Chapter 5: Dirt and Diamonds
The room smelled like dust and old ambition.
Stacks of paper littered the desk. Aaron leaned over it, skimming the files, his jaw clenched. Elara stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes sharp.
"You gathered all this alone?" he asked.
"Bit by bit. I couldn't move too fast or they'd notice. Callan's mother had eyes everywhere. Especially on me."
Aaron's expression darkened. "You were being watched."
"Every minute of every day." She looked down. "I wasn't his fiancée. I was his pawn."
Aaron closed the folder slowly. "Not anymore."
A beat passed.
Then Elara said, "I have something else. Something not in the files."
Aaron raised an eyebrow.
She pulled open a drawer and took out a small velvet box.
When she opened it, he froze.
Inside: a USB drive and an engagement ring.
"Elara…"
"I wore that ring every day for three years. But I wasn't the only one with it."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
She pulled out the drive. "There was a second ring—Callan's. A match to mine. Only his had a tiny tracker embedded in the stone."
Aaron stared at her. "So he always knew where you were?"
"Always. And I found out… too late."
She pushed the drive toward him.
"This has everything. Every location he visited. Who he met. Where the money went. Hidden accounts. Shell companies."
Aaron took the drive gently, almost reverently. "Elara… this is enough to bury him."
Her eyes didn't waver. "That's the point."
Two hours later, they sat in front of three monitors. Aaron connected the drive and the data poured out—logs, emails, encrypted communications.
"This is big," he murmured. "Too big."
"What do you mean?"
He looked over at her. "This isn't just Callan. These names… they're in government, banks, law enforcement. You didn't dig up dirt."
He turned the screen.
"You found diamonds in the mud."
The phone rang.
Aaron answered, keeping it short.
He hung up and turned to her, voice grave. "They're already moving."
"Who?"
"Roth's men. They're sweeping every contact you've ever had. They just hit Marcus's apartment."
Elara's breath hitched. "Is he okay?"
"Gone before they arrived. I warned him."
She sank into the chair. "So what now?"
Aaron's eyes glinted. "Now we give the Roths what they want."
Her head jerked up. "What?"
"We make them think they're ahead. Feed them a fake lead. Something to chase."
"You want to bait them?"
He nodded. "Make them run in circles, while we build our case in silence."
Elara paused. Then—"I know just the bait."
That night, a single anonymous email left the countryside via a secure satellite connection. It contained a blurry photo of Elara walking through a crowded market—time-stamped, geo-tagged.
Except it wasn't real.
It was five years old. From a trip to Morocco. Pre-Roth. Pre-everything.
The bait was set.
And across the city, in a glass tower penthouse, Callan Roth narrowed his eyes at the image.
"She's not hiding," he murmured. "She's taunting me."
His mother stepped beside him. "Shall I call in Vincent?"
Callan smiled darkly. "Not yet. She's bleeding slowly. Let her think she's safe."
Back at the farmhouse, Elara tucked Leo into bed.
He rolled toward her, eyes heavy with sleep.
"Mommy… are we safe now?"
She kissed his forehead, fighting tears. "Yes, baby. We are."
But her eyes said otherwise.
Because safety wasn't a promise.
It was a war.
And tomorrow, they would take the next step into fire.