Aria's POV
"What do you mean you found me three years ago?"
My voice shakes. I'm still sitting beside Damien's hospital bed, my hand in his. But now I want to pull away. Run. Scream.
He found me three years ago? Three whole years?
"Exactly what I said." Damien's grey eyes don't look away from mine. "I'm a security specialist. Finding people is my job. Your family hired me to locate their missing daughter. I found you working at Morelli's Diner in Brooklyn."
The room spins. Three years ago, I was nineteen. Still grieving Elena, my foster mother who'd just gotten her cancer diagnosis. Working double shifts to pay for her treatments.
"You've been watching me since I was nineteen?" The words taste like poison.
"Yes."
Just yes. No apology. No shame.
I rip my hand from his. "That's stalking! That's insane!"
"That's protection." His voice stays calm. Too calm. "I needed to investigate whether the Vandermeres were safe for you. Whether bringing you back to them would help or hurt you."
"So you decided to spy on me instead?" I stand up, my chair scraping loud against the floor. "You watched me for three years without telling me? Without asking permission?"
"Would you have believed me if I'd walked up to you at that diner and said you were a stolen heiress?" Damien tries to sit up but pain stops him. Good. "You would have called the police."
"I should call them now!"
"But you won't." He says it like a fact, not a guess. "Because you want answers more than you want revenge."
I hate that he's right.
My mind races back through three years of my life. All those times I felt like someone was watching me. The weird feeling of eyes on my back when I walked home late at night. The sense that I wasn't alone even when my apartment was empty.
That was him. All of it was him.
"Why didn't you just introduce yourself?" I demand. "Why all the creepy stalking?"
"Because I hadn't decided if you should know yet."
The coldness in his voice freezes my blood. He hadn't decided. Like I was a problem to solve, not a person with rights.
"You're sick," I whisper.
"Probably." He doesn't deny it. "But I kept you alive. Do you know how many people have tried to kill you in the past three years? Seven attempts. Seven times someone connected to your family's enemies came after you. Seven times I stopped them before they got close."
My legs feel weak. "What?"
"The man who followed you home from work last October? He had a knife and orders to make it look like a robbery. The woman who offered you a ride during that rainstorm in July? Her car trunk had rope and plastic sheets. The—"
"Stop!" I press my hands over my ears. "Just stop!"
But I can't unhear it. Seven times. Seven times I almost died and never knew.
"You were never safe, Aria." Damien's voice cuts through my panic. "That's why I watched. That's why I learned everything about you. Your schedule, your habits, your friends. I needed to know where you'd be so I could protect you."
"That's not protection!" Tears burn my eyes. "That's control!"
"It's both." He reaches for me but I back away. "And it worked. You're alive."
My phone buzzes in my pocket. The sound makes us both freeze.
I pull it out with shaking hands. Unknown number. The message makes my heart stop:
"They're lying about everything. Ask Damien about Elena Cross."
Elena. My foster mother. The only person who ever loved me.
The phone nearly slips from my grip. "Who is this?"
Another buzz. Another message:
"Elena didn't die of cancer. She was murdered. Damien knows why."
The room tilts. I look up at Damien and see something flash across his face. Not surprise. Not confusion.
Guilt.
"You know something." My voice sounds far away. "About Elena. You know something about how she died."
Damien's jaw tightens. For the first time, he looks away from me. "Aria—"
"Tell me!" I'm screaming now. "Tell me the truth! Did Elena really die of cancer?"
The silence stretches too long. Way too long.
"No," he finally says. "She was murdered."
The world stops.
"What?" I can barely breathe.
"Elena Cross was murdered three months ago. Poisoned to look like her cancer got worse." Damien's voice is flat, emotionless. Like he's reporting facts, not destroying my life. "Someone wanted her dead before she could tell you the truth."
"What truth?" I'm crying now, hot tears running down my face. "What truth could Elena possibly—"
"She knew who you really were, Aria." Damien sits up despite his injury, his grey eyes locked on mine. "Elena Cross was a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital twenty-three years ago. She was working the night you were stolen from your crib."
No. No, no, no.
"She didn't just know about your kidnapping." Damien's next words shatter everything. "She's the one who took you."
My knees hit the floor. The phone falls from my hand. Elena? My Elena? The woman who raised me, who loved me, who sang me to sleep when I had nightmares?
She stole me?
"That's impossible," I sob. "Elena would never—"
"She was paid half a million dollars to take you from the hospital and disappear." Damien's voice is gentle now, almost kind. It makes everything worse. "Someone in your family wanted you gone. Elena was just the tool they used."
"Who?" The word rips from my throat. "Who paid her?"
Damien opens his mouth to answer.
Then every light in the hospital goes out.
Darkness swallows us. Emergency generators kick in but only hallway lights flicker on, leaving Damien's room in shadow.
"Damien?" My voice shakes.
"Don't move." His whisper is urgent. "Someone cut the power."
I hear movement in the hallway. Footsteps. Too many footsteps.
My phone lights up on the floor where I dropped it. One more message glows in the dark:
"She's coming for you. Your sister. Run."
Sister?
The door crashes open.