CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: WHAT THE CAMERAS SAW

Damon’s POV

The screen lit up before the door even closed behind us, and I knew before I saw anything that this was going to ruin what little control I had left.

I felt it in my chest first. That tightening. That wrongness. The kind that comes right before impact.

Daniel stood stiff beside the security console, one hand braced on the desk like he might need it to keep himself upright. Two guards hovered behind him, eyes fixed anywhere but mine. No one spoke. No one breathed properly.

Aria was still pressed against my side. I could feel the tremor in her body through my sleeve, small and constant, like she was vibrating apart molecule by molecule. My hand stayed firm at her back. Not possessive. Protective. Anchoring.

“Show me,” I said.

Daniel swallowed. Hard. Then he tapped the keyboard.

The footage filled the main screen.

Black and white. Grainy. Nighttime.

A street I recognized instantly. Three blocks from my building. The camera timestamp blinked in the corner. Two weeks ago. Late. After midnight.

Aria’s breath caught.

There she was.

Hood up. Head down. Walking fast like she was trying not to exist. Like she was afraid the city itself might notice her if she slowed down. I felt something twist low in my gut. She had looked like that the night I found her too. Like the world had already taken too much.

The camera angle shifted.

Someone else entered the frame.

My jaw tightened.

A man. Tall. Baseball cap pulled low. Moving too smoothly to be coincidence. He didn’t rush. Didn’t hide. He followed her with the kind of patience that comes from practice.

Aria’s fingers dug into my side.

“That’s not Caleb,” she whispered.

“No,” I said quietly. “It isn’t.”

The footage jumped again.

Another camera. Different street. Same night.

The man was closer now. Close enough that I felt heat rise behind my eyes. Close enough that if I had been there, I would have broken his arm without thinking.

Aria glanced up at me. “Damon… I didn’t know.”

I believed her.

Every instinct in me screamed that she had no idea. No awareness. No memory of being watched. And that was what scared me most.

Daniel cleared his throat. “There’s more.”

The next clip loaded.

Interior. A small cafe. Daytime.

Aria sat alone at a corner table, stirring a coffee she wasn’t drinking. She looked exhausted. Lost. Like she was thinking too hard about something that wouldn’t resolve.

The man sat two tables behind her.

Reading a newspaper.

Not looking at her.

Watching her reflection in the window.

Something ugly coiled tight in my chest.

“This goes back months,” Daniel said quietly. “Different locations. Different times. Same individual.”

Months.

Aria swayed slightly and I tightened my grip, pulling her closer without even asking. She didn’t resist. She leaned into me like she had been waiting for permission to fall.

“I would have noticed,” she said. “I swear I would have noticed.”

I believed that too.

Whoever this was, he was careful. Professional. Invisible.

The screen changed again.

A still image this time.

Aria standing outside a bookstore.

The man across the street.

Zoomed in.

Enhanced.

His face sharpened.

And my blood went cold.

I knew that face.

Not from memory. From reports. From briefings. From a life I thought I had buried years ago.

Daniel spoke the words before I could stop him.

“He’s former private intelligence. Contract work. Disappeared off official records five years ago.”

Five years.

The same year Liana vanished.

Aria stiffened. “What does that mean.”

I stared at the screen, my reflection faintly overlaying the image like a ghost watching a ghost.

“It means,” I said slowly, “that this isn’t random.”

Another click.

Another image.

This one older.

Younger Aria. Softer. Standing outside a bus station with a cheap suitcase and a look on her face like she was trying to decide whether to keep going or turn back.

And behind her, blurred but unmistakable, the same man.

Her breath left her in a sharp, broken sound. “That was years ago.”

“Yes,” I said.

My heart pounded harder with every piece snapping into place.

Liana. Her return. Her timing. The file. The watcher.

Aria didn’t just resemble Liana.

She had been monitored. Tracked. Catalogued.

Long before she ever walked into my life.

Daniel hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

I didn’t look at him. I was watching Aria’s face as the fear finally tipped into something else. Confusion. Disbelief. The beginning of rage.

“Sir,” Daniel said again. “The reason the file exists. It wasn’t opened recently.”

My eyes lifted. “When.”

Daniel met my gaze. “Six years ago.”

The room went silent.

Aria shook her head slowly. “That’s not possible. Six years ago I was nobody. I was just trying to survive.”

I turned to her fully now. “Aria. Do you remember anything from before that year. Anything missing.”

She frowned, pressing her fingers to her temple. “I… no. Not really. Just pieces. Places. Feelings. Like something got cut out.”

Liana’s voice drifted through my memory. You feel it, don’t you. The way everything inside you is starting to remember.

My jaw clenched.

Daniel’s voice dropped. “Sir. The original file wasn’t under her name.”

My heart slammed once. Hard.

“What name,” I asked.

Daniel exhaled. “It was flagged under a genetic cross reference.”

Aria’s eyes widened. “What does that even mean.”

I already knew.

I just didn’t want to say it.

Daniel looked between us, clearly wishing anyone else were standing here instead of him.

“The system flagged her as a partial match to Liana Cross.”

Aria staggered.

I caught her.

Her body went rigid in my arms, breath tearing out of her like she had been punched from the inside.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not… that doesn’t make sense.”

I held her tighter. “Aria. Listen to me.”

But she wasn’t listening. She was shaking her head, eyes unfocused, like the room had started spinning too fast.

Daniel added the final blow without meaning to.

“The resemblance wasn’t the anomaly,” he said. “The DNA markers were.”

The floor dropped out from under everything.

Aria pulled back just enough to look at me, her face pale, lips trembling.

“Damon,” she said. “Why would my DNA be connected to hers.”

I stared at her.

At the woman who had walked into my life like an accident and now stood at the center of something deliberate and old and dangerous.

Because someone had designed it that way.

Before I could answer, before I could even decide which truth would hurt her least, a soft sound echoed from the doorway.

Slow.

Deliberate.

A clap.

Liana stood there, leaning against the frame, smiling like she had just finished watching a play she already knew the ending to.

“Now,” she said gently, eyes fixed on Aria, “are you ready to hear who you really are.”

Aria’s fingers curled into my shirt.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, I had no words left to stop it.