Aria
I stood outside Damien's secret apartment at 7:55 PM, my laptop bag slung over my shoulder, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
Lucas had wanted to come with me. We'd argued about it for an hour before I left his apartment.
"He could be working with Sienna," Lucas had said. "This could be a trap."
"It's not. I know Damien."
"You knew the Damien who was being manipulated. You don't know what he's become since then."
He had a point. But I'd made up my mind.
"I have to do this alone," I'd told him. "If I walk in there with backup, he'll think I don't trust him. And if I can't trust him enough to have this conversation, then there's no point in any of this."
Lucas had finally relented, but only after making me promise to text him every thirty minutes. If I didn't, he was calling the police.
Now, standing in this hallway, I wondered if he'd been right to worry.
I knocked before I could talk myself out of it.
Damien opened the door immediately. He looked worse than he had yesterday—hair disheveled, tie gone, shirt wrinkled like he'd slept in it. Dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn't slept at all.
"Aria." My name came out like a prayer. "Thank you for coming."
"I have forty-five minutes," I said, walking past him into the apartment. "Don't waste them."
The apartment looked different than I remembered from the keys he'd given me yesterday. More lived-in. There was a half-empty bottle of scotch on the kitchen counter, papers scattered everywhere, his laptop open on the dining table showing what looked like financial reports.
He'd been working. Desperately trying to figure out what was wrong with his company.
Good. That would make this easier.
"I got your text," Damien said, closing the door but staying by it, like he was afraid to come closer. "You said you know what Sienna's planning?"
"I know everything." I set my laptop on the table. "But before I show you, I need you to understand something. What I'm about to tell you is going to change everything. Your relationship with Sienna, your trust in your advisors, your understanding of the last three years. Are you ready for that?"
"I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "But I need to know the truth. I can't keep living in whatever lie I've been living in."
"Okay." I opened my laptop and pulled up the first file. "Then let's start at the beginning."
I showed him the contract between Sienna and his grandfather. Watched his face go pale as he read it.
"This is... this can't be real," he whispered.
"It's real. Your grandfather paid Sienna two million dollars to break up with you three years ago. And then he forced you into a contract marriage with me—someone specifically selected because I had no family, no connections, no power to fight back when the time came to divorce me."
"He wouldn't do that. He loved me. He wanted what was best for me."
"He wanted what was best for his empire," I corrected. "And he thought that meant controlling every aspect of your life, including who you married."
I pulled up the next file. "But here's where it gets interesting. Sienna didn't just take the money and disappear. She's been planning her return for three years. And she's not alone."
I showed him the evidence Lucas and I had compiled. Victoria Castellano's involvement. James Chen's role as Sienna's fixer. The systematic sabotage of Ashford Technologies over the past eight months.
With each revelation, Damien's face grew more ashen.
"James?" he finally said. "James has been my attorney for five years. He's been at every major negotiation, every board meeting—"
"And he's been reporting everything to Sienna," I finished. "Look at this."
I pulled up the email chain Lucas had hacked from James Chen's private server. Messages between Chen and Sienna going back six months, detailing every move Damien made, every vulnerability in the company, every opportunity for sabotage.
Damien sank into a chair, his hands shaking. "Jesus Christ."
"There's more." I pulled up Sienna's financial records. "In the past eight months, Sienna has been making strategic investments. All in companies that compete directly with Ashford Technologies. She's been positioning herself to profit from your company's downfall."
"So this was never about love. About us getting back together."
"No." I met his eyes. "This was always about destroying you. Sienna's working for Victoria Castellano. The Castellanos have been trying to acquire your company for years, and you've always refused. So they hired Sienna to destroy it from the inside. Then they'll buy it for pennies on the dollar."
Damien was quiet for a long time, staring at the evidence on my laptop screen.
"How did you find all this?" he finally asked.
"I'm a digital forensics analyst. Or I was, before you convinced me to give it all up." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Turns out those skills are pretty useful when you need to take down a corporate espionage ring."
"Aria, I—" He stopped, seemed to struggle with what to say. "I'm so sorry. For all of it. For believing Sienna's lies about you. For the divorce. For never seeing what you were capable of."
"Your apology doesn't change what happened."
"I know." He stood up, and I saw the vulnerability in his eyes that I'd never seen before. "But I need you to understand—I thought I was protecting myself. I thought keeping distance between us, keeping walls up, would prevent me from getting hurt. I didn't realize I was just making it easier for Sienna to manipulate me."
"She told you I was a gold-digger."
"She had evidence. Fake evidence, apparently." He pulled out his phone and showed me. "Look at this. She sent me this six weeks ago."
It was a series of photos. Me having lunch with a man I didn't recognize. Me laughing at something he said. Me hugging him goodbye.
"That's Marcus Reeves," I said, recognizing him now. "From the tech security conference three months ago. We were on a panel together. We had lunch to discuss a potential collaboration between our companies."
"Sienna told me he was your secret boyfriend. That you'd been seeing him behind my back for months." Damien's voice was raw. "She had bank records showing you'd been receiving money from him. Hotel receipts. Text messages."
"All fake." I took his phone and pulled up the metadata on the photos. "Look at this. These photos were edited. The timestamps were changed. The geolocation data was spoofed. This entire narrative was fabricated."
Damien stared at the evidence. "I'm such a fool."
"Yes, you are." I closed his phone. "But you're not the only one she's fooled. Sienna's been doing this for years. Destroying people, ruining lives, and walking away clean every time."
"Not this time." Damien's expression hardened. "What do we need to do to stop her?"
"We need to move fast. My source says Sienna's accelerating her timeline. She knows I'm investigating. She sent me a threat this afternoon." I pulled up the text from Sienna. "She's planning something. Something big. And we have less than forty-eight hours to figure out what it is and stop her."
"What could she be planning that's worse than what she's already done?"
"I don't know. But my source has been accurate so far." I hesitated. "There's something else you need to know. The source who's been feeding me information—they sent me an email this afternoon. They want to meet."
"When?"
"Tonight. Midnight. Pier 7." I met his eyes. "And I'm going."
"Absolutely not. That's a trap."
"Maybe. But it's also our best chance at finding out what Sienna's final move is before she makes it." I stood up. "I'm going whether you approve or not. The question is, are you going to try to stop me?"
We stared at each other across the table.
"I can't stop you," Damien said quietly. "I've learned that much. You're not the woman I married anymore. You're stronger. More dangerous. And you don't need my permission for anything."
"No, I don't." I started packing up my laptop. "But I am giving you a choice. Help me destroy Sienna and save your company. Or don't. Either way, this ends soon."
"Aria, wait." He moved closer, and I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Fear. Real, genuine fear. "Let me come with you. To the pier. You shouldn't go alone."
"I won't be alone. Lucas is coming with me."
"Lucas Pierce?" Damien's jaw tightened. "Your old mentor."
"Yes. The man I walked away from three years ago because you needed a wife." I couldn't keep the edge out of my voice. "He's been helping me investigate. He's been there for me when no one else was."
"Are you—" Damien stopped himself. "Are you involved with him?"
"That's none of your business."
"You're right. It's not." He stepped closer. "But I need to know anyway. Because if there's even a chance that you and I could—"
"Could what?" I interrupted. "Get back together? Pretend the last four days didn't happen? Act like you didn't throw me away the moment someone more suitable came along?"
"I made a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life."
"Yes, you did. But that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you." I grabbed my laptop bag. "I'm helping you destroy Sienna because it's the right thing to do. Because she's a monster who needs to be stopped. Not because I want you back."
"Do you hate me?"
The question caught me off guard.
"No," I admitted. "I wish I did. It would be so much easier if I hated you."
"Then what do you feel?"
I looked at him—really looked at him—this man I'd loved for three years. The man who'd broken my heart and was now trying to piece it back together.
"I feel angry. I feel betrayed. I feel stupid for ever believing in you." I stepped closer. "But I also feel sorry for you. Because you're just another one of Sienna's victims. Just like me."
"I don't want your pity."
"Good. Because I'm not offering it." I moved toward the door. "I'll text you after the meeting at the pier. If my source has actionable intelligence, I'll share it with you. Until then, keep acting normal. Don't let Sienna know you're onto her."
"Aria, wait." Damien caught my arm. "There's something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you three years ago."
I looked down at his hand on my arm, then back up at his face. "What?"
"I love you."
The words hung in the air between us.
"You don't get to say that," I said, my voice shaking. "Not after everything. Not now."
"I know. But it's true." His hand tightened on my arm. "I've loved you since our second anniversary. Maybe even before that. I just didn't know how to admit it. Didn't know how to let myself feel it. And by the time I realized what I had, I'd already thrown it away."
"Damien—"
"You don't have to say anything. You don't have to forgive me. You don't even have to believe me." He let go of my arm. "But I needed you to know. Before you walk into whatever danger is waiting at that pier. Before Sienna makes her final move. I needed you to know that you're not just a contract wife I'm trying to save. You're the woman I love. And I will do whatever it takes to protect you."
I stared at him, my emotions a tangled mess. Part of me wanted to believe him. Wanted to fall into his arms and pretend the last four days had been a nightmare.
But I'd learned my lesson about fairy tales.
"Actions, not words," I said quietly. "Show me you've changed. Help me destroy Sienna. Protect your employees and your company. Be the man you claim you want to be."
"And then?"
"And then we'll see." I stepped back, needing distance. "But Damien? Don't say you love me again unless you're prepared to prove it. Because I'm done accepting pretty words without substance."
I turned to leave, but he called after me.
"Aria?"
I paused at the door.
"Be careful tonight. Please."
"I will." I looked back at him one last time. "And Damien? If something happens to me, if Sienna or Victoria makes a move—there are dead man's switches in place. Everything we've found gets released automatically. The FBI, the SEC, every news organization in the country. Make sure Sienna knows that."
"You're using yourself as bait."
"I'm using myself as insurance." I opened the door. "There's a difference."
I walked out before he could argue, before I could see the fear on his face and let it weaken my resolve.
My phone buzzed as I got in the elevator. Lucas.
Status check. You okay?
I'm fine. Leaving now. Meet you at your place in 20.
Good. And Aria? I'm proud of you.
I smiled despite everything. Lucas had always known exactly what to say.
The elevator descended, and I used the time to center myself. What I'd told Damien was true—I couldn't forgive him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But I'd also told him the truth about something else.
I didn't hate him.
And that terrified me almost as much as what was waiting at Pier 7.