Chapter 5
997 Words
The Telling.
The silence in the penthouse was unnatural. Usually, Aidan filled it with his muttering, his clumsy pacing, the way he let music play too loud like he was daring the walls to argue back.
But tonight, he was quiet.
Seraphina stood outside the bedroom door, hand hovering just above the knob.
She’d rehearsed the words. A hundred versions. None is good enough.
She pushed the door open.
He was shirtless, sprawled on the edge of the bed, reading something on his phone. He looked up and froze.
“Hey,” he said, cautiously.
“Hi.” Her voice was tight.
He sat straighter. “Everything okay?”
“No.”
A beat passed.
“Then sit. Tell me.”
She did. Carefully. Across from him, knees tucked under, back straight like she was bracing for impact.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “And I need you to not interrupt until I’m finished.”
He nodded once.
“I didn’t pick you.”
He blinked.
“My father did. He chose you. Long before I met you. I don’t know how much he knew then, but it was enough to want you in our house close.”
Aidan stared at her, confused.
Seraphina kept going. “He had you follow. Watched. Research. He knew things about your life, your parents… things I didn’t. Things you don’t.”
She reached for the folder she’d brought from the study the one Red had seen.
She handed it to him.
He opened it. Read slowly. Then faster.
His face paled.
“What is this?” he asked, voice low.
“It’s your past,” she said softly. “But it’s not the one you know.”
Inside were photos of a sharp-jawed, fierce-eyed. Aidan’s mirror image in older years.
A photo of a woman, too. With a scar under her chin.
A police report.
A sealed court document.
A birth certificate with a different name.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“You were adopted,” Seraphina said. “Or… taken in. Whatever it was, it wasn’t formal. Your real parents… they weren’t nobodies.”
He looked at her, anger starting to surface.
“And you knew?”
“I found out weeks ago,” she admitted. “I didn’t know at the start. I swear it. But I couldn’t tell you. Not until I understood why he was so obsessed.”
“And now?”
She hesitated.
“Now I think you’re connected to something dangerous. Something my father buried years ago. Maybe it’s a rival. A name he erased. I don’t know yet. But I know he’s scared. And Don Moretti doesn’t get scared.”
Aidan stood, backing away like the words stung physically.
“So this was all a game?”
“No! I didn’t know it would be you. I didn’t know you would feel”
She stopped herself.
“Feel what?” he snapped.
She swallowed.
“Real.”
The air between them throbbed. Aidan ran his hand over his face, processing. Failing.
“You should’ve told me sooner.”
“I know.”
“You should’ve trusted me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “That’s what they all say before they lie.”
Seraphina stood. “You think I wanted this? That I enjoyed watching you fall into my father’s trap like some pawn? I hate him for this. And I hate myself for not telling you sooner. But you have to believe me when I say I care. I didn’t expect to. But I do.”
Aidan stared at her.
Then said quietly, “I need air.”
He brushed past her and left the room.
And Seraphina didn’t follow.
Not yet.
---
The city glittered below, cold and distant.
Aidan leaned against the balcony railing, shirt still half-buttoned, knuckles white against the metal. The night wind hit him sharply, but he didn’t feel it. Not really.
What he felt was betrayal. And something worse: confusion.
He remembered being five, hiding under a chipped kitchen table while some man, some stranger, shouted in a voice that sounded too much like his own. He remembered a woman crying in the dark. A scar on her chin.
None of it had made sense then.
Now it did.
Too much sense.
“f**k,” he whispered to no one.
Behind him, the penthouse remained silent. Seraphina hadn’t followed and that hurt more than he wanted to admit.
He wanted to hate her.
He wanted to rip up the folder and throw every page into the wind.
But he couldn’t. Because for all the lies… she looked afraid. Not for herself. For him.
That meant something.
A sound — soft, wrong — broke his thoughts.
Aidan turned.
Someone stood at the edge of the terrace.
Slick suit. Earpiece. Too still.
“You lost?” Aidan asked, jaw tight.
The man didn’t smile. “Mr. Cole, Don Moretti would like a word.”
Aidan scoffed. “Then he can send an invite like a normal sociopath.”
The man stepped closer. “It wasn’t a request.”
Aidan’s fists curled.
“I don’t take orders,” he said.
“Maybe not.” The man reached into his coat — slowly. “But maybe you’ll listen to your family.”
He pulled out a photo. Tossed it.
Aidan caught it.
Another face. Male. Mid-40s. Black eyes. Cold stare.
“You recognize him?” the man asked.
Aidan did. From the folder. From memory.
The man who used to come by once a year. Always in spring. Always with a gift and a warning.
“He’s alive,” the agent said. “And the Don doesn’t want you to find him.”
Aidan’s throat dried.
“What does that mean?”
The man just smiled. “It means… the past you’re chasing? It might just kill you.”
And then he walked away..
- Writer
