chapter 2: Breaking the Cage
1019 Words
Aria flees to her private rooftop garden, her only sanctuary.
Aria’s lungs burned by the time she reached the rooftop garden.
She shoved open the glass doors, letting the wind slam them shut behind her. The manicured hedges and ornamental cherry trees bent in the early spring gusts. Beneath her bare feet, the flagstone was cold. She didn’t care.
This was the one place in the Valemont estate untouched by her grandfather’s taste. It had been her mother’s garden—before the crash. Now it was hers, a secret refuge above the curated tyranny of their empire.
She sank onto a wrought iron bench and pulled her phone from her robe’s hidden pocket. A single name blinked at the top of her contact list:
Cassie Moreno.
She hit call.
It rang once.
“Tell me you’re not wearing the dress,” Cassie answered.
“I’m not.”
“Okay, good. That would’ve made this harder.”
Aria leaned back against the bench. “He already signed the marriage contract. He says I already did, too.”
Cassie cursed under her breath. “Did you?”
“Apparently I signed something months ago. He says it’s binding.”
Cassie’s voice sharpened. “Did you read it?”
“No. He said it was just trust paperwork. Inheritance stuff.”
“Classic Laurent.” A pause. “Okay, breathe. Because I’m going to say something crazy and you’re going to pretend it’s not.”
Aria closed her eyes. “Go.”
“Disappear.”
Aria said nothing.
Cassie filled the silence. “Fake your death. Blow up a decoy car, wipe your records, scrub your face from every connected camera system. Walk out of that mansion and never come back.”
“I’d lose everything.”
“No,” Cassie said gently. “You’d leave everything. Big difference.”
Aria opened her eyes. The wind caught a blossom from the cherry tree and scattered it across her lap. It looked like a snowflake. It didn’t belong here either.
“I can’t do this alone,” she whispered.
“You won’t be,” Cassie replied. “I already have a new identity template built. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use it, but… I know you, Aria. You’ve been planning your escape since you were sixteen. You just needed someone to say it’s possible.”
From her robe’s other pocket, Aria pulled out the folded document her grandfather had left behind.
She opened it.
Marriage Contract Between: Aria Celestine Valemont & Kael Rivenhart
Signatures. Hers. His. A notary seal. A corporate legal advisor. A future written in ink she never noticed.
Her throat tightened.
“I’ll do it,” she said quietly.
Cassie exhaled into the phone. “Good. Then get inside, burn everything that links you to your old life, and meet me at the east gate in four hours.”
Aria hung up.
She stood slowly, the contract still clutched in her fingers. Then she walked back through the garden doors.
And for the first time in her life, she felt like she was moving by her own will.
---
The security alarm blared just after 2:00 a.m.
Aria stood in the hallway in a hoodie and jeans—clothes she hadn’t worn in years—watching as uniformed guards scrambled across the estate grounds, radios crackling. Floodlights scanned the trees. Two Dobermans barked furiously from the edge of the inner gate.
Cassie’s timing was exact.
A black SUV tore down the private drive—one of the fleet. A Valemont driver at the wheel. But not just any driver—Cassie’s cousin, paid well for the night. Inside the vehicle sat a mannequin wearing Aria’s gown, seat-belted and slumped convincingly.
Aria moved swiftly down the servants’ stairwell, slipping through the hidden door behind the wine cellar. She’d walked this path only once before—on a dare as a child. Now it felt like a tunnel to freedom.
Outside, the night was cold and sharp with the smell of pine and ozone.
Cassie stood waiting by a dirt bike near the east gate, helmet already in place, eyes barely visible beneath a dark visor.
“Don’t say anything,” she called over the engine. “Just get on.”
Aria swung her leg over and gripped the sides of the seat.
As they took off into the woods, she heard the explosion.
The night sky lit up behind them—orange and sudden, like a new sun being born in reverse. Trees shuddered. Birds scattered from the treetops.
Cassie didn’t slow down.
They ditched the bike by the old ranger station near the commuter line. Inside, Aria changed quickly into secondhand clothes from a thrift store bag: black jeans, sneakers, a faded green jacket. Her hair was dyed already—chestnut, cut with razored ends. She looked in the broken mirror.
Not Valemont.
Just Aria.
Cassie handed her a plain black wallet with a single ID card and a train ticket.
“Name’s Aria Quinn now,” she said. “Birthplace: Vermont. Backstory: orphan, moved around. Keep your head down for a few days. I’ll send you your new phone in three days via locker drop.”
Aria looked at her best friend—eyes shining, lips tight with nerves.
“You sure you want to do this?” Cassie asked.
“I’ve never been more sure.”
Cassie nodded once. “Then go before someone starts asking why the Valemont estate smells like fireworks.”
Aria hugged her tight. No words. Then turned and climbed the steep embankment toward the train station.
The 2:45 a.m. to Brighton was just arriving, brakes hissing.
She stepped into the last car. No one looked up.
As the train pulled away from the station, she watched the forest vanish into the black.
Behind her, the world believed she was dead.
That night, under cover of a "security breach" staged by Cassie, Aria fakes her escape. A decoy car explode near the bridge. The media will report her as missing-- possibly dead. That's the plan she hopes to succeed and it did.
- Writer
