I stood on the rooftop of the Aria Global HQ, the wind howling around the glass spires like a wounded animal. In my hand, I gripped Lucian's wedding ring a cold, platinum circle that felt more like a handcuff than a promise.
Downstairs, the building was in chaos. Lucian's men were tearing apart the executive suite, but they were looking for a woman who had already shifted into the shadows.
"Leo," I whispered into my earpiece. "I'm in the mainframe. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me the signature on the Project Phoenix authorization isn't what I think it is."
There was a long, agonizing silence on the other end. I could hear Leo's frantic typing, a frantic staccato against the backdrop of the city's roar.
"Aria..." Leo's voice was small, cracked with pity. "The encryption on the 'Grandfather' files... it's not Thorne tech. It's Vance tech. The authorization for the body double wasn't signed by Lucian's father. It was signed by Silas Vance."
The world didn't just tilt; it disintegrated.
My grandfather. The man who had taken me in when my mother "died." The man who had promised to help me take down Mark. He hadn't been protecting me. He had been packaging me.
"He didn't want a granddaughter," I realized, a cold, numb sensation spreading from my chest to my limbs. "He wanted a clean legacy. He needed the Vance bloodline to merge with the Thorne empire to settle the 25-year-old debt, but he knew I was too 'unpredictable.' So he planned to replace me with someone who would obey."
"Aria, get out of there," Leo urged. "If Silas knows you've accessed those files, he won't just send security. He'll send the 'Cleaners.'"
I didn't move. I looked down at the ring in my hand. Lucian knew. He had to have known. Was that why he wanted the chip? Not to protect his father, but to hide the fact that he was participating in my erasure?
"I'm not leaving yet," I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, flat tone. "I'm going to the Manor."
The Vance Manor: 3:00 AM
The estate was eerily quiet. I didn't use the front gates. I used the old tunnel in the wine cellar the one my mother had shown me in a dream-like memory from my childhood.
I slipped into the study, the room smelling of old books and expensive tobacco. Silas was sitting in his armchair, his back to me, staring at a portrait of my mother.
"I knew you'd come back, Aria," he said, his voice calm, as if we were discussing the weather. "You always were the most stubborn of the Vance women."
"Stubborn?" I stepped into the light, the tactical knife gleaming in my hand. "Is that what you call someone who refuses to be replaced by a doll? Why, Grandpa? I built Mark's company for him. I came back to you when I was broken. Wasn't that enough loyalty for you?"
Silas turned his chair slowly. He didn't look guilty. He looked disappointed.
"Loyalty is a feeling, Aria. I needed a guarantee," he said, tapping his cane. "The Thorne-Vance merger is the only thing that keeps our family from bankruptcy. Your mother discovered the truth that our wealth was built on sand. She tried to ruin us. I couldn't let you do the same. Project Phoenix was a safety net. If you married Lucian and behaved, the double would never have been used. But you... you had to go digging."
"You were going to kill me," I whispered.
"I was going to retire you to a quiet life in Switzerland," Silas countered. "But now... now you have that chip. And Lucian is losing his mind trying to find you. You've become a liability to both families."
He pressed a button on his desk. The doors to the study locked with a heavy metallic click.
"Give me the chip, Aria. Let the double take your place at the wedding tomorrow. You can live out your days in comfort, and the Vance name will remain untarnished."
"The Vance name is already covered in filth," I said, stepping toward him.
Suddenly, the windows of the study shattered.
Black-clad figures swung in on ropes not Vance security. These men had the Thorne crest on their shoulders.
And in the center of them stood Lucian.
He looked at me, his eyes bloodshot, his suit torn. He didn't look at Silas. He looked only at me.
"Aria, get away from him," Lucian commanded, his gun aimed directly at my grandfather's head.
"Why, Lucian?" I asked, a bitter tear finally escaping. "So you can take me back to your lab? So you can make sure the 'Project Phoenix' girl is ready for the altar?"
Lucian's hand shook the first sign of weakness I had ever seen from him. "I didn't know about the double until tonight. My father and your grandfather made that deal before we were born. I was trying to find the chip to destroy the evidence of the project. I was trying to save you from them!"
"He's lying, Aria!" Silas roared. "He's a Thorne! He wants the power just as much as I do!"
I stood between the two most powerful men in my life, both of them claiming to "save" me while holding the matches to my funeral pyre.
"I don't believe either of you," I said.
I pulled a small flash-drive from my pocket the decoy I'd prepared with Leo. I held it over the fireplace, the flames licking the air.
"Drop your guns, or the Black Box goes into the fire," I threatened. "And with it, every secret that keeps your empires standing."
The room went still. Lucian lowered his weapon, his eyes pleading. Silas reached out, his face pale.
"Don't," Lucian whispered.
I didn't drop it. I smiled a cold, beautiful, and terrifying smile.
"Leo, execute the 'Inferno' protocol," I whispered into my collar.
Suddenly, every screen in the room and every screen in the city flickered. The Project Phoenix files, the Thorne bank transfers, and the Vance corruption logs began to upload to the public internet in real-time.
"If I'm going down," I said, backing toward the shattered window, "I'm taking every single one of you with me."
I dived out of the window into the dark gardens below just as the study erupted into a frenzy of gunfire and shouts.
I wasn't just a ghost anymore. I was the girl who had set the world on fire.