The house was silent. Not the peaceful kind of silence—but the still, unnatural quiet that clung to walls after blood had been spilled.
Aria moved through it like a shadow.
No footsteps. No lights. Just the dimmest edge of moonlight spilling across the marble floor, flickering against the edge of her hallway as if even it didn't dare enter fully.
She didn't need light to know her way now. Not in this house. Not in her father's kingdom of ghosts.
The flash drive was in her pocket. Not the one with Vincent's recorded voice. Not the one that left her shaken in the dark hours of the night.
This one came from Logan. The moment Juliet's name had passed his lips, something in Aria's gut had shifted. A quiet switch thrown. A familiar, unwanted ache crawling up her spine—not of fear, but of inevitability.
Juliet had always smiled the brightest.
And smiles, Aria had learned, hid the deepest knives.
Her office at the estate was on the second floor. Tucked into the eastern wing—formerly unused, until she'd claimed it. The walls still bore the dust of old portraits removed. The scent of fresh varnish lingered behind thick curtains.
She didn't bother turning on the overhead light. Instead, she powered her laptop, pulled a smaller keypad from the bottom drawer, and plugged in the drive.
The cursor blinked against the black screen. A single directory appeared.
Vincent-m/private-access/server-mirror
Aria's jaw locked. She recognized the root path. A ghost clone of Vincent's encrypted files. It shouldn't exist outside the company server.
Juliet hadn't just wandered in to poke around.
She'd come for something very specific.
Something Vincent hadn't wanted found.
Aria keyed in her clearance code. It failed.
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
She tried again, this time pairing it with the override cipher Vincent had used in his old physical files—her mother's name, spelled backward, followed by the year Aria was born.
The screen blinked.
Access granted.
The directory opened like a quiet scream.
Hundreds of folders spilled out in neat, cold lines—archives, personnel logs, company resolutions, old board tapes.
And one folder—tucked near the bottom—marked in Vincent's familiar shorthand:
Founders Archive – Internal Affairs
Aria's breath caught. Not from emotion. From calculation.
She opened it.
Inside were five files. All untouched by Juliet. Only viewed. Not altered.
The logs showed her path. Her hesitation. She'd hovered longest over one file.
Aria opened it now.
A letter. Never sent. Addressed to the board.
Vincent's words were calm. Precise. Familiar.
"There is rot beneath the surface of this company. Hidden hands with silent knives.I will no longer tolerate sabotage disguised as legacy. At the next shareholder reset, I intend to revoke all extended family voting rights, effective immediately."
A date was typed at the top.
Two weeks before he collapsed.
Aria leaned back in her chair, fingers resting against her temple. Her pulse wasn't racing. It was slowing—tightening into focus.
This wasn't about sentiment.
It was about war.
She opened the next file. A contract draft.
Buried within the legal language was a restructuring clause—one that would effectively nullify Isabelle's influence through marital connection. Her shares would remain, but her board privileges would end.
So that was why Juliet had been here.
She wasn't trying to expose Vincent.
She was trying to bury his intentions before they could take root.
Aria reached for the next file—paused.
Her own name sat in the header.
Executive Succession: Preferred Contingency — A.M.
Dated ten days before his death.
She opened it.
Vincent's familiar phrasing was colder this time. Formal.
"While my original plans for company succession remain under discussion, I have begun preparing Aria Moreau for potential transition into executive authority, should circumstances require immediate stabilization. This remains a confidential pathway, pending further review."
There was a note beneath the signature:
"She's not like them. She sees the seams. She knows how to pull them."
Aria sat completely still.
Her hand curled slowly around the edge of the desk, but no emotion cracked the surface.
Not gratitude. Not grief.
Just confirmation.
Vincent had been planning to choose her.
And someone had made sure he never got the chance to make it public.
She backed up all the files in silence.
Encrypted the drive.
Wrote a new alias across the casing in small, permanent ink: Argent 01.
Only she would know what it meant.
The cursor hovered over the last item in the directory.
A locked subfolder: Inheritance – Contingency B
She typed in the override.
Access denied.
No hint. No clue.
Just a wall of silence.
Her pulse ticked once—twice—then settled.
She didn't try again.
Whatever was in there, it wasn't meant to be rushed.
There were still too many open jaws in the dark.
Aria powered down the system and stood. The chair scraped gently against the floor.
She crossed to the mirror that hung beside the bookshelf. Her reflection was faint, shadowed in the half-dark—cut into fragments by the beveled glass.
Not fragile.
Just divided.
"You're stronger than me," Vincent had said.
She didn't believe him.
But she believed he feared her.
And that would have to be enough.
A soft knock came at the door. No urgency.
Just two careful raps.
Logan.
She slipped the drive into her coat pocket and crossed the room, unlatching the lock.
"Is everything secure?" she asked without greeting.
He nodded once. "The family's gone quiet. No press. No leaks. For now."
He held up her phone.
"Message just came in. The board's called a secondary session. Forty-eight hours."
Her expression didn't change.
"Expected," she said.
Logan hesitated. "And Juliet?"
"Keep watching her," Aria replied. "If she so much as sneezes on a password, I want it flagged."
He nodded again, then left.
Aria stood at the threshold for a moment, listening to the silence return.
Then she closed the door again and locked it.
Walked back to the desk.
Stared at the empty monitor, the cooled surface of the keyboard.
Her palm rested lightly over her coat pocket. Over the drive.
"This wasn't just about power," she whispered, barely audible in the quiet.
"It was about survival."
Her voice dropped lower. A murmur lost to dust and shadows.
"And I was never meant to walk away clean."
The house didn't stir.
No storm outside this time.
No screams. No conspiracies unraveling just yet.
But they were coming.
They always did.
Aria walked out into the dark hallway, her steps silent as a match before the strike.
The war hadn't ended in that boardroom.
It had only begun.
And next time…
She wouldn't bring documents.
She'd bring fire.