Two weeks had passed since Aria discovered the photo of her cousin Amelia in Elena Voss' room, and not a day went by without the image haunting her. The more she tried to ignore it, the more the questions gnawed at her. How did Amelia know Elena? And why did Amelia disappear shortly after Elena's tragic death?
That morning, sunlight streamed into the bedroom as Aria stirred awake. Damian was already gone, likely buried in his usual sea of early meetings. She dressed quickly in a short floral gown that stopped at her mid-thigh—practical, she thought, for a warm Monday morning—and headed downstairs.
Damian was already seated at the dining table with his coffee, flipping through his tablet. He looked up when she walked in, but his eyes lingered a beat too long.
"Good morning," Aria said, taking her seat.
"Morning," he replied curtly, then added, "Jaxon won't be going with you today. I need him at the office. Another guard, Mikhail will follow you."
"That's fine," she answered, reaching for a piece of toast. For a moment, it felt like a normal morning.
But just as she rose to leave, Damian's voice sliced through the air.
"Wait. Go change."
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
"That gown. Go Change it."
She looked down at herself, frowning. "What do you mean by go change it. It's just a dress. What's wrong with it?"
"It's short," he said, his tone steely.
"It's not that short," she muttered, folding her arms.
Damian stood, slowly, and walked toward her. He didn't stop until they inches apart, his towering presence making her throat dry. His gaze was dark, intense.
"You will go upstairs," he said quietly but firmly, "and change. I'm not letting you step out of this house looking like that."
Aria's heart hammered, but she refused to let it show. "I'm not one of your employees. You don't get to order me around."
"I do when you're carrying my last name."
She stared at him for a long second, then turned on her heel and stomped back upstairs, muttering, "Controlling freak."
When she came back down, she was wearing a plain white dress that fell to her knees. She walked right past him without a word, but her glare said enough.
Meanwhile, Damian was already at his office with Jaxon. Papers shuffled, and screens blinked. But Jaxon's silence cut through it all. He looked troubled.
"You're unusually quiet," Damian noted, pouring himself a glass of water.
"There's something I need to show you," Jaxon said grimly. He handed Damian a slim black folder. "I went through some of Elena's private files again, like you asked."
Damian opened the folder. Inside were old printouts, some heavily annotated. His eyes narrowed at the one on top.
A record of frequent transactions to a private rehab center on the island. Elena's name was listed as the emergency contact… for a woman named Amelia Monroe.
Damian's breath caught.
"Amelia Finn?" he repeated. "Who is she?"
Jaxon exhaled. "I don't know yet. But she's connected to Elena—deeply. And here's the part that doesn't make sense." He pulled out a letter, the handwriting familiar. Elena's. "It's a note. Written months before she… before the incident. She was worried. She wrote that 'Amelia's silence is dangerous. She knows too much. And I don't know how long I can protect her—or myself.'"
The room turned cold.
Damian's mind reeled. He had always believed Elena's fall into ruin was the fault of one person—Aria. But now… this?
"Why didn't she tell me?" he muttered, staring at the letter.
"Maybe she was protecting you," Jaxon said. "Or maybe… there was more to Elena than you ever knew."
Damian's hands clenched the paper as doubt slithered in, sharp and cold. What else had his sister kept from him? And who the hell was Amelia Finn really?
That night, Damian found himself in Elena's old room for the first time in months. Dust had gathered along the windowsills, but her scent still lingered faintly in the air.
He opened a locked drawer in her vanity, using the key Jaxon had recovered.
Inside was a diary.
The last page was torn—violently.
But on the page before it, in rushed, shaky handwriting, Elena had scribbled:
"She said if I told anyone, everything would burn. But I can't keep this secret anymore. If anything happens to me… look for the girl with the silver ring. Amelia knows what really happened that night."
Damian's blood turned to ice.
The lies he believed for years suddenly didn't feel so solid anymore.