*Damian's POV*
The first headline reached me before the sun did.
I was already awake, sitting at the edge of the bed, listening to the house breathe. The coastline had a way of making silence feel deliberate, like it was holding something back. My phone vibrated once. Then again. Then it did not stop.
DAMIAN COLE SIGHTED ALIVE IN ROMANIA?
EXCLUSIVE: THE BILLIONAIRE WHO "DIED" MAY HAVE FAKED IT ALL
SOURCES CLAIM COLE IS HIDING AFTER DEADLY SCANDAL
I did not open the links. I did not need to. I knew the shape of this storm before it broke. Someone had finally pulled the pin.
By the time I stood and walked to the window, the estate was already changing. Cars I did not recognize idled down the narrow road. Drones buzzed higher than the cliffs, pretending to be birds. The sea no longer felt like a shield. It felt like a wall.
They knew.
Not everything. Not the truth. But enough to turn speculation into sport.
I tightened my grip on the phone until the screen dimmed. Two years of silence undone by one calculated leak. The timing wasn't accidental. It never was. Something had shifted—movement where there should have been none. The memoir had been getting too close. The journal had become too dangerous.
I went downstairs and found Aria already at the dining table, laptop open, coffee untouched. Her face was pale in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.
"They're here," she said before I could speak. "Not on the property yet, but they will be."
I nodded once. "They won't breach the gates. Not legally."
She turned the screen toward me. It was worse than the headlines.
Her name was trending.
Not as a journalist. Not as a writer.
As leverage.
Anonymous accounts had surfaced overnight, threading her bylines into speculation. Who is she really writing for? How long has she known? Did she help him disappear? Old photos had been scraped, captions twisted. A private address from years ago was already circulating in comments before moderators tried and failed to contain it.
"They're asking me for statements," she said quietly. "And threatening me if I don't give one."
The room felt smaller. Anger rose fast and sharp, but anger was a luxury. This was not chaos. This was pressure. Someone wanted her scared enough to make a mistake.
"Have you left the house?" I asked.
"No."
"Good. You won't."
She met my eyes then. Not defiant. Not frightened. Focused. "This was always coming, wasn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "Just not like this."
Outside, a shout carried over the wind. A reporter testing how close they could get before security responded. The estate had become a cage overnight. Every window a lens. Every sound a potential headline.
"I didn't leak this," Aria said, as if the thought needed air.
"I know."
The leak was too imprecise to be hers. Too theatrical. It had the fingerprints of someone who wanted attention, not truth. Someone who wouldn't even let him be dead in peace.
Someone who i underestimated.
By midday, the internet had decided I was either a ghost or a fraud. There was no room for a third option. That was fine. Extremes made people careless.
Security briefed me in the study. Increased patrols. Legal teams activated. Statements drafted and discarded. I listened, nodded, dismissed them. None of that mattered yet. Optics were noise. Movement was what mattered.
When the door closed, Aria was still standing by the shelves, her arms folded tight against herself.
"They're escalating," she said. "I just got a message that says if I want this to stop, I should tell them where you are."
"Delete it."
"I did. There were ten more."
I crossed the room slowly. "Listen to me. They're not after answers. They're after access. Fear gives them both. You don't engage. You don't respond. You don't leave this house without me."
Her jaw set. "I'm not a liability."
"No," I said. "You're the reason this just became dangerous."
She looked up sharply.
"They didn't leak this because I'm alive," I continued. "They leaked it because you're here. Because you're writing. Because paper lasts longer than rumors."
Silence stretched between us, thick with understanding.
"You knew this would put me in the line of fire," she said.
"Yes."
"And you let it happen anyway."
"I prepared for it," I corrected. "There's a difference."
I went to the safe behind the panel and opened it. Inside were folders she had not seen yet. Bank statements layered with timestamps. Audio transcripts marked and verified. Copies of correspondence routed through shell addresses. Names she had circled in the journal now appearing in black ink with numbers attached.
Her breath caught.
"This is what I've been building," I said. "Quietly. Methodically. While the world mourned a man who was still breathing."
She stepped closer, eyes scanning the documents. "This isn't just proof of survival. This is proof of betrayal."
"Yes."
"And you were waiting for the right moment to release it."
"I was waiting for the right vessel."
She looked at me then, truly looked. "The memoir."
"Not a confession," I said. "A record. One that shows motive, access, and consequence. One that connects the crash to the accounts, the accounts to the people, and the people to power structures they thought were invisible."
Her voice was steady when she spoke. "They'll destroy you if this goes public."
"They already tried."
"And me?"
"You'll be attacked. Discredited. Followed. They'll dig until they find something to twist."
She exhaled slowly. "You're asking me to light the match."
"No," I said. "I'm asking you to choose whether the fire exists at all."
Outside, the shouting grew louder. A helicopter cut through the air, low and deliberate. The trap had closed, but not around me. Around the story.
He chuckled softly. "They're really this interested in my case, huh?"
"This leak," Aria said, "it forces your hand."
"Yes. And theirs."
She studied the documents again, the architecture of ruin laid bare. "If I write this, I can't protect you from what comes next."
"I'm not asking you to."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then history will bury me twice."
The truth was simple and brutal. I had survived the crash, but I had not survived the aftermath. This was not about reclaiming a company or a name. It was about exposing the machinery that had decided my life was expendable. About ensuring Renia's death was not filed under misfortune.
The estate gates clanged as security repositioned. Somewhere beyond them, the world waited with cameras raised, hungry for a version of me they could sell.
I turned to Aria, the last quiet person in a room filling with noise.
"If you write this," I said, "there's no turning back."
She didn't answer right away.
She didn't need to.
The trap had been set.