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SIXTY: The Beginning of the Correction

Author: Rovelt Vell
last update Petsa ng paglalathala: 2026-08-09 06:07:33

Aria’s POV

Marta’s hands stayed folded in her lap, steady despite everything, as she began to speak.

“The man who recruited me called himself Reyes,” she said. “I doubt that’s his real name. Everyone in this network seems to borrow names the way other people borrow coats—useful for the season, discarded the moment they stop fitting.”

“What did he ask you to do?” Romanov asked.

“At first, almost nothing,” Marta said. “Report on schedules. Who came and went. Small things that felt harmless e
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  • THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE   SEVENTY-SEVEN

    Aria’s POV The gunshot’s echo hadn’t even finished fading before Dmitri was moving, waving us both back toward denser cover while Romeo’s voice crackled sharp with alarm over comms. “That came from inside,” Romeo said. “Everyone hold position, I’m moving to the eastern entrance now.” “Negative,” Dmitri said, his voice flat and controlled in the way it only got when a plan had already changed shape without his permission. “We don’t know what that shot means yet. Could be a struggle inside. Could be someone eliminating a witness before we reach them.” My stomach dropped at the thought. “You think they’re hurting someone in there?” “I think we don’t know,” Dmitri said, “which is exactly why we’re not rushing in blind.” We held at the tree line another agonizing few seconds, the morning silence pressing back down over the clearing as though the gunshot had never happened at all. My heart hammered against my ribs, every possibility racing through my mind at once, none of them good.

  • THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE   SEVENTY-SIX

    Aria’s POV The drive to the Gathering House took just under an hour, the road narrowing steadily from paved county highway to a rough, unmarked track that Dmitri’s satellite imagery had barely managed to capture. Romanov drove in silence beside me, his attention split between the road and the tactical display mounted on the dash, tracking Elena’s position in the support vehicle a half mile back. Neither of us spoke much during the drive. There wasn’t much left to say that the terrace hadn’t already covered, and some quiet part of me suspected we were both saving whatever nerve we had left for whatever waited at the end of the road rather than spending it on words that wouldn’t change anything now. “Two minutes to the tree line,” Dmitri’s voice said over comms, steady despite the hour. “Romeo’s team is already in position on the eastern approach.” “Copy that,” Romanov said. “We’re proceeding to the northern edge now.” We parked where the access road bent away from the property, w

  • 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

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