Trust No One
1077 Words
Aria couldn’t breathe.
The photo trembled in her hand as the words on the back carved themselves into her mind:
“Trust no one. Not even him.”
Her father’s handwriting. His unmistakable slant. The curve of the “T,” the way he always dotted his i’s with a strange upward stroke. It was real.
The image itself was grainy, old, and stained—but the figures were clear enough.
Her father stood beside Damien Blackwood. They weren’t smiling. There was tension in their postures, distance in their eyes. Between them, slumped over a concrete floor, was a body—unmoving. Blood pooled beneath the man’s head like a shadow spreading toward the camera.
She couldn’t make out the man’s face.
She didn’t need to.
Her instincts screamed.
Her father had been involved in something dark.
And Damien… was there.
Aria stared into the mirror. Her reflection looked shattered. Pale skin, wide eyes, red lips still smudged from Damien’s kiss hours earlier. How did she end up here? How had her life twisted into this web of wealth, power, and secrets?
She thought back to the night of her father’s death—how sudden it was. How silent.
No autopsy. No questions. Just an announcement and a sealed casket.
He had died of a “heart attack,” they said.
But what if he hadn’t?
What if Damien knew something?
What if Damien had done something?
Her grip tightened around the photo.
She shoved it into the pocket of her robe and rushed out of the bathroom, her breath shallow.
Damien was still in the bedroom, standing by the window, sipping whiskey like he hadn’t just shattered her world.
She stopped several feet away from him, forcing her voice to stay calm.
“You knew my father,” she said quietly.
His back remained to her. “That was obvious, wasn’t it?”
“I mean really knew him.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “We did business together.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
He turned to face her fully, his expression unreadable. “Then what are you asking, Aria?”
She stepped closer, searching his eyes for a flicker of guilt, of hesitation—anything.
“Were you there the night he died?”
His face didn’t move. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You were at his side in that photo.”
His jaw flexed.
Bingo.
He recovered too quickly, setting the glass down. “Where did you get it?”
“You were there.”
“Answer the question.”
“No. You answer mine.”
A long pause.
Then he spoke, slowly. “I was there the week before he died. Not the night of. "Your father asked for help with a situation he couldn’t handle.”
“What kind of situation?”
He tilted his head. “The kind you don’t get involved in unless you’re willing to sacrifice your soul.”
She felt the weight of that statement. Felt it in her stomach. “What did he do?”
Damien stepped forward, so close she had to tilt her chin to look up at him.
“What do you think your father was, Aria?” he asked softly. “Some gentle, honest businessman? He was drowning in debt, making deals with people who don’t leave room for second chances.”
She didn’t want to believe it.
She couldn’t.
“My father wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t—”
“He was desperate,” Damien interrupted. “And desperation turns good men into monsters.”
Her breath hitched. “And what did you turn into, Damien?”
His smile was cold. “I was born a monster.”
She left the room before he could say anything else.
Back in the guest wing, she sat on the edge of a plush chaise, the photo still in her hand, now creased from how tightly she gripped it.
Nothing made sense anymore.
And the only person who held the answers was the one man she couldn’t trust.
But she didn’t have time to fall apart.
Not when something darker was moving in the shadows of this marriage.
The next morning
The staff had changed again.
New driver.
New maid.
Even the butler was someone she hadn’t met before.
“Where’s Beth?” she asked the new housekeeper.
“I—I’m sorry, ma’am. Beth no longer works here.”
Aria’s gut twisted.
It was only day two of her marriage, and the mansion was shifting like a stage set under her feet.
Damien had told her once: Control the environment. Control the outcome.
He was isolating her.
Bit by bit.
Later that day, Damien handed her a list of events and expectations.
Charity balls. Company luncheons. Political galas.
“You’ll be my partner in public,” he said. “No sudden disappearances. No refusals. No interviews without approval.”
Aria scanned the list. “And in private?”
He looked her dead in the eye. “We behave.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Define behave.”
“No screaming. No scandals. And no going through my personal documents again.”
She stiffened. “You searched my room.”
“I search everything, Aria.”
“You don’t own me.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I do own the rules.”
She went to the library that evening to escape.
Among the shelves of ancient leather-bound volumes, she felt like she could breathe again.
Until she heard a whisper.
“Mrs. Blackwood.”
She turned.
It was the man from the gala. The one with the scar over his brow.
He stepped out of the shadows between the shelves, smiling like a man who knew far too much.
“You shouldn’t be alone in this house.”
Her spine straightened. “Who are you?”
He placed a finger on his lips. “Someone who used to work for your father.”
Her heart skipped. “You knew him?”
“I knew what he was involved in. And who killed him?”
Before she could ask anything more, the stranger slipped a flash drive into her hand and vanished between the rows of books.
She stared at the object in her palm, fingers shaking.
Back on the flash drive was a label written in black ink.
“PROJECT V: For Aria. Don’t trust Damien.”
- Writer
