Chapter 6.The Price of Pretending.

Ariella's POV.

Damon was seated by his bar, a glass of espresso was Infront of him. It looked he didn’t need it and didn’t sip it. He fixed his eyes on mine across the dinning room. He took the glass of wine up and set it down. “Where were you yesterday at 4:35 PM?”

Straight to it.

“I was at the spa,” I said calmly. “You can call the driver.”

“I did,” he cut in. “He said you stopped off somewhere for fifteen minutes and insisted on waiting outside. No security. No cameras. No accountability.”

I kept my spine straight. “A woman is allowed privacy.”

He walked toward me slowly. “Not my woman.”

The slap didn’t come. Damon didn’t deal in physical violence. No, he used silence, pressure and control. Weapons that never left bruises but always left scars.

“You’re playing a game you’re not trained for,” he said. “And if you lose, it won’t be you who pays first. It’ll be your father. Your cousin in Prague. Maybe even your friend, the one with the bakery.”

I didn’t flinch. That was the only power I had left, pretending he didn’t scare me.

“You wouldn’t touch them,” I said evenly.

He leaned close. “Don’t confuse wouldn’t with haven’t yet.”

I kissed him.

He didn’t expect it. My fingers tangled in his collar. My lips pressed to his with practiced affection. I forced my heartbeat to slow, my smile to bloom like I wasn’t swallowing poison.

“What was that?” He stepped back, blinked once and asked.

“You’re right, I’ve been distant. But I married you, didn’t I? Let me prove I’m yours.” I whispered

The suspicion didn’t vanish. But his ego tilted just enough. He liked the sound of possession.

Later, he left for a brief trip to the east wing office. Said there were documents to sign. Said Marcus would stay nearby “in case my loyalty wavered again.”

But Marcus wasn’t the only one watching. I knew it now.

I found the camera tucked into the chandelier above my dressing mirror. Too small for casual installation. Too deliberate for Damon’s usual arrogance. Someone else had installed it.

Someone Damon didn’t trust fully.

I didn’t look directly at it. I just let the robe slip off my shoulder and turned slightly toward the lens. A performance. I let my voice drift softly as I rehearsed a fake voicemail to a nonexistent cousin.

“Tell Mama I’ll call her after the brunch. And yes, the charity dinner’s still at 8 PM. No changes.”

Let them think I was harmless. That I was preoccupied with dresses and invitations. Marcus paced outside the corridor like a dog off its leash, when a small envelope was slid under my bedroom door.

I locked the door, retrieved it, and opened it carefully.

Inside: a hand-drawn floor plan. Our house. Marked in red: cameras. Marked in green: blind spots.

At the bottom, a single line written in clean, block print:

“Every plane has a flaw. Yours is trusting too late.”

No signature.

But I knew who sent it.

The informant had gone from passive observer to active ally.

I stared at the envelope. It wasn’t just a risk it was a call to action. I had leverage now. I just had to use it without losing everything.

That night, Damon returned before midnight. “You’ve been quiet.” He remarked.

“I’ve been thinking.” I replied.

He loosened his cufflinks. “Dangerous hobby for a wife.”

I turned to him. “Would you have still married me if I didn’t come with a last name? If I was just… Ariella.”

He paused. Then said the one thing that chilled me more than silence.

“I wouldn’t have noticed you.”

I smiled like it didn’t crack something inside me. “Then I’m glad I had a name worth noticing.”

He came over, tilted my chin. “Play your part right, and maybe one day, I’ll let you be more than a placeholder.”

I nodded. “Maybe one day, I’ll want to.”

We went to bed like strangers sharing a secret. And when his breathing deepened into sleep, I slipped out and studied the floor plan by the bathroom light.

There was one room the camera map didn’t mark. The archive. Locked from the inside. Accessible only through Damon’s fingerprint or a manual override he once used when the scanner failed.

That room held answers.

But I needed a distraction.

So I called in the dressmaker. Claimed I needed last-minute adjustments for a gala. She arrived at noon the next day, flanked by interns and fabric. While Marcus monitored, she did what I asked, stall. Her interns created noise, chaos, activity.

And I used it.

I slipped past the hallway, down the east wing, into the vault corridor. The scanner blinked red at my fingerprint. Denied.

But I had another way.

From the floor plan, the informant had marked a loose panel behind the adjacent wine cellar.

I found it.

Pulled.

Crawled through six feet of dark crawlspace and emerged into the archive through a utility grate.

The room was ice cold. Metal drawers. Files. Old safes.

In the far right corner, what I needed.

A file labeled “Echelon” Damon’s private ledger system.

Inside: contracts.

One in particular, dated two years before my wedding.

The title read: “Pre-ownership Agreement. Subject Ariella Valencia”

The terms were clear.

Damon had arranged the financial trap. Timelines, execution plans, triggers. Including a contingency clause if I ever tried to run.

There was also a name at the bottom. Not Damon’s. A proxy.

Marcus.

I didn’t have time to scream. Or cry. I just snapped a photo of the document, emailed it to a secure address Jace had once used for encrypted messages, and resealed the file.

I crawled back.

I smiled through dinner. Let Damon feed me a bite of wine-soaked steak. Let him toast to our rising public image.

Let him think I was broken.

But I was busy building my exit.

And now, I had proof.

The burner phone buzzed at 2:41 AM.

''You saw it?”

I replied: “Yes.”

''Then it’s time to fly the plane.”

And I typed back just two words.

“Tell me.”