CHAPTER FOUR : THE NIGHT HE DIDN’T WAIT
1321 Words
Aria was fine.
Completely. Totally. Absolutely fine.
She had taken a hot shower until her skin turned slightly pink. She had eaten half a bowl of mashed potatoes because her mother placed it in front of her with that firm expression. She had sat on the couch for twenty minutes, staring at a show she couldn’t even follow, and she hadn’t cried once.
She was fine.
“You’re not fine,” her mother said from the armchair, still reading.
“I’m fine,” Aria said flatly.
Evelyn Monroe lifted her gaze over her glasses. She didn’t argue. She just turned a page. The silence said everything.
Aria pulled her knees up and stared at the TV.
She wasn’t talking about it. There was nothing to talk about. She had made a mistake. She had believed in something that was never real, and now she was past it. People went through worse every day. She had been through worse. She knew how to survive.
“He called again,” her mother said quietly.
“I know.”
“That’s twenty times.”
“I know, Mum.”
Evelyn turned another page. “I’m just saying.”
“Please stop just saying.”
Her mother smiled faintly at her book. Not helpfully.
Aria grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. Some man on the screen had been confessing love in the rain while the woman ran toward him crying. She had watched it like she was reviewing a bad case file.
“I knew,” she said into the quiet room. “I knew exactly who he was. I’ve known his name since I was twenty. I said no twice. Twice. And then I said yes… and I even brought him lunch like some kind of i***t—”
She stopped and pressed her lips together tightly.
“Lunch. I took time out of my morning to bring him lunch.”
“It was thoughtful,” her mother offered.
“It was stupid,” Aria snapped.
Evelyn stayed silent.
“He didn’t even look surprised to see me. Or guilty. Or anything,” Aria went on, her voice getting sharper. “That’s the worst part. She was sitting on his desk like she belonged there, and he just had his hand on her waist. Calmly. Like it was normal. And I’m standing in the doorway holding noodles like a fool.”
Her mother let out a small sound, clearly trying not to laugh.
Aria shot her a glare.
“Sorry,” Evelyn said, not sounding sorry at all.
Aria dropped her head back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.
She was going to be fine. Tomorrow she would wake up, go to work, and this would be one day further behind her. That was how it worked. One day. Then another. Eventually the weight on her chest would lift.
Her phone lit up on the cushion beside her.
She glanced at it.
A notification from a gossip site she had never subscribed to. She almost ignored it.
Then she saw his name.
She picked up the phone almost immediately.
The photo filled the screen.
Lucien Vale outside a high-end restaurant. Jacket over one shoulder, his hair perfectly styled, looking exactly like the untouchable businessman the headlines loved. A woman in a red dress stood close to him, smiling up like she belonged there.
Aria stared at the screen.
The timestamp felt like it was pressing into her eyes.
Last night.
Last. Night.
She put the phone down. Picked it up again. Put it down harder this time. She stood. Sat again.
“Aria?” her mother asked, worry now in her voice.
She held the phone out without a word.
Evelyn leaned forward, studied the screen, then sat back with an unreadable expression. “Well.”
“Last night,” Aria said, her voice dangerously calm. “I walked out of his office at two in the afternoon. By eight o’clock he was at a restaurant with someone in a red dress.” She looked at the photo again. “A red dress, Mum.”
“It’s a nice colour,” her mother said mildly.
Aria stared at her.
“Too soon?” Evelyn asked.
Aria stood.
The sadness had burned away. Something else took its place. Cold, raging fury.
She had spent two years holding her father’s world together. Managing her mother’s health. Clearing debts. Carrying every unanswered question he left behind. All of it alone. No help. No breakdowns.
And she had spent months being soft over a man who didn’t deserve even a second of her attention.
Red dress.
The thought was almost ridiculous. She almost laughed.
She walked to her bedroom, sat at the small desk, and pulled her father’s hidden file toward her. She flipped to the page she had turned face-down last night, as if ignoring it could make the truth disappear.
She was done ignoring.
Vale Industries Limited.
She stared at her father’s tight handwriting for a long moment.
Then she opened her laptop, grabbed a fresh notebook, and uncapped her pen with steady fingers.
This wasn’t about Lucien anymore. Not about the betrayal. Not about the woman on his desk or the one in the red dress. She was finished letting him occupy any space in her decisions.
This was for her father.
James Monroe had been careful. He was a good man who didn’t deserve whatever had been done to him. And she was the only one still looking.
She wrote at the top of the page in bold, deliberate strokes:
Veristone Capital Group
Vale Industries Limited
She drew a bold line connecting them.
Then she started pulling at the threads, searching records, comparing dates, marking every strange overlap. Her pen moved quickly now, her focus sharp and steady.
She was building a map.
A weapon.
A way to drag the truth into the open, no matter who it ruined.
Her phone stayed silent on the couch in the other room.
And she didn’t look at it again.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Outside, in the shadows across the street from Aria’s building, Lucien Vale stood motionless under the dim glow of a streetlamp, smoking a cigarette.
Rain had begun to fall, light and steady, but he didn’t move.
He had been there for nearly an hour.
He had tried calling fourteen times. Left messages he knew she wouldn’t listen to. Driven across the city with every intention of banging on her door and forcing her to hear him out.
But when he arrived, something stopped him.
Not the fear of rejection.
Fear of what he might bring to her doorstep.
Victor knew her name.
The photo had already spread across gossip sites. Perfect timing, perfectly framed.
Someone wanted Aria to believe the worst. Someone wanted her alone. Angry. Off balance.
And if that “someone” was tied to who he thinks it is, then going to her now could put an even bigger target on her back.
He dropped the cigarette and stubbed it with his foot.
Lucien’s hands tightened at his sides
He could see the faint light from her bedroom window. She was up there, probably dissecting everything, probably deciding he was exactly the monster the world painted.
He hated it.
But he stayed in the shadows.
Watching.
Waiting.
Because if he couldn’t protect her by being close to her right now, he would protect her by staying away.
At least until he figured out who was really pulling the strings.
And what they wanted with the Monroe family.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. A message from an unknown number.
Handle it.
Lucien deleted it instantly, but the chill remained.
He looked back up at Aria’s window.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the rain.
Then he turned and walked back into the night, every step heavier than the last.
He wasn’t giving up.
He was preparing for war.
- Writer
