CHAPTER 15: The Missing Years

Aria barely slept.

She lay awake long after Ethan disappeared into his office, staring at the ceiling while rain continued tapping against the windows like impatient fingers. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the photograph again.

Isabella Hale’s face.

Her resemblance.

Victor’s reaction on the pier.

And Ethan’s final words before the silence swallowed the apartment.

Your records before age eight don’t fully connect.

At first, she’d wanted to dismiss it immediately. Rich people investigated everything. Maybe Ethan had dug too deep and found inconsistencies where none existed.

But the problem was this:

He hadn’t sounded uncertain.

He’d sounded careful.

Careful people usually knew more than they admitted.

Around three in the morning, Aria finally sat up with a frustrated breath and reached for her phone. The room was dark except for the faint glow from the city outside.

She opened her photo gallery.

Scrolled.

Stopped.

There weren’t many pictures from her childhood.

She’d never thought much about it before. Her parents had moved often. Her mother hated cameras. Life had been complicated after her father got sick.

At least, that was the story she’d always known.

But now small things were beginning to itch at the edges of her memory.

Tiny details she’d ignored for years.

The way her mother used to avoid questions about the past.

The fact that there were no hospital photos from when she was born.

No relatives.

No family friends from before age eight.

Just… fragments.

Her chest tightened.

No.

She was overthinking.

She had to be.

The sound of footsteps outside her bedroom interrupted her thoughts.

A second later, a soft knock followed.

“Aria?”

Ethan.

She hesitated before answering. “Come in.”

The door opened slowly. Ethan stood there in dark sweatpants and a black T-shirt, looking far more human than the polished billionaire the rest of the world saw.

More tired too.

His gaze dropped briefly to the phone in her hand before returning to her face.

“You should try to sleep.”

Aria almost laughed.

“That advice feels a little unrealistic right now.”

He didn’t disagree.

For a moment, he simply stood there, like he wasn’t entirely sure whether he should come further into the room.

That uncertainty felt strange on him.

“You really believe there’s something wrong with my past?” she asked quietly.

Ethan leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “I believe Victor Hale doesn’t react emotionally unless something matters to him.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he admitted. “It isn’t.”

Aria looked down at the blanket twisted around her hands.

“When did you start investigating me?”

“The first week after we met.”

She absorbed that in silence.

“Did you already know about Isabella then?”

“Yes.”

“Were you looking for someone who resembled her?”

Ethan’s jaw tightened slightly. “No.”

“But when you found me…”

“I paid attention.”

At least he was honest.

Painfully honest.

Aria looked up at him. “You realize how disturbing that sounds, right?”

Something flickered across his expression.

“Every version of this sounds disturbing.”

That was probably true.

The honesty of it softened her anger slightly, though she hated that it did.

Ethan pushed away from the doorway and walked further into the room. “I never intended for this to become your problem.”

“And yet somehow it became my entire life.”

He stopped near the edge of the bed, his gaze steady on hers.

“I know.”

The quietness in his voice caught her off guard.

No defense.

No argument.

Just acknowledgement.

For a second, neither of them spoke.

Then Aria asked the question that had been circling her mind for hours.

“What if Victor’s right?”

Ethan frowned slightly. “About what?”

“What if I’m connected to Isabella somehow?”

The room fell silent again.

Ethan looked at her carefully before answering.

“I don’t know.”

Somehow, that uncertainty frightened her more than certainty would have.

She looked away first.

“I keep trying to remember things,” she admitted softly. “Anything unusual from when I was younger. But it’s like there’s this wall in my head before a certain age.”

“Trauma can affect memory.”

“You think something happened to me?”

“I think something happened around you.”

That answer stayed with her long after Ethan finally left the room.

The next morning, the storm had disappeared.

Sunlight spilled across the city as though the night before had never happened.

Aria stood in the kitchen wearing one of Ethan’s hoodies, absently stirring coffee she hadn’t touched yet.

Her mind wouldn’t stop moving.

Questions layered over questions until everything felt tangled.

The sound of footsteps made her glance up.

Ethan entered the kitchen already dressed for work, phone in hand, expression tense.

“You’re up early,” she said.

“I haven’t slept.”

Something in his tone immediately caught her attention.

“What happened?”

Ethan looked at her for a moment before setting his phone down on the counter.

“Victor’s been digging into your background.”

A chill moved through her instantly.

“How do you know that?”

“One of my people intercepted inquiries this morning. School records. Adoption files. Medical history.”

Aria’s stomach tightened.

“He thinks I’m connected to Isabella.”

“He thinks there’s a reason you look like her.”

“That doesn’t make it true.”

“No,” Ethan agreed quietly. “But if Victor believes it does, he won’t stop.”

The weight of that settled heavily between them.

Aria wrapped both hands around her coffee mug, mostly for something to hold onto.

“What exactly are you afraid he’ll find?”

Ethan didn’t answer immediately.

And there it was again.

That hesitation.

Aria set the mug down harder than intended.

“Stop doing that.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Doing what?”

“Looking like you know something you haven’t told me.”

A tense silence followed.

Then Ethan reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a thin file.

Aria’s heartbeat slowed.

The folder looked old. Worn at the edges.

Ethan placed it carefully on the counter between them.

“What is that?”

“Everything I found when I investigated your childhood.”

Her pulse started climbing.

Slowly, cautiously, she reached for the file.

Inside were copies of documents.

School records.

Medical forms.

Adoption paperwork.

At first glance, everything looked normal.

Until she noticed the dates.

Aria frowned.

“These don’t match.”

“They were altered.”

She looked up sharply.

“What?”

Ethan moved closer, pointing toward one of the documents.

“Look here. Different ink. Different formatting. Someone changed sections after the original filing.”

Aria stared down at the papers, her chest tightening.

“Why would someone do that?”

Ethan’s expression darkened.

“To hide where you came from.”

The room suddenly felt too small.

She flipped through the pages faster now, her breathing uneven.

Then she stopped.

One document sat near the bottom of the file.

Older than the rest.

Partially damaged.

Most of the text had been blacked out.

But one line remained visible.

Patient Name: Isabella Hale.

Aria froze.

The air left her lungs completely.

“No,” she whispered.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she picked up the paper.

Below the name was a date.

Twenty-three years ago.

And underneath it—

Infant transferred under emergency authorization.

Aria looked up at Ethan, panic rising into her throat.

“What is this?”

Ethan’s face had gone completely still.

“It’s why I didn’t want Victor near you.”

Her heartbeat thundered painfully now.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“No,” she said again, louder this time. “Tell me what this means.”

Ethan held her gaze.

But before he could answer—

His phone rang sharply across the counter.

The sound cut through the tension like a blade.

Ethan glanced at the screen.

And for the first time since she met him—

Aria watched real  alarm flash across his face.

He answered immediately.

“What happened?”

Silence.

Then Ethan’s expression darkened completely.

“Who took her?”

Aria’s blood turned cold.

Took who?

Ethan listened for another few seconds before ending the call.

When he looked back at her, something had changed.

The calm was gone now.

Only urgency remained.

“Victor’s people broke into the records facility this morning,” he said.

Aria’s stomach dropped.

“They stole your original file.”