(Ari's POV)
The city smells like rain and regret.
I stand on the cracked sidewalk outside my brother's apartment building in a neighborhood that's been fading for decades. The brick is stained with graffiti and water marks. This is where bright things come to dim. This is where Leo lives.
My knuckles ache from how tightly I'm clutching my purse strap. Inside, folded against my wallet, is a printout of Clause 7. My talisman. My reason.
I need to see a friendly face. Even a broken one.
I take the stairs to the third floor, the air thick with the smell of old cooking and mildew. My heart thuds a sick rhythm against my ribs. I haven't told him. About the contract. About the marriage. How do you tell your big brother, the one who used to carry you on his shoulders, that you've sold yourself to the devil for a chance at the truth?
I knock on the door marked 3B. Scuffling sounds come from inside. A muffled curse. Then the door swings open.
"Ari?" Leo blinks at me, his eyes wide and glassy. He's wearing a stained white t-shirt and sweatpants. He looks thinner than he did two weeks ago, his handsome face drawn and pale, a scruffy beard doing little to hide the sharpness of his cheeks. But he's smiling. A fragile, hopeful thing that cracks my heart in two. "Hey! What are you… come in, come in."
He ushers me into the cramped, dim apartment. It's clean-ish, in the way of places where someone tries very hard but has lost the energy to care. Textbooks on paramedic science are stacked neatly on the coffee table next to an empty pizza box and a scattering of orange prescription bottles.
My big brother. The hero who couldn't save our mother. The guardian who got lost in the dark trying to protect me.
"I was just… studying," he says, swiping a hand through his messy brown hair. He's jittery, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His gaze keeps darting to the window, to the door, to me. "You want coffee? I think I have some."
"Leo," I say softly. "Sit. Please."
The false cheer drains from his face. He knows. He can always tell when I'm holding a storm inside. He sinks onto the worn sofa, and I take the armchair across from him.
"What's wrong?" he asks, his voice now quiet, serious. The big brother emerging from the fog. "Did something happen? Did someone… bother you?"
I married the son of the man who might have killed our mother. The words are acid on my tongue. I can't say them.
Instead, I reach into my purse and pull out the check. It's from my new, joint account. A stupidly large amount. "I wanted to give you this. For the rehab program. The good one upstate. You said you were ready to try again."
He stares at the check, his face blank. Then his eyes snap to my left hand, which is resting on my knee.
To the simple, brutal band of platinum on my ring finger.
His whole body goes rigid. The color leaches from his face, leaving him a ghost of himself. "Ari." His voice is a strangled whisper. "What did you do?"
"It's not what you think," I start, the rehearsed lie tasting like ash.
"That's a wedding band." He points a trembling finger. "You're not… you're not seeing anyone. You haven't for years. Who…" His eyes widen in dawning, horrific understanding. "No. Tell me you didn't. Please, God, tell me you didn't."
He's putting it together. The sudden money. The ring. My job.
"Leo, listen to me—"
He rockets off the couch, pacing the small room like a caged animal. "You work for him! You married into that family? Are you insane?!" He whirls to face me, his eyes blazing with a fear so potent it's contagious. "Do you have any idea what they are? What they did?"
This is it. The moment. "That's why I did it, Leo. To find out what they did. To get close. He offered me resources—unlimited resources—to investigate Mom's case. It's in the contract."
My brother stares at me as if I've just grown a second head. Then a broken, hysterical laugh tears out of him. It's the worst sound I've ever heard. "You think he's going to help you? You think he's just going to hand you the keys to his family's vault and let you dig up their skeletons?" He runs both hands over his face, pulling at his skin. "Oh, God, Ari. You sweet, naive, brilliant idiot. He owns you now."
"It's a business arrangement," I insist, my own fear making me defensive. "Two years. For the truth."
"The truth?" Leo stops pacing and gets right in my face, his breath quick and shallow. I can smell the sour tang of old anxiety on him. "You want a truth? Here's one for free."
He glances at the door, then back at me, lowering his voice to a frantic, paranoid whisper. "The night Mom died. After her last article posted. She was scared. Really scared. She said she had to make a call. A direct line. To someone who might listen."
My blood turns to ice. "She called the police. The report said—"
"She didn't call 911," Leo interrupts, his eyes darting again. "I saw the number on the caller ID before she deleted it. It wasn't a precinct. It was a private exchange. I memorized it. I looked it up a year later, when I could… when I could think straight."
He leans so close his forehead almost touches mine. His whisper is a puff of terror against my skin.
"It was his private line, Ari. Damian Morozov's."
The world stops.
The apartment, my brother, the rain outside—it all fades to a distant roar. All I can hear is the thunder of my own heart, a deafening drumbeat of betrayal.
She called him.
The night she died. She called him.
Damian's words from his study echo, now twisted and sinister: "She reached out to me. A week before she died. She thought I might be different."
He said a week. Not the night.
He said she sent an encrypted file. Not a phone call.
He lied.
Or Leo is lying.
Or someone is lying.
My knees buckle. I grab the back of the armchair to steady myself. Leo sees the devastation on my face and his own anger collapses into guilt. He tries to reach for me. "Ari, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have… I just… you have to get out. You have to leave him. He's not a savior. He's the last person she ever tried to talk to!"
I look at my brother—my broken, beautiful brother who is shaking apart trying to protect me. I think of Damian's icy control, his furious protectiveness, his lips whispering "I'm terrified for you."
Two truths. Mutually exclusive. Both drowning me.
"I have to go," I hear myself say, my voice sounding miles away.
"Ari, wait—"
"Take the check, Leo." I stumble toward the door, my vision blurring. "Get help. Please. Just… be safe."
I don't let him hug me. I can't bear it. I flee down the stairs, out into the falling rain.
The cold droplets mix with the hot tears on my face. I lean against the wet brick of the building, gasping for air.
My mother's last call was to the man I just married.
The man who holds her diary.
The man who is either my most dangerous enemy… or the only one who knows what really happened that night.
And I am now, irrevocably, trapped in the gilded cage between them.