The limousine was silent.
Aria sat beside Damien, her arms folded tight across her chest, heart still racing from the encounter in the greenhouse. Rain tapped against the tinted windows, but inside the car, the tension was louder than any storm.
He hadn't said a word since they left.
She couldn't take it anymore.
"You lied to me," she said quietly.
Damien's gaze remained fixed out the window. "About what?"
She turned to him, fury beginning to rise. "About Leon. About your past. About everything."
"I didn't lie," he replied coldly. "I just didn't tell you everything."
Aria scoffed. "That's the same thing."
"No," he said, finally meeting her eyes. "It's not."
His voice was steel, but his eyes… there was something fractured behind them. Something almost human.
"You said this marriage was for convenience," she said, voice trembling. "But now I find out it's part of some twisted power game between you and your half-brother?"
"You're not a pawn, Aria," Damien said, too quickly.
"Then what am?" she demanded. "A trophy? A shield? A bargaining chip?"
He didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Aria leaned back, closing her eyes against the ache rising in her chest. For so long, she had been surviving, enduring, holding herself together with scraps of dignity. But now?
Now she was angry.
Not just at Damien. At herself. For being dragged into this world. For believing she could ever be safe in it.
"You used me," she whispered.
Damien's jaw clenched. "I protected you."
"From what?" she snapped. "The truth?"
He turned to her then, his eyes dark, unreadable. "From him."
There was something in his voice—something final.
But Aria was done with secrets.
"You don't get to decide what I'm protected from. You don't get to lock me in a mansion and feed me half-truths like I'm some delicate thing."
His lip curled slightly, the faintest trace of a smirk. "Delicate is not a word I'd use to describe you."
Her glare could've frozen fire.
When they arrived back at the penthouse, Aria didn't wait for Damien. She stormed ahead, kicking off her heels in the foyer, heading straight for the library—the one room she'd been forbidden to enter.
But tonight? She didn't care.
Inside, the air was thick with dust and power. Shelves towered around her, filled with ledgers, files, and old documents. She didn't know what she was looking for, but her instincts screamed that the answers were here.
After all, if Damien wouldn't tell her the truth—she'd find it herself.
She pulled a thick file from the shelf, flipping through it.
Blackwood Enterprises. Internal Audit. 4 Years Ago.
Her fingers froze on a name.
Leon Blackwood – Asset Recovery Division. Investigative Suspension. Alleged Embezzlement.
Her heart sank.
Leon hadn't just left.
He'd been accused.
Behind her, the door creaked.
She turned—and found Damien watching her from the doorway, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"I told you not to come in here," he said softly.
"And you told me a lot of things," she replied, clutching the file to her chest. "None of them true."
He stepped inside, walking slowly toward her. "That file won't tell you everything."
"No," she said. "But it tells me enough. Leon was framed, wasn't he?"
Damien's lips parted—but no words came out.
That was all the confirmation she needed.
"You let me believe you married me to save my family," she whispered. "But this was never about me. This was about winning."
His eyes locked onto hers. "It was never supposed to be you."
For a moment, the pain in his voice cracked his mask wide open.
But Aria didn't flinch.
"I'm not afraid of you anymore," she said.
And when she turned to leave the library, file in hand, she didn't see the look Damien gave her—
A look that wasn't anger.Wasn't pride.But fear.
Because he knew:The woman he married was gone.
And the woman walking out that door?She was going to burn the truth out of all of them