CHAPTER 20: The Child In The Footage

Nobody moved.

Victor’s voice lingered through the speakerphone like smoke after a fire.

The right question is whether you’ve told her who the child in that footage really is.

Aria’s heartbeat felt uneven now, too fast one second, too slow the next.

She looked at Ethan immediately.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t deny it.

And that silence cracked something open inside her chest.

“Ethan,” she said quietly.

Still nothing.

Daniel reached forward and lowered the volume slightly, tension visible across his face.

Victor laughed softly on the other end of the line.

“There it is,” he murmured. “That silence. He’s always been terrible at knowing when to tell the truth.”

“Stop talking,” Ethan said coldly.

“Why? Because she’s finally starting to see you clearly?”

Aria barely heard them anymore.

Her attention remained fixed entirely on Ethan.

Because his expression had changed again.

Not fear.

Not guilt.

Something worse.

Reluctance.

Like he knew something that would hurt her the second it was spoken aloud.

And suddenly she was terrified to hear it.

“Who’s the child?” she asked.

Ethan looked at her finally.

The room felt painfully still.

“Aria…”

“No.” Her voice sharpened immediately. “No more half answers. No more vague explanations.” She swallowed hard. “Tell me the truth.”

Victor spoke again through the phone, calm as ever.

“She deserves that much.”

Ethan ignored him.

But his silence had already become unbearable.

Aria stepped closer. “Who is the child in the footage?”

Ethan’s jaw tightened visibly before he answered.

“I don’t know for certain.”

Victor sighed dramatically through the speaker.

“Still lying.”

Ethan snapped then. “You don’t get to pretend you care about honesty.”

“No,” Victor agreed calmly. “But unlike you, I’m not trying to protect her from reality.”

The word protect scraped against Aria’s nerves.

Everyone kept using it.

Protecting her from the truth.

Protecting her from Victor.

Protecting her from herself.

She was exhausted by it.

“Someone explain what’s happening,” she said, voice trembling despite her effort to steady it.

Daniel looked between them uneasily, clearly debating whether to intervene.

Victor made the decision for him.

“The child in the footage,” he said slowly, “was never identified in the investigation.”

Aria felt cold all over.

“Why?”

“Because by the time authorities arrived, all records connected to that child had disappeared.”

Ethan’s expression darkened instantly. “Enough.”

Victor ignored him again.

“The footage was buried. Witnesses disappeared. Files were altered.” A pause followed. “And suddenly, years later, Ethan Blackwood marries a woman with the same face.”

The office seemed to shrink around her.

Aria pressed a hand lightly against the desk just to steady herself.

“This is insane.”

“Yes,” Victor agreed softly. “But insanity doesn’t make it untrue.”

Ethan grabbed the phone then, his voice low and lethal.

“If you come near her again—”

“You still don’t understand,” Victor interrupted. “I’m not the danger here.”

The line went dead.

Silence crashed into the room immediately afterward.

Daniel exhaled sharply and rubbed a hand over his face. “That went well.”

Ethan tossed the phone back onto the desk with visible restraint.

Aria barely noticed.

Her mind was racing too fast now.

The child.

The altered records.

The missing years.

And Ethan.

Always Ethan.

Standing in the center of all of it.

She looked at him carefully.

“You know more than you’re saying.”

The accusation came quietly this time.

Which somehow made it heavier.

Ethan looked exhausted suddenly.

Not physically.

The exhaustion of someone holding too much for too long.

“I know possibilities,” he admitted.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t have proof.”

“That’s not good enough anymore.”

Daniel stayed silent in the corner now, wisely removing himself from the center of the conversation.

Ethan stared at Aria for a long moment before speaking again.

“When Isabella disappeared, there were rumors.”

Aria folded her arms tightly. “What kind of rumors?”

“That she had a child.”

The words knocked the air from her lungs.

“What?”

Victor’s daughter.

A child.

Aria’s thoughts stumbled violently together.

“No,” she whispered immediately. “No, that doesn’t make sense.”

“It was never confirmed.”

“But you believed it.”

Ethan looked away briefly.

“That night at the marina… Isabella told me she needed to protect someone.”

Aria’s stomach twisted sharply.

“A child?”

“I assumed so afterward.”

The room suddenly felt unbearably warm.

Aria moved away from the desk and toward the windows, needing space to breathe.

Below them, the river reflected streaks of city light through the darkness.

Everything outside looked stable.

Normal.

Meanwhile her reality continued unraveling piece by piece.

“She told you she had a child?” Aria asked quietly.

“No.”

“Then why would you think that?”

“Because Isabella never feared for herself.” Ethan paused carefully. “Only for other people.”

Aria wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

Her thoughts kept circling one terrifying possibility before immediately rejecting it.

It was impossible.

Completely impossible.

Yet the evidence kept dragging her back toward it.

The scar.

The footage.

The records.

And now this.

Daniel finally spoke again.

“There’s another issue.”

Neither of them looked at him immediately.

“The footage wasn’t stored only in one archive.”

Ethan’s attention snapped toward him. “What are you saying?”

Daniel hesitated.

Then:

“There’s a chance Victor already has a copy.”

The atmosphere shifted instantly.

Ethan swore quietly under his breath.

Aria looked between them. “What happens if he releases it?”

Daniel answered first.

“Then the resemblance becomes public.”

That alone sounded catastrophic.

But Ethan looked even more troubled than that implied.

“Victor won’t just release it,” he said grimly. “He’ll weaponize it.”

Aria frowned. “How?”

Ethan met her gaze directly.

“He’ll convince the world you’re Isabella Hale.”

The words hit hard enough to make her dizzy.

“That’s insane.”

“Victor doesn’t care.”

“He can’t just rewrite someone’s identity.”

“He has enough influence to make people question it.”

Aria stared at him in disbelief.

The fear building inside her had changed now.

Before, it had been confusion.

Now it felt personal.

Dangerously personal.

Because if Victor truly believed she was connected to Isabella somehow, he would never stop looking.

Never stop digging.

Never stop pulling apart her life until he found what he wanted.

Or created it.

Ethan crossed the room toward her slowly.

“We need to move you somewhere secure.”

Aria let out a short breath of disbelief. “You say that like this is normal.”

“It’s necessary.”

“I’m not hiding because some obsessed man decided I resemble his missing daughter.”

Ethan’s expression hardened slightly.

“This stopped being about resemblance the moment that footage surfaced.”

Aria knew he was right.

That was the worst part.

Daniel’s phone buzzed again on the desk.

This time his face paled slightly when he checked the message.

Ethan noticed immediately. “What?”

Daniel looked up slowly.

“You need to see this.”

He turned the laptop toward them again and opened a news site.

At first, Aria didn’t understand what she was looking at.

Then her blood ran cold.

A photograph filled the screen.

The marina footage.

Blurry.

Grainy.

But recognizable.

And beside it, a recent photo of her leaving Ethan’s building earlier that week.

The headline underneath read:

ISABELLA HALE ALIVE? BILLIONAIRE ETHAN BLACKWOOD HIDING MISSING HEIRESS FOR YEARS.

Aria stopped breathing.

“No…”

Daniel looked grim.

“It’s already started.”