Inlove with my Father's murderer

The other life

Morning always came too fast.

Aria never heard him leave, not completely. She woke to small traces: the faint shift of air when the apartment door clicked shut, the whisper of his shoes against the hallway floor, the soft settling of the couch cushions returning to their original shape after holding his weight through the night.

It was never loud, never abrupt, never enough to disturb her. Alec vanished each morning as quietly as a shadow.

Aria assumed he slipped out to wander the city again. ..

That he disappeared into alleyways or under bridges like the other lost souls she’d met during her first months out of prison.

.She pictured him sitting under a tree in some lonely park, cold wind threading through his hair, hands shoved into his ragged pockets.

She didn’t know who he was, not really. But he stayed. And for now, that was enough.

What she didn’t know was that the man who left before sunrise did not vanish into the city.

He transformed.

The black sedan was always waiting. Clean. Polished. Expensive in a silent, breathtaking way.

The driver opened the door without speaking, as if words were unnecessary in the presence of someone like Alec Raiden.

Alec stepped inside, shedding the remnants of Aria’s world the moment the door closed. The scent of leather replaced her lavender soap.

The soft hum of the engine replaced the distant creak of her apartment pipes.

He straightened, his shoulders settling into the sharp, precise posture that belonged to the version of himself the world recognized.

Within minutes, he went from invisible to untouchable.

A private elevator carried him from the underground garage straight into the top floors of Raiden Tower.

By the time the doors slid open, he was no longer the man who slept on a worn couch or fixed broken lamps under dim yellow light.

He was Alec Raiden, CEO of Raiden Global, a man whose very presence could silence a room or shift the stock market with a single decision.

Assistants straightened the moment they saw him, offering schedules, files, digital tablets.

He accepted them without reaction. He had no warmth to give here; he had buried it deep, where no boardroom could reach.

His mornings were filled with negotiations, financial battles, and strategic manipulation. He moved through conversations with a lethal calm, speaking little yet carrying entire empires in his silence...

Men twice his age feared disappointing him. Investors worshipped him. Competitors despised him.

He was built to dominate this world.

But between the numbers and the contracts, between the sharp clicks of polished shoes and the cold hum of the executive floor, one thought threaded through his mind again and again.

Aria.

The meeting that changed everything happened on a Wednesday.

A long, glass table gleamed under the lights. Executives occupied the seats with rigid postures, trying to predict Alec’s mood. He sat at the head of the table dark suit, crisp shirt, tie perfectly aligned, expression unreadable.

Midway through a presentation, the double doors opened. A late arrival. A man with familiar sharp features stepped inside.

Ethan Ward.

Aria’s ex-fiancé.

He paused when he saw Alec, confusion flickering across his face. He bowed his head respectfully before taking his seat, but his eyes kept darting back to the CEO as though trying to solve a puzzle.

Alec felt the stare. He ignored it. He always ignored unnecessary attention. But today, it scraped beneath his composure.

Because Ethan Ward shouldn’t recognize him.

He shouldn’t have suspicion in his eyes.

He shouldn’t stare like he’d seen Alec somewhere he couldn’t quite name.

Alec kept his voice steady as he resumed the meeting projected profit margins, global expansion strategies but Ethan’s gaze never fully left him. A familiar danger hummed in the air.

If Ethan remembered the man in torn clothes from the alley…

If he connected the CEO to the stranger living in Aria’s apartment…

If he recognized the connection Alec was trying so desperately to hide…

Aria would be exposed. And Alec had no idea what Ethan would do with that knowledge.

By noon, the tension in Alec’s shoulders was a physical ache.

His duality his two lives had never felt so fragile. The version of him that existed with Aria belonged to a world she understood. A quiet world.

A simple one. One where a broken faucet mattered more than a collapsing stock market. Where a bowl of soup left on a table meant more than any billion-dollar deal.

The version that existed here the one Raiden Global demanded was everything Aria feared. Wealth. Power. Control. Danger. A man whose signature could destroy a life. A man she believed existed only in stories.

If she discovered that these two men were one and the same…

He didn’t know what she would do.

He only knew what he feared.

Losing her.

Meanwhile, Aria's parents, Their silence was cold, deliberate, and heavy enough that Aria felt it even from miles away. She called them once. Twice. A dozen times more than she promised herself she would.

Each ring ended the same way: no answer.

Her mother cried in private, refusing to let grief soften her resolve. Her father swallowed his guilt with stubbornness, insisting that protecting themselves meant cutting her out. They told neighbors Aria was still gone. That they had no daughter. That ten years had erased her from their story.

But Aria wasn’t erased.

She was out there, breathing the same air, walking the same city streets. Their decision to pretend she didn’t exist haunted them. Yet they never picked up the phone.

Some wounds ran too deep.

Some betrayals were too difficult to confront.

Some families didn’t know how to forgive.

And then there was Lila Aria’s best friend.

Once, the two of them had been inseparable. Girls who dreamed too big, laughed too loud, loved too fiercely.

Lila had fought for her relentlessly during the trial. She hired lawyers. Sold half her belongings. Screamed at judges. Cried in court hallways.

None of it worked.

And when Aria was sentenced, Lila’s parents intervened in the harshest way possible.

They sent her abroad.

They changed her number.

Confiscated her devices.

Relocated her without warning.

All communication with Aria was severed.

But Lila was stubborn.

And loyal.

And burning with guilt she never forgave herself for.

So she hired a private investigator quiet and discreet to check one thing every few months:

“Is Aria Vale still in prison?”

The day the report came back differently, Lila broke.

She cried for hours. Cried for the years she couldn’t reach her. For the birthday letters she never sent.

For the friendships Aria must have lost behind bars. For the girl who had always hugged her first.

Lila booked a flight home the same night.

She was coming back.

And she wasn’t leaving without finding Aria.

Alec didn’t know any of this.

He didn’t know Aria’s parents carried their shame in silence.

He didn’t know her childhood friend was flying across oceans to reach her.

He didn’t know that Aria, while rebuilding herself piece by fragile piece, was about to collide with her past in ways neither of them expected.

All he knew was that every morning he left Aria’s apartment, a piece of him stayed behind.

A piece he didn’t recognize, one that didn’t belong in boardrooms or towers of glass.