Chapter 6: Tangled in Secrets
1034 Words
Aria's pov
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the silence. Not the calm kind that lulls you into peace — this silence was heavy, charged. Like the kind that came before a storm.
I sat up on the massive bed, Damien’s scent still clinging to the sheets. I hated how familiar it was becoming. I hated even more that I didn’t hate it enough.
Memories from the night before came flooding back — his touch, his lips, the way he’d looked at me like he was trying to figure me out and consume me all at once.
I wrapped the silk robe around myself and walked to the window. Raventhorn’s skyline glistened beneath the morning light, but it felt like a cage. Everything here was gold-plated chains and pretty lies.
A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts.
Before I could respond, Luca stepped inside.
His presence was always softer than Damien’s. He didn’t demand attention; he simply drew it. Quiet eyes. Calm posture. But beneath that calm, there was something deeper — a tension that coiled beneath the surface, waiting to snap.
“I brought you breakfast,” he said, setting the tray down on the small table by the window.
“You didn’t have to.”
He glanced at me, his eyes lingering just a second too long. “You didn’t eat dinner.”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
He didn’t reply. Just poured me coffee, black with a hint of vanilla — exactly how I liked it. He remembered everything. It made me ache.
As I sat, he slid the plate toward me. “Damien left early.”
That was strange. Damien never left without a warning, without reminding me in some way that he was watching, controlling, protecting — depending on his mood.
“Where did he go?”
Luca hesitated. “Business.”
“Is that code for something bloody?”
He cracked a small smile. “Usually.”
I sipped my coffee, watching him. “You knew me before the auction, didn’t you?”
His hands froze around his cup. The silence between us stretched thin.
“Yes,” he finally admitted. “We met once. You don’t remember.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“Because if Damien suspected how I felt about you… he would’ve killed me the moment you walked in that room.”
The air shifted. I looked at him, really looked.
“What do you feel, Luca?”
His jaw clenched. “More than I should.”
His honesty gutted me. In this house filled with shadows and secrets, he was the only one who hadn’t lied to me.
But I couldn’t give him what he wanted. Not when my heart was already at war.
And then the silence cracked.
The door slammed open. Damien.
He looked furious, eyes like a brewing storm, shirt undone, blood splattered across his sleeves.
“Out,” he barked at Luca.
Luca didn’t move.
“She deserves to know.”
“Out, Luca,” Damien growled, stepping forward.
Luca turned to me, his voice soft. “I’m sorry, Aria.”
Then he walked out, and Damien locked the door behind him.
“You’ve been keeping secrets,” Damien said, voice dangerously low.
I stood, crossing my arms. “If I have, they’re nothing compared to yours.”
His eyes darkened. “You think this is a game?”
“No. I think you’re used to controlling people, and I’m not one of your men you can order around.”
He was across the room in two strides, grabbing my wrist — not to hurt me, just to ground me.
“You think I don't want to let you go, Aria? I do. Every damn day. But I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re mine.”
That single sentence, spoken with such terrifying intensity, sent shivers through me.
“I didn’t ask to be yours.”
He stepped closer, voice a whisper now. “But you are. And I will burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone take you from me.”
My breath caught.
This wasn’t love. It was something else. Darker. Wilder. Consuming.
He released me and turned away, running a hand through his hair. I noticed the blood on his knuckles.
“Who did you kill?” I asked softly.
He didn’t answer right away.
“There are people who want you dead, Aria. People who know who you really are.”
“I’m no one.”
“No,” he said, turning back. “You’re everything. And you don’t even know it yet.”
My stomach twisted. “What are you talking about?”
Damien walked to his desk and pulled out a file. He tossed it on the table.
It had my name on it.
“Your father wasn't just some mechanic. He used to be one of us — part of a rival family. He betrayed them. Went into hiding. Changed your name. Hid you like a ghost.”
I sat down hard. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
I opened the file with trembling hands. There were photos of me as a child, birth certificates, surveillance records… dates, names… bloodlines.
I didn’t understand most of it, but one thing was clear.
Someone had been watching me for years.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I didn’t ask for this life.”
“None of us did,” he said, softer now. “But here we are.”
The vulnerability in his voice cracked something inside me.
I looked up at him, unsure whether to slap him or cry into his chest.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re mine,” he repeated, kneeling in front of me. “That’s all you need to know.”
His hands cupped my face, and I let him — just for a moment. Just long enough to forget the world outside.
But I knew it wouldn’t last.
Because truths had a way of burning down every lie built to protect them.
And we were standing on a pile of them.
- Writer
