The SUV sliced through the storm like a dark bullet, wipers thrashing against the windshield as the city blurred into streaks of neon and thunderclouds. Aria sat rigid in the passenger seat, pulse still shaking from the fight under the overpass, from the blood drying down Caspian's arm, from the kiss she still felt on her mouth.
She shouldn't have kissed him back.
She should've pushed him away.
But when he touched her… when he whispered her name like a confession… when he bled for her…
God.
Nothing in her body obeyed logic anymore.
Rafael checked the mirror again, eyes narrowed. "No sign of the sedan. No tail."
"Don't trust it," Caspian said, voice sharp despite the exhaustion threading through it. "They don't lose us. They let us go."
Aria gripped her seatbelt. "Why would they let us go?"
"To see where we run," Caspian said.
Her stomach turned.
"To see what we're protecting."
Lightning flashed. The streets glowed white for half a heartbeat, reflecting the tension inside the car.
Caspian kept one hand on the wheel, the other pressed hard against the bleeding slice across his forearm. He hadn't looked at her since the fight. Not once. Not since the moment he'd said he'd lose control if she touched him again.
Aria swallowed, voice barely a whisper. "Does it… hurt?"
"Doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
His jaw locked.
His grip tightened.
And for a terrifying moment, she thought he might tell her not to care.
Instead, he said nothing.
It was worse.
Rafael cleared his throat softly. "Boss… maybe let me take the wheel."
"No," Caspian muttered.
"You're bleeding onto the leather."
"Then don't look at the leather."
Rafael shot Aria a glance that said, He's only like this when he's scared.
But scared of what?
The notebook?
Her mother?
The Shadow?
Or… her?
The SUV turned a hard corner, skidding onto Aria's street. The building rose ahead, a lonely silhouette swallowed by storm clouds. Every light in the hallway windows was dark.
Too dark.
Aria's pulse jumped. "It wasn't this dark when I left."
Caspian finally reacted. Subtle. A shift in posture. A breath that wasn't a breath.
A man preparing to kill someone.
"We'll proceed slow," Rafael murmured.
"No." Caspian's voice cut like a blade. "Fast."
The SUV rolled to a stop.
Rain hammered the roof.
Aria reached for her seatbelt, but Caspian's hand shot out, gripping her wrist. His fingers trembled—not from weakness, but from the effort it took not to pull her into him.
"Stay behind me," he said, quiet but lethal. "If anything moves, you run. You don't think. You don't speak. You run."
His eyes lifted to hers.
Stormy. Fractured. Terrified.
Her breath caught. "Caspian…"
He let go first.
Not because he wanted to.
Because if he didn't, he would've kissed her again.
He stepped into the rain without waiting. Rafael followed, gun raised. Aria grabbed her backpack and stumbled out, shoes splashing in a growing puddle.
The storm swallowed her instantly.
Water soaked her hair, her clothes, her skin. Her heart hammered against her ribs as they rushed into the building's entrance, the door creaking loudly behind them.
The hallway was silent.
Too silent.
Rafael frowned. "Someone tripped the power. Meter's still warm. Recent."
Caspian lifted his gun higher. "He was here."
Aria's breath cracked. "The Shadow?"
"Or someone worse," Caspian muttered.
Her blood went cold.
They climbed the stairs fast. Caspian took each corner like it was an ambush zone, his movements precise despite the blood dripping from his arm.
On the third floor, they stopped.
Her apartment door was slightly open.
Not broken.
Not forced.
Just… open.
Like someone wanted them to walk inside.
Aria's chest caved. "I locked it… I swear I locked it…"
Caspian stretched an arm across her, pushing her behind him. "I believe you."
Rafael's voice dropped. "Step back, Aria."
Caspian nudged the door open with the tip of his gun.
The apartment greeted them with a breath of cold air. The kind of cold that meant a window was open.
Or someone was still inside.
Caspian stepped in first.
Then Rafael.
Then—
A hand grabbed Aria's shirt from behind and yanked.
She gasped—but it was Caspian, pulling her sharply against him as he slammed the door shut behind them.
"What the hell—"
"Don't move." His voice was lower than a whisper. "The floor is different."
Aria froze.
"What do you mean—"
"Something's under the rug."
Rafael crouched, touched the edge of her living room rug, lifted it two inches—
A tiny metallic click sounded.
Caspian's entire body went rigid. "Trip sensor. Motion-activated."
Aria's blood stopped moving.
Someone had booby-trapped her home.
Caspian's jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. "Move slow. Follow my exact steps."
He guided her around the rug with one hand pressed to her back. Not forceful. Just desperate.
A man shielding her from the world's worst monsters, even while bleeding.
When they were safely past it, Aria rushed forward and grabbed a box hidden behind the couch. Her mother's box. The one that held the notebook. The letters. The little pieces of a woman Aria barely remembered.
Her hands trembled as she pushed the box onto the counter. "I left it right here…"
A cold gust of wind brushed her arm.
Her living room window was cracked open.
Rafael cursed. "Someone came in through the fire escape."
"Not someone." Caspian's voice was ice. "Him."
The Shadow.
Aria grabbed the notebook from the box with shaking fingers, clutching it to her chest like armor. "Why would he come here? Why—"
"Because he wanted you to open it." Caspian stepped closer. "Because he wanted me to see it."
Aria's heart dropped. "Caspian… what's in here? What is he trying to show you?"
His throat tightened. He didn't look away from the notebook. "Open it."
She slowly lifted the cover.
Caspian stiffened.
Rafael raised his gun again.
Inside, tucked between two pages, was a photograph. Old. Faded. Edges burned slightly like someone tried to destroy it.
Aria lifted it with trembling hands.
A young woman.
Dark hair.
Soft eyes.
A familiar face.
Her mother.
Standing beside—
Aria's breath stopped.
Caspian's eyes widened.
Rafael whispered, "Oh hell."
The man beside Aria's mother in the photo was not Aria's father.
He was younger.
Broad-shouldered.
Cold-eyed.
Caspian inhaled sharply, a broken breath.
Because the man in the photo…
Was Caspian's father.
Aria's pulse collapsed. "No… no, that— that can't be—"
Caspian staggered back a half-step, eyes glued to the image like it was tearing his world apart.
Rafael muttered a curse under his breath. "Boss… is that…?"
"Yes."
Caspian's voice cracked open.
A sound she'd never heard from him.
A sound no one had ever heard from him.
Aria's mother had been with his father.
Together.
Close.
Smiling.
Caspian seemed to shrink and shatter at the same time. "He knew her."
Aria's chest hurt. "Caspian—"
"He knew her," he repeated, louder. Rawer. "Why didn't he—why didn't he ever—"
He pressed a hand to his forehead, breathing ragged.
Aria reached for him.
He flinched away.
Not because he didn't want her touch.
But because if she touched him, he would break completely.
Rafael exhaled slowly. "This wasn't random. This was planned. Someone wanted the two of you to find this."
Aria whispered, "Why? Why would anyone want that?"
Caspian's eyes lifted to hers.
Stormy.
Fractured.
Destroyed.
"Because it means your mother wasn't running from Vitalli."
Aria froze.
Caspian stepped closer, voice low and hollow. "She wasn't hiding from criminals."
Lightning flashed behind them.
He swallowed hard.
"She was hiding from my father."
Aria felt the floor tilt under her.
The Shadow's message.
The attacks.
The warnings.
The notebook.
The photo.
Her mother…
And Caspian's father.
And her.
Caspian's voice dropped to a whisper that hurt to hear.
"Aria… you were never supposed to be found."
Rain blasted the windows.
The lights flickered.
And somewhere outside, in the alley below, a silhouette moved past her fire escape.
Watching.
Waiting.
The Shadow.
Aria stumbled backward. "Caspian… what does this mean?"
He looked at her like the truth was breaking him as much as it was breaking her.
"It means," he whispered, "that your mother didn't die because of my enemies."
Thunder cracked.
Caspian stepped closer. Close enough she felt his breath.
"She died because of mine."
Aria's world shattered.
And Caspian's expression said one thing:
This was only the beginning.