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EIGHT: A Kiss Before the Storm
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-07-15 21:24:34
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THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY-FIVE
Aria’s POV The final briefing ended just after three, Dmitri dismissing the security team to prepare equipment while Romeo retreated to a spare room to catch what little sleep he could before dawn. Elena stayed close to the monitors Dmitri had set up in the study, testing the comm channel twice more than necessary, her way of steadying nerves she wouldn’t admit to having. I found myself unable to sit still, the tight, restless feeling in my chest refusing to settle no matter how many times I told myself the plan was as solid as it could be. I walked the length of the study twice before finally stepping out onto the terrace, needing the cold air more than I needed rest. Romanov found me there a few minutes later, joining me at the railing without a word at first, simply standing close enough that his presence alone said more than anything he might have offered aloud. “You should be resting,” he said eventually. “So should you.” “I will,” he said. “Once I know you’re actually goi
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY-FOUR
Aria’s POV We reached the estate within the hour, Romeo waiting for us at the gate, having driven straight over the moment his contact confirmed the movement at the Gathering House. “You should have called me the moment you started tracking this,” Romanov said, though there was less bite in it than usual, more exhaustion than accusation. “I wasn’t sure it mattered yet,” Romeo said. “I’ve been quietly pulling threads since Marta’s confession, trying to make up for everything I got wrong before. I didn’t want to bring you something half-formed.” “It’s not half-formed anymore,” I said. “Come inside. We need everything you have.” He followed us through the gate without argument, and I noticed, watching him, how different he looked from the brother who’d once handed Aria over to a stranger’s leverage without a second thought. Something in him had genuinely shifted since Marta’s confession, a quiet urgency that looked less like guilt now and more like a man determined to actually earn
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY-THREE
Aria’s POV Sleep didn’t come easily after Dmitri’s alert. I lay awake most of the night turning the name Corvin over in my mind, trying to fit it against every fragment of my mother’s silence, every flinch I’d once mistaken for ordinary grief. “You’re still awake,” Romanov said quietly, somewhere near dawn, his voice rough with the same exhaustion neither of us had managed to shake since Ashgrove. “I keep thinking someone’s been watching my family for longer than I’ve been alive,” I said. “Not just my mother. Maybe her mother too. Maybe generations of us, quietly monitored, and none of us ever knew enough to be afraid of the right things.” “That’s not a comfortable thought,” Romanov said. “But it’s better to know it than to keep living unprotected inside it.” “Do you ever wonder the same about your own family?” I asked. “Whether your grandfather’s silence was protection, or something closer to complicity?” “Every day since Marguerite’s kitchen,” Romanov admitted. “I used to thi
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY-TWO
Aria’s POV We spread everything across the study table that evening—the Hollow House journal, the photographed church ledger, and now the bank’s incident report, three separate documents from three separate decades, all circling the same buried name. Dmitri had returned from the bank with copies of everything the branch manager could legally share, and the table had slowly filled over the past hour with pages that seemed, at first glance, to have nothing to do with one another. “If the ring is real,” Romanov said, “then your mother’s family didn’t just disappear from the historical record. Someone in that bloodline is still active. Possibly still close.” “Or someone stole a family heirloom to make us think that,” Dmitri said, ever careful with certainty. “I’m not ruling it out. But we shouldn’t assume the person wearing that ring is necessarily blood.” “I know how it looked,” I said. “But I also know what I saw in my mother’s things. That ring wasn’t decorative. It was old, and
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY-ONE
Aria’s POV We left for First Continental within the hour, Dmitri driving this time, Romanov silent beside me in the back seat, his phone still open to the branch manager’s number as though he might need to call back before we even arrived. “You’re quiet,” I said. “I’m angry,” Romanov said. “Not at you. At the timing. We were three days out finding your family’s history, and someone walked into a bank the same morning we were driving home, confident enough to try forged authorization on a box we’ve barely had time to think about.” “Confident, or informed,” I said. “If they knew to target 4471 specifically, that’s not a guess. That’s someone who’s known about this box for a long time.” “Which means whatever your grandfather hid there,” Romanov said, “someone else has been waiting just as patiently to reach it.” Dmitri glanced at us in the mirror. “The timing bothers me too,” he said. “Whoever attempted this either knew we were in Ashgrove and used the distraction, or the two even
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SEVENTY
Aria’s POV Nobody spoke for a long while after Dmitri’s revelation settled into the room. I sat with Romanov’s hands still wrapped around mine, staring at nothing in particular, trying to fit the shape of my mother into a history I’d never once suspected she carried. “She used to flinch,” I said finally, the memory surfacing slow and unbidden. “Whenever anyone asked about her side of the family. I always thought it was old grief. A falling out, maybe. Something ordinary.” “It might have started as something ordinary,” Elena said gently. “Grief has a way of layering itself over things too dangerous to name directly.” “Or she knew exactly what it was,” I said, “and chose silence because silence was the only thing that kept us safe.” Romanov’s grip on my hands tightened slightly. “You don’t have to decide tonight what any of this means about her,” he said. “Whatever she carried, whatever she hid, it doesn’t change who she was to you.” “Doesn’t it?” I asked. “If she came from the f
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