تسجيل الدخولMorning arrived without peace.
Aria had barely left her room when a security staff approached her near the staircase.
“Ma’am,” he said carefully, “the press is outside.”
Aria paused mid-step. Of course, the news from last night had spread faster than expected. But her first thought wasn’t about herself.<
The safehouse sat far outside the city, inside an abandoned warehouse swallowed by darkness. Thick concrete walls cut it off completely from the outside world, no sound, no movement, no sense of time.Adrian entered without announcement or urgency. The guards outside straightened at his arrival, but none of them spoke.Inside, the attacker was already seated. His mask had been removed, his wrists were restrained to a metal chair bolted into the floor. Bruises were already forming along his jaw and cheek.He looked up the moment Adrian walked in. Recognition came first, then understanding.He knew exactly who was standing in front of him. And that there would be no way out of this room that mattered anymore.Adrian didn’t sit immediately. He stopped a few steps away, studying the man in silence.No threats. No questions. Just presence, controlled, steady, and heavy enough to fill the room.The man swallowed.“I didn’t know it would go this far,” he said quickly. “It was supposed to be
The moment Aria’s office door closed, the sound of Aurelia Nexus faded into a distant, controlled hum.She didn’t sit right away. She walked straight into her private lounge, removed her clothes, and cleaned up in silence. The water from earlier still carried a faint, unpleasant smell, but she washed it away with steady, practiced hands.No rush. No irritation, just control.A few minutes later, Elvira knocked and entered with a fresh set of clothes. “I brought your clothes, ma’am.”“Thank you,” Aria said simply.She changed quickly, unbothered by what had happened earlier, as if it had already been filed away as irrelevant noise.When she returned to her desk,
Morning arrived without peace.Aria had barely left her room when a security staff approached her near the staircase.“Ma’am,” he said carefully, “the press is outside.”Aria paused mid-step. Of course, the news from last night had spread faster than expected. But her first thought wasn’t about herself.It was for Caelum.Her gaze shifted toward the hallway.“Helena.”Helena appeared from the other side of the hall. “Yes, Aria?”“Don’t let Caelum outside today,” Aria said. “Not the garden, backyard, or even the pool. Keep him indoors for now.&rdq
Aria stayed in her study long after Marcus ended the call.The alerts on her laptop kept flashing, one after another, but she no longer reacted to them the same way. Her focus had already shifted.What had once looked like chaos now started to resemble structure, patterns hidden inside noise.Slowly, she leaned forward and began organizing everything in her mind.The timing of the leak was too precise. It appeared exactly when Marcus began digging. The spread wasn’t random either. It moved too cleanly, too efficiently, like something guided rather than uncontrolled gossip.Her eyes narrowed slightly.This wasn’t exposure. It was direction.“They’re not exposing me,” she said quietly to herself. “They’re steering me.”She opened her secure system and pulled up a private folder. One by one, she began compiling Marcus’s findings with her own notes.Solen Vale’s movements. The accident timeline. Missing birth records. Deleted hospital files. Fragmented gaps that refused to align naturally
Later that evening, Aria sat alone in her study at home.The room was quiet, lit only by the soft glow of her desk lamp and the scattered city lights beyond the glass windows. From this height, everything below looked orderly, almost peaceful.A sharp contrast to the storm quietly building around her.Her phone rang.Marcus.She answered at once. “Hey. Any update? Did you find anything?”His voice came low and serious. “I found something.”Aria straightened in her chair. “What is it?”A pause followed, along with the faint sound of papers moving on his end.Then, “There’s a problem with your records.”Her brows tightened. “What kind of problem?”“I pulled the original hospital database from the month you and Alessia were supposedly born,” Marcus said carefully. “And your files don’t line up.”Her fingers closed around the phone. “Explain.”“The system lists you and Alessia as twins,” he continued. “That part is consistent across official records.”A beat.“But the timeline isn't.”Ari
The moment Solen stepped into her car, she shut the door harder than necessary. The sound echoed sharply inside the quiet vehicle.“Drive,” she said coldly.The driver started the engine, but Solen barely noticed.Her hands tightened around her phone, fingers trembling slightly.Aria’s words kept replaying in her mind like a broken record: Another car accident? You think I didn’t know?Her jaw clenched.At the office, she had barely kept her composure. Now alone in the backseat, the words hit harder.Aria knew too much.Solen stared out the tinted window as the city blurred past.How? Had someone talked? Had old records resurfaced? Was someone watching her? The questions kept coming, each one sharper than the last.Her phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number.Her stomach tightened before she even opened it: You were told not to provoke her.Her face drained of color. She hit call without thinking. One ring, then the line cut off.No answer.A minute later, another message cam







