The icy feeling of fear, like a parasite on the bone, lingered in Aria's blood for a long time before slowly receding, leaving behind an exhausted clarity. The wind on the terrace seemed to carry Léon Delacroix's chilling cold, making her skin crawl. She clutched the pendant USB drive that was once again around her neck, now feeling incredibly hot to the touch, and forced herself to calm down.
The plan had to continue. The arrow had left the bow.
She took a few deep breaths of the salty sea air, tidied her slightly messy hair and dress, and forced her face to regain the look of a frightened girl, rather than one of a guilty conspirator. She could not stay out here for too long without arousing suspicion.
When she stepped back inside, the gala's atmosphere seemed even livelier. No one had noticed the brief but heart-stopping interlude in the hallway. Lucas was still deep in conversation, Sofia was flirting with a young entrepreneur, and Clara had disappeared somewhere. The journalist Felipe was no longer in his original spot either.
Aria's heart sank slightly. He had picked up the USB drive, but what then? Would he be curious enough to check it, or would he just toss it aside? Had the anonymous email been sent on time?
She was like a prisoner awaiting final judgment, outwardly calm but internally tormented with every passing second. She walked over to the food table, got a glass of sparkling water, and sipped it slowly. The cold liquid sliding down her throat helped to quell the restless anxiety.
Suddenly, a small commotion broke out near the entrance of the ballroom. A few people walked in quickly and headed straight for Lucas's father, Mr. Gallardo Senior, who was chatting and laughing. They whispered something to him urgently.
The satisfied smile on Mr. Gallardo Senior's face froze instantly, turning to bewilderment and then to an expression of unconcealed fury. He suddenly looked up, his gaze sweeping the room like a hawk, finally landing on Aria, who was still on Lucas's arm, playing the part of the obedient fiancée. His eyes were full of scrutiny, suspicion, and a storm that was barely suppressed.
Aria's heart skipped a beat. She instinctively avoided his gaze and looked down, pretending to adjust her dress. Had it worked? Or had it been too much? Mr. Gallardo's reaction was faster and more intense than she had anticipated.
Lucas also noticed his father's strange behavior. He ended his conversation and walked over with a frown. "Father, what's wrong?"
Mr. Gallardo Senior did not answer right away. He just gave his son a hard look, said a few words to the other men, and then, with a gloomy expression, strode toward a lounge. Lucas was stunned for a moment before following him.
Others in the room seemed to sense that something was wrong. The volume of their conversations dropped, and their eyes subtly followed the Gallardo father and son as they left.
Sofia quickly walked over to Aria, her face a mask of concern. "Hey, darling, what happened? Mr. Diego looked so angry." Her eyes, however, sparkled with excitement and curiosity.
"I don't know," Aria said, shaking her head. Her voice held a hint of genuine tremor. "It seems something happened?"
Just then, the phone in Aria's clutch vibrated. It was not a call, but an anonymous message from an untraceable temporary number. The content was just one short sentence:
The gift has been delivered. The storm is coming. Good luck.
It was the hacker she had hired to send the email! He had confirmed it.
Almost at the same time, Aria caught a glimpse of the journalist, Felipe Morales, re-entering the room from another entrance. His expression was unusually serious, his eyes sharp. He was walking quickly toward the media section, typing on his phone's screen as he went.
The USB drive! He must have looked at it. And he had smelled blood.
A shiver, a mixture of immense satisfaction and even deeper dread, swept over Aria. The plan had worked. The scandal was beginning to ferment exactly as she had hoped.
But she had no time to savor this fleeting victory. Mr. Gallardo Senior's suspicious look rang a warning bell in her mind. Lucas and Sofia were not fools. Once they calmed down, they could easily suspect the "naive" fiancée who had just "accidentally" discovered a "secret" and then just so happened to set everything in motion at that very moment. Moreover, Léon Delacroix's meaningful gaze meant he had definitely seen something. His presence was the biggest variable.
She had to leave at once. She had to disappear completely before they could react, try to control her, or get answers out of her.
"Sofia... I... I'm still not feeling well," Aria said, exhibiting an even stronger sense of dizziness. Her face was pale. "I think I'll go back now. My head hurts so much."
"Now? But..." Sofia clearly did not want to miss the opportunity to get more information, and she also wanted to keep an eye on Aria.
"I'm sorry, I really can't take it anymore." Aria weakly waved her hand, giving Sofia no chance to stop her. She turned and walked quickly toward the exit, her steps even a little unsteady, a perfect portrayal of a frightened, unwell woman who wanted to escape the drama.
She did not even say goodbye to Lucas. He was completely overwhelmed right now and had no time to spare for her.
The moment she walked out of the club, the cold night wind hit her. Aria did not call the driver arranged by the Gallardo family. She quickly hailed a passing taxi instead.
"Passeig de Gràcia." She gave the apartment address and collapsed into the back seat, her heart still pounding wildly.
Back at the apartment, she locked the door. The first thing she did was open her laptop. Just as she expected, a few local financial news sites and gossip forums were already starting to show scattered reports. The headlines were still vague, but the keywords "Gallardo Construction," "affordable housing project," "quality concerns," and "internal leak" were all there. Felipe worked fast. The anonymous email had clearly worked.
She quickly scanned the reports while keeping a close eye on her phone. There were no calls from Lucas. Sofia had sent a few messages full of fake concern and probing questions. Aria only replied with, "Got home, going to sleep, talk tomorrow," and then ignored her.
This was not a time for celebration. She had to execute the final step of her plan: disappearing.
She opened a travel bag she had prepared long ago and started to pack at the fastest speed possible. She only took her necessary documents, all the cash she had, a few of her most ordinary clothes, the encrypted laptop containing all her forged evidence and plans, and a few of her most important literary books. All the jewelry, designer clothes, and even the laptop Lucas had given her were left behind.
She pulled an old photograph from a secret compartment in a wallet. It was a picture of her taken in Paris during her study exchange at the Sorbonne, in front of a small bookstore near the Panthéon. Her smile was radiant, her eyes full of light. It was the last period of freedom she had before being called back by her family to get engaged. She carefully tucked the photo away.
Then, she sat down and began to write a letter. It was not for Lucas, but for his mother, a relatively reasonable woman who had been kind to her in her past life. In a trembling but clear hand, she wrote about how she had "accidentally" discovered the "horrible" documents, how she was shocked, terrified, and utterly disappointed. She wrote that she could not imagine being associated with a family that cheated the public and ignored safety, that she had struggled with the pain and ultimately decided to leave. She asked for forgiveness for her sudden departure and said she needed time and space to cool down. The letter was full of the despair and "goodness" of a deceived victim, placing herself firmly on the moral high ground.
This letter would be one of her bodyguards.
After she finished everything, the sky was already growing light. Barcelona was about to wake up, and the Gallardo family's nightmare was just beginning.
Aria changed into the most inconspicuous jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put on a baseball cap and a pair of black-rimmed glasses, completely changing her appearance. She took one last look around the luxurious but cold cage, then unhesitatingly picked up her travel bag and quietly left the apartment, blending into the crowd of the earliest morning subway riders like a drop of water.
She did not go to the airport. Instead, she went to the long-distance bus station and bought a ticket for the earliest bus to a small town on the border of southern France. She needed to shake off any possible pursuit first, and then she would travel to Paris under a different name.
Sitting on the rocking long-distance bus, she watched the outline of Barcelona, bathed in the morning light, gradually disappear. There was no nostalgia in her heart, only a cold determination and a hint of confusion toward the unknown.
She had succeeded in the first step. She had escaped Lucas Gallardo.
But Léon Delacroix's cold, scrutinizing eyes, like a nightmare, would not leave her mind.
He was like an observer hidden in the eye of the storm, silent and dangerous. She did not know how much he had seen, or why he had remained silent. This uncertainty was more frightening than the Gallardo family's fury.
And would Paris, waiting for her ahead, really be a safe haven? Or was it another, bigger, and more elaborate trap?
The bus bumped along toward the border. Aria closed her eyes and pulled her hat lower. Her journey of exile had just begun. Her real revenge was far from over. She would not let any of the three people who had killed her get away. And before that, she had to ensure she survived and rooted herself in this new, foreign country.