Aria Vale
The alley was too quiet for comfort.
Hidden behind the old glasshouse tucked between two corporate towers, the air reeked of damp earth and rotting metal. I waited in the shadows, my coat wrapped tight around me, a scarf pulled high enough to hide half my face. Even in secrecy, I was composed—outwardly.
Inwardly, I was a riot of questions and suspicion.
Elena Ward emerged like a ghost from the fog—heels soundless, red lips pressed into a straight line. She wore black, as always, like mourning was her default setting. She stopped a few feet from me and raised a brow.
"You came alone," she noted, her voice cool and sharp. "That's either brave or very, very stupid."
"I'm used to both," I said, stepping into the dim light spilling from a broken lamp above. "Tell me what you know."
Elena studied me for a moment, her eyes like glass—reflective but impossible to read. "The Monarch Syndicate wasn't just a shadow operation. It was a legacy. One your father helped build. One Damian Wolfe is about to inherit."
My throat tightened. "You said he tried to shut it down."
"He tried," she confirmed, her voice dipping lower. "But legacy runs deep in the Wolfe family. His father built Monarch with blood and ambition. Your father funded it—partially. He bought his silence with money, and when he couldn't pay anymore…" She let the words hang.
I didn't blink. "They killed him."
"Or made sure someone else did." Elena's voice was calm, but her eyes flickered. "You need to stop thinking of Damian as a pawn. He's not. He's *Wolfe blood.* You don't just walk away from that."
"I need proof," I said. "Something solid."
Elena reached into her coat and handed me a small flash drive. "There's a list of accounts tied to your father. Shell companies. Cleaned money. Transfers to Monarch. You'll find one thing in common."
"What's that?"
She smiled, but it wasn't kind. "Damian Wolfe's name."
I clutched the drive, my fingers numb. The fire in my chest smoldered into something darker. Not rage. Not sorrow. Something colder.
Resolve.
I stepped back into the shadows. "If you're lying…"
"I'm not," Elena said. "But be careful, Aria. Because if you burn Wolfe, you might go down with him."
---
I didn't go home.
I couldn't.
I drove—no destination, just movement. The city lights blurred past my windshield, neon streaks dragging across glass like war paint. Elena's words pulsed like a drumbeat in my skull. "He's Wolfe blood. You don't just walk away from that."
I parked two blocks from my penthouse and walked. The flash drive weighed heavy in my coat pocket. Part of me wanted to throw it into the river, pretend I never heard the name Monarch Syndicate. Pretend Damian Wolfe hadn't just become everything I feared.
But that part of me was a coward. And I hadn't come this far to flinch.
Inside my apartment, I moved on autopilot—boots off, coat draped over the chair, locks secured behind me. I poured a glass of wine I wouldn't drink, then sat at the dining table with my laptop and slid the flash drive in.
Password protected.
Of course.
I cracked it in under five minutes. Elena knew exactly who she was dealing with.
The folders were clean—surgically organized. One marked VALE HOLDINGS sent a spike of nausea through me. Inside were transaction records. Shell companies. Money trails winding through offshore accounts, all leading back to Monarch. My father's name appeared over and over.
So did Damian Wolfe's.
There it was—in black and white. Joint signatories on a fake logistics company in Jakarta. Damian had signed off on it only six months before my father died. The timeline didn't lie.
I leaned back, fingers trembling.
He knew.
He hadn't just been trying to stop it. He had been inside it. Benefiting. Maybe protecting it. Maybe… expanding it.
I closed the laptop and stared into the dark apartment.
Was this why he kept looking at me like he owed me something? Was this what he meant when he said I didn't know the whole truth? My father had been a liar—but Damian… Damian had been a part of the lie. A part of the rot.
And I had kissed him.
Touched him.
Let him see pieces of me no one else ever had.
I stood, shaking, and poured the wine down the sink. Then I grabbed my phone and sent one message.
To: Jasper
We need to move. I've seen enough.
Three dots appeared. Then:
Jasper: Told you. He's poison. Ready when you are.
I wasn't sure what the next move would be. But I knew one thing.
Whatever feelings I thought I had for Damian Wolfe?
They were about to become a weapon.
---
Jasper Maddox
I'd been waiting.
Watching from the shadows like I always did—never quite in the light, never far from the fire.
Aria's message came through at 2:14 a.m. sharp.
We need to move. I've seen enough.
I didn't ask what she'd seen. I didn't need to. Elena Ward hadn't survived this long by handing out bedtime stories. If she gave Aria a flash drive, it meant the rot was deeper than even I'd calculated.
Damian Wolfe was finished. He just didn't know it yet.
I closed the burner phone and dropped it into a drainage grate on Fifth and Mercer, then slipped into the alley where my car was parked. The city hummed around me like a beast in sleep—rich men dreaming, empires wheezing under the weight of their own secrets.
I'd played both sides long enough.
Damian thought I was his shadow, his clean-up man. And I was—just not in the way he imagined.
I slid behind the wheel, tapping the screen built into the dash. A live feed flickered on—security footage from Wolfe Tower. I watched Damian alone in his office, pacing like a man who knew the walls were closing in. He was unraveling. I almost pitied him.
Almost.
But pity was a luxury I didn't afford anyone. Not after what Alexander Vale did. Not after what I saw that night in the fire.
This wasn't just about power. This was about history.
The syndicate took my family. The Wolfes buried the truth. And Alexander Vale? He funded the machine that destroyed us all—until his conscience caught up and he died with his hands still dirty.
Now I was here to finish what he never had the guts to.
I pulled a small case from the glove compartment and opened it. Inside, a clean syringe. Colorless liquid. Precise. Silent.
Wolfe's right-hand man, his most trusted loyalist, about to carve out the last piece of this empire.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I had something else to do.
I sent one message.
To: Aria
When you're ready, I'll have the room prepared. Bring the file. We strike before sunrise.
Then I drove. Not toward Wolfe Tower.
But toward the edge of the city—where an old contact had something I needed: leverage. A name. A face. Someone from Monarch who'd slipped through the cracks.
Because Aria thought the file was the end.
But I knew better.
It was only the beginning.