Chapter 10: The First Strike
Aria is done playing defense. With her name under attack, her loyalty questioned, and her silence mistaken for submission, she does something no one expects: she fights back—publicly, and on her own terms. But making a move without Kade's approval comes with consequences... even if the results change everything.
The studio lights were hot.
Aria sat in a tailored navy suit—minimal makeup, hair pulled back in a no-nonsense twist—and stared directly into the lens of the national news network's live morning broadcast.
Across from her, the anchor cleared her throat nervously.
"Miss Linh, we appreciate you agreeing to speak with us on such short notice. Especially considering the… scrutiny you're under."
Aria smiled. It was clean. Sharp.
"No problem. I've been quiet long enough."
The first question came fast.
"Was your interaction with Felix Montclair—captured in the now-infamous photograph—an indication of tension within your engagement to Mr. Ryuu?"
Aria's answer was calm.
"No. It was an indication that people will always interpret a woman's smile as submission, her silence as guilt, and her presence as threat if she doesn't apologize for taking up space."
The anchor blinked.
"I—sorry?"
Aria turned fully to the camera.
"I am not an accessory to Kade Ryuu. I am not a scandal. I am not a cautionary tale. I am a woman who was offered a contract—and who turned that contract into leverage."
"And what do you say to critics who claim your relationship is a PR fabrication?"
"I say," Aria said, voice steady, "that if it were a fabrication, I wouldn't have the power to sit here without permission."
There was silence in the studio. Just long enough for it to be real.
Aria held the camera's gaze.
"And to the person who leaked that photo—Felix, or whoever handed it to the tabloids—I hope you enjoyed your fifteen seconds. Because I'm just getting started."
Kade saw it from his office.
The TV in the corner was muted, but the closed captioning was enough.
He didn't sit.
He just stood there, jacket off, phone in hand, ignoring the board notifications rolling in.
The PR team was panicking. His communications director had already called twice.
He didn't answer.
He watched Aria calmly dismantle the narrative, claim control, and paint herself as both target and tactician.
And the thing that disturbed him most wasn't that she hadn't warned him.
It was that she didn't need to.
Back in the studio, the anchor finally cleared her throat.
"Well. I think that's all the time we have—"
Aria stood, removed her mic, and offered a handshake with a smile that could slice steel.
"I always make time when people start using my name without asking," she said. "Let that be the last time."
By the time she reached the car, her phone had twenty-two missed calls.
Kade's wasn't one of them.
He didn't call.
He was already waiting.
She found him in the penthouse library.
He was standing by the window, sleeves rolled, jaw tight, a half-drunk glass of scotch in one hand and his phone—silent and blinking—in the other.
He didn't turn when she walked in.
"You hijacked a national broadcast," he said quietly. "Without clearing it. Without telling me. Without backup."
"I didn't need backup," Aria said.
"I didn't say you did," he replied.
She stopped several feet away.
"I needed to speak before someone else rewrote my name again."
He turned then. Slowly.
And instead of the fury she expected, what she saw in his face was worse.
Restraint.
"I warned you," he said. "That attention comes with a price."
"I've been paying that price since I was twenty years old."
Kade said nothing.
"I walked into that studio knowing it could backfire," she continued. "Knowing you'd see it. Knowing you'd be furious."
"I'm not furious."
She hesitated. "No?"
He walked toward her.
"I'm aware that what you did just saved our public image. Our stocks are up. You shifted sympathy back in your direction. You reframed the scandal without pointing fingers."
He stopped inches away.
"But you didn't include me."
Aria met his eyes.
"That's the point. I didn't need to."
Silence.
The air between them was thick with tension—but not rage.
It was something else. Something more dangerous.
A mutual awareness.
"You're not my property, Aria," he said finally.
She laughed, once—quiet and bitter.
"That's new."
"No. That's honest." His voice dropped. "I brought you into this to regain control. What I didn't realize was that you'd make it your game."
She didn't move. Didn't blink.
"I'm not asking for your approval."
"I know," he said. "You've already taken it."
He stepped back.
Put the glass down.
Then turned to her—not as a CEO. Not as a man fighting shadows.
But as something unarmored.
"What do you want, Aria?"
She paused.
Then said, clearly:
"To stop surviving you."