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CHAPTER TWELVE — FUTILE ATTEMPT
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2026-02-20 01:32:36Aria's POV
I sat on the edge of the bed, the folder feeling like a heavy weight beside me. When the door finally opened, it wasn't with a violent bang. It was slow, heavy, and somehow hesitant.
Lucien walked in. He didn't look at the folder, he didn't even look at the tears I hadn't finished wiping away. He just went straight to the small bar cart in the corner of my room, his movement were extremely flawless. He picked up the bottle of whiskey, with no glass cup and turned to face me.
Then, he sat in the armchair across from the bed.
He didn't say a word. He just leaned back, gripping the bottle in one hand, and stared at me. His grey eyes were bloodshot and dark, tracking every ragged breath I took. It wasn't the look of a husband, it was the look of a man watching a beautiful disaster he couldn't stop himself from witnessing.
The silence in the room was suffocating. I opened my mouth to explain, to tell him about the six-month deadline, but the words died in my throat. How could I even start? The air felt thick with the ghosts of the last five months, every lie I’d told, every time I’d tried to slip out the back door while he was sleeping, every time I’d looked at him with nothing but hate.
"Lucien..." I finally managed to whisper.
He said nothing. He just took a slow, methodical sip from the bottle, his gaze never leaving my face. The weight of his stare was crushing me internally. He looked like he was waiting for me to trip over my own tongue, waiting for the inevitable moment I’d reveal another betrayal.
I tried to find the right thing to say, but my mind was a blank slate of panic. I had spent so long fighting him that I didn't know how to talk to him anymore. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't the same woman who had tried to ruin him, but the way he was looking at me told me he wouldn't believe it. He was done with words.
Outside the door, I heard the faint shuffle of feet and a muffled sigh.
"Oh no," Chen’s voice drifted in, barely above a whisper. "He's doing the staring thing again. That’s stage four. We’re definitely dead."
"Geez," Marcus muttered back. "She’ll be the end of me. Why does she have to offend him just when everything was falling back into place. I should’ve just taken that job guarding the mall. At least the mannequins don't have drama."
I looked back at Lucien. I wanted to scream that his mother was a monster, that she was trying to use me like an object. But looking at the jagged line of his jaw and the way he wouldn't even grant me a single syllable of conversation, I realized how far gone he was. To him, this was just another secret. Another piece of the puzzle he wasn't allowed to see.
"Lucien, please," I said, my voice trembling as I leaned toward him. "I know I’ve given you every reason to hate me. I know you don't believe a single word I say."
He tilted his head slightly, his first sign of movement. He looked at the folder on the bed, then back at my eyes. His expression was deathly cold. He took another drink, the liquid burning down his throat, but his eyes never once wavered from mine.
"Just trust me," I whispered, the words sounding somehow unreasonable even to me. "I'm asking you for one thing. Just trust me. Give me until Friday."
At that, Lucien let out a short, dry sound that didn't seem like a laugh, but a puff of air that was pure bitterness. He finally lowered the bottle with a low growl that made the hair on my neck stand up.
"Trust you?" He sounded like he was choking on the words. "Aria, I stopped trusting you the night I found the passport hidden in the lining of your suitcase. I stopped trusting you when you looked at Ethan Vance like he was your heartbeat and I was your cage."
He stood up suddenly, and I instinctively flinched. He noticed it, and for a split second, a flash of raw agony crossed his face before it turned back into stone. He walked toward the bed, looming over me, the scent of expensive whiskey and cold fury radiating off him.
"You don't want trust," he said flatly, his eyes scanning the folder on the bed with utter disgust. "You want a head start. You want me to look the other way while you finish whatever it is you and my mother started today."
"I'm not running! I'm staying right here!"
"You're staying here because I'm not giving you a choice." He reached down and snatched the phone from the nightstand, his fingers bruising my skin for a second before he pulled away. "You want Friday? Fine. You'll get Friday. But you'll spend it in here."
He walked toward the door, the whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers like he wanted to break it. Or more or less like he wanted to break everything.
"My mother’s car is coming at five on Friday," he said without turning around. "If you’re in it, don't bother coming back. Because by the time you reach her, I’ll have already burnt down everything you're trying to hide."
"Lucien…"
"Don't," he snapped without looking back.
He walked out, and the heavy thud of the deadbolt sliding into place from the outside echoed like a gunshot. He had locked me in… again.
"Oh no!," Marcus’s voice filtered into my ear. "He actually did it."
"I told you," Chen sighed. "Stage five. I wonder if the cafeteria in heaven serves toast bread, because we're definitely, definitely… dead."
I sank back against the headboard, clutching the folder to my chest. He wouldn't trust me. He couldn't. His possessiveness had turned into a fortress, and I was the prisoner inside it. I looked at the dark room, the silence pressing in on me. I had come back to life to fix my mistakes, but every move I made seemed to push Lucien further into the abyss.
Forty-eight hours.
In two days, Helena’s car would arrive. In two days, the ultimatum would expire. And I was trapped in a room by a husband who loved me enough to keep me a prisoner, but hated me too much to believe me.
I gripped the silk sheets as my mind raced faster. Ethan and Lydia were out there, waiting for me to fail. Helena was out there, waiting to replace me. And Lucien was just outside that door, drinking himself into a stupor because he couldn't handle the fact that I was the only thing he wanted, and the one thing he could never have.
I looked at the window, the city lights shining in the distance. I had to get out. But how do you convince a man who has been betrayed for five months that the truth isn't just another lie?
I lay down in the dark, the scent of his whiskey still lingering in the air. Friday was coming. And I had no idea how I was going to survive it.
“Oh God! why was I so foolish?“ I shouted in frustration.
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