Chapter Thirteen: Beneath the Shadow

“Then we start now.”

Lucien’s voice echoed through the silence that had fallen between them. Ariella stood frozen in the middle of the living room, her heartbeat hammering against her ribcage like a warning bell. Rain still tapped against the windows, the storm outside mirroring the chaos in her chest.

She didn’t know what starting now meant. Did it mean finally telling the truth? Did it mean ripping open the wounds they’d both avoided for too long?

He moved first, his footsteps deliberate as he walked past her and sat down on the couch. “You want answers, Ariella. I’ll give them. But not all at once. Not like this.” His fingers rubbed at his temples. “You need to understand the kind of fire you’re walking into.”

“I’m already burning,” she said hoarsely, turning to face him. “So stop speaking in riddles.”

Lucien looked up at her then, and in his eyes, she saw something she hadn’t expected—guilt. Not the cold, calculated indifference she was used to, but a haunted kind of regret that made her stomach twist.

“You said you were there the night my father died,” she whispered, stepping closer. “What happened, Lucien? Tell me the truth.”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he pulled a small, old box from beneath the coffee table—a box she had never noticed before. He opened it slowly, and inside were photographs. Documents. Bloodstained letters.

Ariella’s breath caught.

“These were taken the night your father vanished,” Lucien said, handing her a photo.

She stared at it—her father in his office, arguing with a man whose face was mostly turned away, but the posture was unmistakable.

“Elise,” Ariella breathed. The recognition punched the air out of her lungs. “That’s her. She was there.”

Lucien nodded. “Your father had debts. Not just financial. He was involved with something… darker. Elise knew. She was the one who warned him to keep quiet, to cover it up. But when he threatened to go public—”

“She silenced him,” Ariella finished, her voice cracking.

“I didn’t kill your father,” Lucien said quietly. “But I was supposed to.”

Her head snapped toward him.

“What?”

“I was hired to handle it,” he admitted. “To make him disappear. Elise set it all up. She made sure the debt was unpayable. Pushed him into a corner. She needed him gone so she could take everything he had—his company, his secrets, his silence.”

“But you didn’t do it,” Ariella said, trembling.

Lucien stood up. “No. I walked away that night. I couldn’t do it.”

“Why?”

His eyes met hers. “Because I saw the photo on his desk. You and your brother. He told me about you… about how he was trying to protect you from her.”

Ariella staggered back a step. The world tilted.

All this time, she had believed Lucien was the monster. But what if the real devil had been in her house all along?

She looked down at the photo again. The timestamp. The shadows.

And something else clicked.

“Elise… she’s not just the woman who raised me,” Ariella whispered. “She’s the one who destroyed my entire family.”

Lucien nodded grimly. “She’s the one who’s been pulling the strings. I married you not just to protect you—but to keep her from getting to you first.”

Ariella’s knees buckled, and Lucien caught her before she hit the floor.

“You should have told me,” she whispered against his chest.

“I wanted to. But you were grieving, angry, and I was still trying to find proof—”

She pulled back, searching his eyes. “Then we find it. Together.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened. “That’s why I said we start now.”

And as he helped her up, neither of them noticed the red light blinking from the small camera Elise had hidden in the corner of the room.

She was watching.

And now, she knew they were coming for her.

Elise leaned back in her chair, her lips curling into a tight, dangerous smile as she watched the grainy footage on her laptop. The camera feed flickered slightly, but the audio was clear. Lucien and Ariella had crossed the threshold—past suspicion and fear, into dangerous knowledge.

“They finally figured it out,” she murmured, swirling the wine glass in her hand.

She tapped her long manicured nails against the armrest, her mind already racing ahead. This wasn’t unexpected. In fact, she had been waiting for it. Planning for it.

The moment Ariella began digging, Elise knew it was only a matter of time before everything unraveled. What surprised her wasn’t that Lucien told the truth—it was that he waited this long. She had underestimated the man’s loyalty to the girl. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Elise stood, walking to the window of her private suite. The storm had calmed outside, but something far more dangerous now brewed inside the house. The girl had grown teeth. And Lucien… well, he’d always been a wild card. She should’ve eliminated him years ago.

No matter.

She picked up her phone and dialed a number without looking. It rang once before a voice answered, low and sharp.

“They know,” she said simply.

A pause.

“What do you want done?” the voice asked.

Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Prepare the files. Burn the backups. And make sure no loose ends are left—starting with the old man at the clinic. He’s talked too much already.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She ended the call, her heart rate steady as ever. Elise Cruz had built her empire on secrets, manipulation, and preemptive strikes. Ariella might think she was ready to play the game, but Elise had written the rulebook. And she played dirty.

Back in the main house, Ariella sat beside Lucien on the edge of the couch, staring blankly at the documents. The revelations swirled in her mind—her father’s betrayal, Elise’s deceit, Lucien’s past. Her entire life had been nothing but a carefully orchestrated performance.

She rubbed her arms to fight the chill in the room. Or maybe it was the chill inside her bones.

“We have to move fast,” she said suddenly. “If Elise senses anything—”

“She already does,” Lucien interrupted. “Which means she’s going to strike first.”

Ariella turned to him. “Then we can’t let her. We have to stay one step ahead.”

Lucien reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a flash drive. “There’s a name. Someone who used to work with your father. He disappeared after the funeral, but I found a trace of him last week—he may have more evidence.”

Ariella took the drive, gripping it like a lifeline.

“We’re not just surviving this anymore, Lucien,” she said, her voice harder now. “We’re taking her down.”

And somewhere, in a darkened room, Elise smiled again.

Let them try.

Let the game begin.