"Sign it, Aria. Don’t make this more pathetic than it already is."

The smell of his expensive cologne mixed sickeningly with the scent of her stepsister’s perfume on the damp hotel sheets. Julian didn’t look like the man who had whispered promises of forever an hour ago; he looked like a predator closing a trap. Beside him, Elena smirked, pulling the silk duvet higher over her shoulder—a silent, triumphant taunt.

"You were having sex with her," Aria whispered, her voice cracking as the roar of the fashion show’s bass thumped through the walls of the dressing suite. "On my runway night. In our bed."

"Technically, it’s my bed now," Elena chirped, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Just like it’s my lead spot in the show. You’re trending, sister. But not for the fashion."

Julian shoved the fountain pen into Aria’s trembling hand. "The scandal hits the press in ten minutes. Your career is dead, your reputation is ashes, and this divorce is your only way out before the sponsors sue you for every cent you own. Sign the papers, take your shame, and disappear."

With a numb heart and a hand that felt like ice, Aria scribbled her name, severing her life.

An hour later, rain lashed against the neon lights of the city as she stumbled into a darkened bar, a ghost in a couture gown. She didn't want comfort; she wanted to feel something other than the knife in her back. When the man in the corner—shadowed, lethal, and radiating a terrifying power—offered her his hand and a night of forgetting, she took it.

She didn't know his name. She didn't know he was the most dangerous man in the financial world. She only knew that as she walked away from the wreckage of her life the next morning, she was carrying a secret that would one day bring the world to its knees.

My little boy Luca stood in my doorway. He was holding his dinosaur. Looking at me with those big eyes that seem to see right through me.


I quickly wiped my face. I tried to smile. "I'm not crying, baby. I'm happy."


Luca knows me too well. "Happy people don't cry, " he said.


I tried to explain. "Sometimes they do, sweetie. When something good happens and they can't believe it's real."


Luca looked at me curiously. "What happened?"


I took a breath and told him the truth. "I got Morriston Tech back. The company I built from scratch. It's mine again."


Lucas' face lit up with excitement. "Really?"


He ran across the room and threw himself at me. I caught him and held him tightly, feeling a sense of joy and relief wash over me.


As we hugged I knew that this happiness was short-lived. Reality would set back in enough.


Chapter 16 - 016 THE SNIPER