her feet moving forward towards the door of the glass interrogation room turned cage. And the man inside, turned villain. But as Ria's hand grasped the handle, she hesitated in opening the door to let herself in.

This man. Within the span of this investigation, he had somehow managed to strangely connect himself to her. Intertwine himself into the very fabric of her life. Her world. He'd gained a level of power over her, and, she didn't even know exactly when that had happened.

Had it been during Gillian's meeting with him? Where he'd apparently taken notice of her, noticing him. The first time she'd ever seen him in person. Their very first meeting.

Had it been at the club? Where he'd singled her out at the bar. Approached her. Picked her out of the crowd. Then...began slowly romancing her.

Had it been the morning after? Where she'd received an unsolicited call from him, not having realized that her defenses had been lowered to the point of unwittingly giving him her number the night before. When he'd asked about her well-being, courting her in hopes of receiving more of her time in the form of another rendezvous.

Had it been at his studio? Where he'd somehow managed to entice her into a date with him through coercion and the promise of giving her what she'd been sent for.

Had it been during the dinner date that followed? Where they'd indulged in food, drinks, and their shared gift of detecting deception. Truth and lies. When he'd continued to woo her. Romance and seduce her. When, without shame or a moment's hesitation, he'd willingly laid himself bare to her talent in the way he'd revealed the full extent and depths of his sexual desire for her. A ravenous, animal hunger for her body that he'd felt little need to hide from her.

Had it been right before this very interview? Where he'd managed to wear down her resolve with his undaunted persistence. When she found herself agreeing to at least entertain the idea of another date with him. An actual date with him.

Or...

Maybe...

He had been systematically taking little bits and pieces of her with each and every one of their encounters. Every single time he'd had her. Every time they'd been together. And Ria knew, without a doubt, that she needed to take back what was hers. What he'd stolen...before his just fate came to claim him and this inexplicable connection between them was severed. Forever. But she hesitated...opening this door. Because, knowing who she faced, she felt so very weak and powerless.

She remembered the last time she had ever felt that way.

And...she had promised herself that she would never again let a man have that level of power over her. Ever. Yet, here she was. A place in her mind where the line was blurred between victim and survivor. And she wasn't quite sure which one she was in this moment.

She wanted to be strong. To be able to retrieve the little bits and pieces that had been taken from her. Ria wanted to embrace the strength of being a survivor.

But...

Did that mean that she would have to acknowledge the weakness she felt at having first been made a victim?

Taking a cleansing breath through her nose, Ria slowly released it through her full, parted lips before finally turning the handle of the door to let herself in. And she saw how the man had moved to the far end of the room, his back to the door before swiftly turning towards her arrival. From the expression of his face, Ria could tell that he had been expecting Cal. Though when he saw her, his features soften and relaxed somewhat as he artfully constructed a more neutral expression.

"Ria?" The tone of his voice came to match the man's neutrality, though he kept his distance and stayed on his side of the interrogation room.

His vibrant, pale oceanic eyes searched her face. Lingered along her features, almost curiously so, before lowering themselves along her body back up to her face. Then, the smallest twitch of an alluring side smile played along his lips before they parted for him to speak.

"It doesn't look like you and I will be having those drinks tonight." He lowly murmured this in a playfully teasing tone, causing Ria to scowl at this little jest.

"Yeah, no." She quipped tersely. "We won't." This came uttered flatly from her full, Latina lips as the man's brows infinitesimally knit together.

"What's the matter?"

"I heard." She whispered. "Everything." Lips trembled over these words in restrained anger smothered in shame and regret. "Every single word you said."

"Oh..." This came through the deepening of his voice. "That..." He said in a nonchalant, monotonous drawl. "So..." This preceded the upturn of the corner of his lip in a suave, pleased-with-himself smile as he began to slowly make his way to her from across the room. "Now you know." He said. "Does it disappoint you?" He gave the small cant of the head as he moved ever closer towards her. "That I'm not the man you thought I was?"

"No." Ria whispered, finding her voice far weaker than she had intended with this admittance as her dark burnished gaze held exotic pale blue. "I'm disappointed because you're exactly the man I thought you were..." Her brows furrowed as the man continued his slowed, predatory pace towards her.

Those depthless pools of pale blue once again searched Ria's face with almost childlike curiosity. Though his devilishly handsome, beguiling features remained almost frighteningly without emotion of any kind as he stared at her. Regarding her, for a moment, in cool impassivity before he gave the quirk of a dark, finely groomed brow.

"...and..?" This one-word question came on bated breath, forcing Ria to admit to the truth she had tried so hard to avoid.

"And..." Ria sighed, lowing her dark gaze from that perforating stare to his treacherous lips. "...I wish that you weren't." And the faintest sound of a chuckle emanated from the man's chest through his throat.

"Mm..." He gave a passive hum through the titillating smile he offered her. "I see." The man murmured, taking another slowed step in her direction as his gaze roamed over her a moment. "It's good to know." He said with a small pause before his eyes found hers once more. "That I was right."

"Right about what?" Ria quipped bitterly as she held her ground against this man and his advances.

"You." He answered quietly, his eyes never leaving hers as he moved ever closer. "You see," This came a light whisper through thin, perfect lips. "I have a knack for knowing when someone hates me." He said. "I can tell that your boss hates me." He murmured lightly with another step that held all of the masculine confidence he had commanded the first time he had dared to approach her at the club. "And that little bitch 'supposedly' dating McCaffery?" He scoffed towards the deceased's lover, the woman who had struck him. "Yeah...she really hates me." His words came drenched in condescension laced in a level of pride over this fact before his voice lowered in contemplation. "The kid hated me, too." He crept ever closer to her, like a lethal predator stalking it's prey. "But you?" This came through an alluring cockeyed smirk. "You don't." He said, pausing mere inches from her now. "Hate me." And Ria gave herself over to a bitter snort of disbelief towards this man's ego.

"Wanna bet?" She countered haughtily through the scowl that shaped her features.

And the man. He laughed at this. Her futile attempt at protest.

"Please." This came a subdued, chuckled scoff. "Come on, Ria." He playfully chided her as those hypnotic eyes held her captive against the glass wall. "You don't hate me." He said. "You want to hate me." This came through the lowering of his voice to a whispered breath. "But...you don't." He said. "And judging by the look on your face..." He whispered, staring her down. "...you know that I'm right."

"Even if you are..." Ria gave a whispered hiss of agitation as she glared at him with a petulant expression. "Right." She said. "It doesn't change anything." And the man gave himself over to a chuckle that faded along a sigh as he bit along his lower lip with the slight hang of his head and a downward glance.

"No." He agreed with the shake of his head. "I suppose it doesn't." Eyes lifted from the floor to meet hers once more as he spoke.

"So..."

This singular utterance came low. Long and drawn out, as he braced himself with his left hand pressed against the opaque glass behind her. Those pale, oceanic eyes never leaving her in this sickeningly exhilarating stare down that caused her heart to race and her breath to grow thready, though she tried to hide it. Tried. And failed. And Ria saw how he enjoyed this. Witnessing her failure in the face of his advances. How he seemed so adept...a virtuoso, really...in eliciting a reaction from her. Whether she wanted to respond or not.

"I guess that's it then." This came whispered from his lips as he held her dark gaze, his expression breathtakingly impassive before the faintest lift at the corner of his lip trailed lazily along his next words. "...pity..." He said, his eyes lowering along her body before coming back up to meet her irritated expression. "Because you were the only one that seemed to really get me." Dark, thin, well-groomed brows knit together as he said this, staring her down with that probing gaze of his. "Being so much alike..." He whispered, leaning infinitesimally towards her as he lowered his voice. "Getting inside each other's heads..." The gap between his body and hers shrank as he effortlessly eased himself into her personal space. "Under each other's skin..." Ria glowered at him, tucking her chin defiantly with the scathing look she held. "You..." The man continued with indifference to the discomfort he caused her as he spoke. "Knowing exactly what I want." This came through lips shaped in a bewitching simper of a smile, his handsome, captivating face mere inches from her now as she felt the body heat between them come in waves. "Coming so close to actually giving it to me." She bit her lower lip along what she heard him say, his eyes overtly drifting there as the scowl deepening along her features with how profoundly his words affected her. "It's just such a shame that it has to end this way." He lamented almost ruefully through a sigh. "We would have been so good together."

"You really think it would have actually worked out between us?!" Ria retorted angrily towards this man's seemingly delusional fantasy of the two of them being together. "Seriously?!" And the man chuckled, the breath produced from his amusement tickling Ria's skin as he gave another alluring smile to her, leaning just a little closer.

"Absolutely not." He said. "I always knew it would end horribly between us." He admitted to this destructive outcome as he held her gaze, his eyes seemingly searching hers for a moment before he spoke again. "But..." This came a contemplative sigh through his nose. "...it would have been fun while it lasted."

"You know..." The man whispered over the brief, momentary pause that had befallen this conversation. "At dinner. When you'd said that having sex with me would have been a mistake." This intimate reminder caused Ria to drop her gaze downward and to the side as she looked away from him before her dark gaze captured movement in her peripheral. "A mistake that you'd end up regretting," This hushed tone reserved for lovers came paired with the gentlest touch of fingertips to her face as Ria felt the man almost tenderly command her gaze towards him with the same had that had been so swiftly raised in an attempt strike another woman across the face. "you and I both know that there was at least a part of you that still wanted to..." Their eyes met, and Ria absorbed the seriousness of his expression as he called her out on what they both knew to be true. "So, I have to wonder. When this is all over," His brows lightly furrowed in curiosity over the slowed pace of his words. "if...what you'll really end up regretting...is never knowing."

"Never knowing what?" Ria countered as she stared the man down angrily, though found her self slowly losing the strength and conviction she had wanted to arm herself with in this war against him.

"What we might have been after that night." He said. "Had you just stayed." The disarming warmth of his touch as his thumb gently grazed her cheek came so horribly offset with the way he looked at her with those frigid oceanic eyes. "All the endless possibilities."

"Please..." She breathed as she felt his thumb ghost along her trembling bottom lip. "Just stop."

"...you know what I think..?" He asked with a little smile before Ria felt his nose and lips brush along her cheek in order to move close enough to whisper in the sensitive shell of her ear.

Words that robbed her of breath as she listened. Words that would never make their way to anyone else but her. Meant only for her. A secret he shared with her. A raw revelation of herself before his face loomed mere inches from hers once more. Those eyes holding her attention to absorb her reaction to what he'd just told her. The befuddled heartbreak that etched itself along her features. And...Ria saw his expression shape into something that looked almost like empathy towards her pain.

Almost.

Yet the reflected mirror image of herself that she had once seen in him was shattered with what he had done. The illusion of him faded to reveal the horrible truth. That she had never been able to see him clearly because of who he was and what he reflected back to her. Until now, when the glass had been shattered. And these jagged shards of who he really was shred her into oblivion as she felt them crumble and fall around her.

And, as if intending to ease her pain, he brought their lips together in a fleeting moment of genuine warmth and tenderness. This kiss. It was sweet. And soft. And warm. And everything Ria knew this man wasn't. She knew he wasn't kind, benevolent, or tender. No. Not this man. He was violence. And sex. Balanced on the edge of the blade of a knife.

So, the unexpected sweetness of this moment caused her full Latina lips to part against his in a sigh, and the man took this as invitation to deepen the kiss. Their lips working against each other as she felt her body slowly pressed up against the glass before the palm of her hand found itself flat against his chest to lay claim to some small semblance of her personal space.

Space between the thinning line between him...and her sanity.

The tanned mahogany of her skin came in contrast to the crisp, clean white of his button-down business shirt before the pale hand that once lay against her cheek came at rest over her own. The two breathing as one, so close to each other as he held her hand against his chest where she had placed it for distance between them.

"What was that..?" Ria breathed weakly, avoiding the man's gaze for fear of seeing herself reflected in his eyes as he whispered his response.

"Only what I'd wanted to do during dinner at the hotel." He replied quietly. "...what I should have done..." This came uttered lowly through the deafening silence that followed before her name came whispered from his lips. "Ria..." Thick, dark lashes fluttered against her waning resolve as delicate brows knit together under the weight and fatigue of this battle she had tried to wage against him.

"Kris..."

Ria heard the man give an audible sigh in her ear in response to the way his name had so helplessly passed her lips. And the mere sound of this auditory exhalation seemed to so completely unravel her thoughts before this bizarre, profoundly intimate moment was shattered through the harsh intrusion of a raised voice from just outside of the room.

"Oi!"

This bellowed announcement caused the man to drop his hand from Ria's own before he gave a small half step back from her. Separating himself from her as her own hand fell limply to her side, Ria watched those pale blue eyes look right past her and through the open door of the glass interrogation room.

"I've already told you not to muck about with my staff!" Cal harshly chastised towards the scene he'd walked in on as Agent Reynolds stood next to him with a similar expression of disapproval, yet the man merely offered an infinitesimal smirk of a smile.

"Relax, Cal." The man uttered lowly, meeting Cal's gaze head on with that same condescending cockeyed smirk. "She's the one who came in to see me..." And Ria was stunned and ashamed at how this revelation of truth made her feel so strangely betrayed.

The way he had so readily thrown her under the proverbial bus, in front of her boss of all people, felt like such a brutal slap to the face. And, though it had admittedly been the truth, it still hurt. That the man had so heartlessly exposed her to leave her bare. Vulnerable. Naked. And Ria couldn't help but stare at him as he looked right through her out the open door.

As if she were nothing.

"I'm sure she did." She heard Cal quip bitterly from just outside of the interrogation room as she held herself against the protective veil of opaque glass. "Popular man like you," His voice came drenched in snarkish sarcasm and that British accent. "makes all sorts of friends, right?" Ria heard him say. "Well, here's another one for you." She silently listened as Cal spoke, her eyes remaining fixated on the man's eerily dispassioned expression. "I'd like you to meet Agent Ben Reynolds. Of the FBI."

"The FBI?" The man scoffed, though seemed unconcerned about the implications of Agent Reynolds' involvement. "Really, Calvin?" He said with the imperceptible lift of the corner of his lip as he took another small step back from Ria before moving towards the open door.

And as the man casually sauntered into the outer room of the computer lab towards Cal and Agent Reynolds, Ria pushed herself off of the glass wall and slowly slunk towards the threshold. Her gaze burrowed into the man's back as she heard him speak.

"You see?" Ria heard this lowly murmured from the man's lips as he spoke to Cal in a cocky tone. "I just knew that you'd gotten too close to this." His voice came cold and impassive, yet smug in his chastisement. "That you'd made the kid's suicide personal." Ria absorbed the brief pause, the silence heavy and oppressive as she watched her employer fixate his eyes along the music producer's face before the man spoke again.

Quietly.

Just above a whisper.

"Still wonder why that is..." The man curiously mused to himself as Ria witnessed Cal's lips form a taut line of repressed anger.

"Agent Reynolds." Cal dramatically addressed The Lightman Group's government liaison to deflect the man's goading nature. "I trust I don't have to tell you to do whatever it is I'm bloody paying you for?"

"With this guy?" Agent Reynolds scoffed as Ria watched him size up the band's music producer, his expression laced in disgust towards the man. "Hell no." And Cal gave the audible pop of his lips.

"Good." Cal said with the side-nod of the head. "Right then. Off with you, and take the bloody trash with you."

With that, Ben Reynolds stepped forwards towards the man to claim him, and Ria found herself holding firm to the threshold of the glass room. Watching as the man slowly followed Agent Reynolds, led out of the room before he paused briefly to glance over his shoulder. Not at Cal. But at her. And as their eyes met, he smiled.

"Bye, Ria."

And just like that, he was gone. Having left Ria with yet another missing piece in the form of a stolen kiss and thoughts of what could have been. And it was in that fleeting moment, when he looked at her and smiled, that Ria understood. What it must have felt like.

The allure.

The seduction.

The sense of ambiguous duality.

The push and pull.

The loss of self.

The madness and chaos.

The confusion.

The doubt and second guessing.

The horrific sense of violation.

The pain of being so completely taken by this grand illusion...despite having known better.

The heartache.

And...finally...the sudden but inevitable sense of betrayal.

In that fleeting moment when he smiled at her, just before turning away, Ria felt it. In the way her entire world had just crumbled and fallen apart before her very eyes. And it was then, in that very moment, that she was absolutely certain of one thing.

She had gotten too close.

...to him...

An exquisite creature, more animal than man.

This beautifully grotesque monster.

Her 'almost' lover.

And Ria absolutely hated herself for this.

Standing on the cusp between illusion and reality, she felt herself grow paralyzingly numb with the absence of him. Ria finally understood, in some small part, what the young man must have endured. What he must have felt. His desperate search for an exit. An escape. Some way out of this life.

And...

She understood, in part, why he had ultimately decided to take his own life.

A/N: Okay. Another note! So, I have to share some levity with all of you. And...if you know me...or are getting to know me...you know that this bit of humor from yours truly will be a bit messed. But, recently, while working on this story, something quite funny struck me. So, if any of you have ever watched Futurama, you may know what I'm talking about. Picture it. In the episode 'How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back' there's Hermes. Standing on top of the Planet Express building screaming 'I'm gonna jump!' Then, off in the distance on the sidewalk below, you hear Bender yell back 'Do a flip!' Now, HOW exactly is this relevant to my work?

...you tell me...

And I digress... Aaaaaanywho! Thank you all for reading this latest update! Honestly, I hadn't really planned on an entire chapter dedicated to Ria and Kris after the interrogation. Which prolonged the story by a chapter. But, I really felt it was necessary to give this thing between them some sort of closure. So I hope you all enjoyed that! That being said, a special thank you goes out to my dear friend 'StringInRepair' for her help with this particular chapter. I frequently use her as a consultant on these type of chapters, and she has never once let me down!

And finally, thank you all for your generous support of this story! For my first time in this fandom, you have all been incredibly kind to me. So, thank you for that!

P.S. If I happened to offend and or otherwise piss anyone off with this chapter. I'm sorry (not sorry).