The Price of Knowing

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• Breaking the Billionaire Code   Everything She Feared

  Aria was seated at the rear of the plush, white sofa. Open windows of the beach house let in the salty scent as well as the quiet sound of waves washing against the beach. It was soothing, too soothing for the tense night she expectedBut somehow, since she and Killian agreed to meet here, she’d felt more at peace than anxious. She was ready to speak.Ready to tell him everything.Ready to stop letting her past dictate her silence.She retrieved her phone and started to look through Instagram while waiting. She grinned at some hilarious memes and videos. Then—A headline cut through her feed like a knife.“Aria Blake Exposed: The Woman Behind the Lens Once Danced for Dollars.”Her finger hovered. She didn’t click at first. She just stared.No breath. No thought. Just the burn of disbelief rising in her chest.She opened the article.And there it was.A photo of her.Her face. Her body.But not in anything she had worn that night. The picture was manipulated, made into something ugly

• Breaking the Billionaire Code   Where it Begins Again

  By the time Killian and Ethan were done at the bar, the sun had dipped below the horizon, casting the city in deep amber and softening shadows. It was late evening now, and Killian had been checking his phone obsessively - even while driving - waiting, hoping for a reply from Aria.Nothing.He shut off the car, parked in the driveway, and settled into his car. But he stayed in. He slid the windows down and let the cold night air touch his skin. His phone had been in his hand for an hour now. He’d replayed his voice note at least three times in his head, wondering if it had come across the way he wanted - honest, raw, vulnerable. Not desperate. Just real.Yet, no word from over there hurt a lot. Looking out the window, his pulse shot, and he was overcome with worry. Just as he started to open the car door, his phone came on.Her name glowing on the screen made his breath catch. Relief, hope, fear - it all hit him at once, too tangled to separate. He answered before he could even blin

• Breaking the Billionaire Code   No More Games

  Andrew sank back in the soft leather chair of his hotel room, the Los Angeles city view spread out past the big windows. A low hum of satisfaction came from him as he hung up with Dante. Business in Miami was booming again.Dante had confirmed what Andrew already knew from the sudden boost in his bank balance. His latest batch of girls - fresh, desperate, and easily manipulated - were pleasing the right clients. The money was rolling in faster than before. No complaints. No slip-ups. Just how he wanted it. He took a slow drink from his glass of old bourbon, a tiny, pleased smile on his lips. Even L.A. was starting to look up.Howard Batalon had been proving himself useful, keeping him up to date on Aria’s movements. Or, more accurately, her lack of movement. She hadn’t been to her apartment. Not her studio either. No sightings with her best friend Mia. And none with that smug, “well-to-do” boyfriend of hers, Killian.Andrew scoffed at the thought of him, smirking. Golden boy with a

• Breaking the Billionaire Code   A Different Way

  Killian sat behind the wheel of his parked car, staring down at the small slip of paper in his hand - Mia’s address, scribbled quickly by Lucy, now slightly creased from how tightly he’d been holding it. He’d been sitting outside the studio’s building for nearly twenty minutes, engine running, mind spiraling.He knew showing up unannounced wasn’t exactly the smartest move. He wasn’t even sure Aria was there. But something in him - it wasn’t logic, it wasn’t reason, it was her - was telling him to go.His hands held the wheel tightly, and he moved the gears. As he moved onto the road, his phone lit up the dashboard. Ethan.Killian tapped his earpiece. “Yeah?”“Where are you?” Ethan’s voice came through steady but serious.“I was just about to head to Mia’s,” Killian said, voice low. “Why?”A pause.“Change of plans. Meet me first,” Ethan said. "I need to talk to you. It won’t take long.”Killian didn’t argue. Whatever it was, Ethan rarely spoke like this unless it was important.Fift

• Breaking the Billionaire Code   Something Always Follows

  Killian Stone was outside the building that once buzzed with Aria's vibe, his jaw tight, hands deep in his coat. He hadn't had a good sleep in days. Ever since she withdrew from him without a word, a storm had been brewing in his chest - one that wouldn’t settle until he saw her again.He’d tried calling, texting, even reaching out to Mia. But Aria was a ghost now, slipping through his fingers every time he got close.And after what he’d seen in the file his father shoved into his hands - a glimpse of a girl weighed down by choices she never should’ve had to make - Killian understood a little more. Not everything, not fully, but enough.She once told him her mother had been sick. She took on jobs she wasn’t proud of. And he knew sometimes survival didn’t look noble - it looked messy and desperate and silent.So this had to be it. Whatever secret Aria was drowning in… this was what she meant.And still, all he wanted was to tell her she didn’t have to carry it alone. Not anymore.He al

• Breaking the Billionaire Code   Peace, Then Panic

  Aria gazed upward toward the ceiling; the stillness of the room weighing on her like a heap of blankets. Gossip, breaking news, and muttered digital talks she tried not to read through filled the outside world. But here, wrapped in the neutral peace of Mia's guest bedroom, the silence was loud.On the nightstand, her phone vibrated.Killian.She watched it buzz. The screen lit up with his name and dimmed again when she didn’t reach for it.The silence returned.Mia came out from the bathroom, wiping her hair with a towel in a huge T-shirt. She caught the look on Aria’s face, and the phone now still on the bed.“Still not picking his calls, huh?”Aria sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “I can’t. Not yet.”Mia sighed and walked toward her. “You know he’s been trying, right? Lucy said he stopped by the studio again. Ethan’s been asking me about you, and Killian’s been to your apartment too.” She paused. "It's hard to keep up the lie that I have not seen you."Aria held her sleeves t