The sirens were a dissonant chorus, their blue and red lights dancing off the oily surface of the harbor. My mother's blood was cooling on my skin, a sticky, metallic reminder of the truth she had died to give me.
"Aria," Lucian said, his voice as smooth as velvet but as hard as flint. He held out his hand. "The chip. Give it to me before the tactical teams arrive. I can protect you, but I can't protect a ghost."
I looked at his outstretched palm. This was the man I had kissed with everything I had left. This was the man who had promised to be my sword and my shield. But as I looked into his icy blue eyes, I didn't see love. I saw a hunger for the data pressed into my palm.
"You knew she had it," I whispered, backing toward the edge of the pier. "That's why you were so quick to 'partner' with me. It wasn't about Mark. It wasn't even about the Vance inheritance. It was about the Black Box."
Lucian's face didn't flinch. "The contents of that chip can bring down every government in the hemisphere, Aria. It's too much power for one person to hold. Especially someone as... emotional as you are right now."
Emotional. The word was a slap. It was the same word Mark used to use to dismiss my genius.
"I'm not emotional, Lucian," I said, a terrifyingly calm smile spreading across my lips. "I'm awake."
Behind him, the first of the black armored SUVs skidded to a halt. Men in tactical gear, their faces obscured by gas masks, began to spill out. They weren't city police. They bore the crest of the Thorne Security Group.
"Aria, don't do something we both regret," Lucian warned, his voice dropping an octave.
"Too late," I replied.
I didn't run for the car. I didn't run for the exit. I turned and looked at Leo, who was being untied by one of Lucian's men.
"Leo! The override code! Now!" I screamed.
Leo, his eyes wide with understanding, shouted a string of alphanumeric gibberish. It was the "Dead Man's Switch" we had programmed into the harbor's industrial cranes weeks ago, back when we were just worried about Mark.
The massive crane above us groaned, its steel cables snapping with the sound of whip-cracks. A heavy shipping container swung wildly, crashing into the path of the tactical team and creating a wall of twisted metal between me and Lucian.
"Aria!" Lucian's roar was drowned out by the screech of metal.
I didn't wait. I turned toward the dark, churning water of the Atlantic.
"Miss Vance! Stop!" a voice cried out it was my grandfather's head of security, but he was too far away.
I clutched the microchip to my chest and dived.
The water was a cold, violent shock that sucked the breath from my lungs. I sank into the darkness, the weight of my silk dress trying to pull me under. But I had prepared for this. Beneath the dress, I was still wearing the thin, waterproof GPS tracker Lucian had given me but I wasn't using it for him.
I ripped the tracker off and attached it to a piece of floating debris, letting the current take it south. Then, I kicked hard, swimming north toward the hidden maintenance tunnel Leo had told me about during our "Revenge Planning" sessions.
Ten minutes later, I hauled myself up onto a rusted ladder inside the tunnel. I was shivering, my body screaming in pain, but I was alive. And I was alone.
I pulled the microchip from my pocket. It was encased in waterproof resin. I wiped it clean and looked at it.
"Don't trust the wedding." My mother's final words echoed in my ears.
I reached into a hidden compartment in the tunnel wall a "burner kit" Leo and I had stashed just in case. Inside was a laptop, a change of dark clothes, and a fake passport I'd had made months ago when I first suspected Mark was cheating.
I opened the laptop and slotted the chip in. My fingers flew across the keys, bypassing the three-layer encryption Elena had set up.
The file opened.
It wasn't just a list of names. It was a series of wire transfers. Millions of dollars flowing from the Thorne accounts into a secret trust fund.
The recipient of the trust fund wasn't a politician or a judge.
The recipient was Aria Vance.
The date of the first transfer? The day I married Mark Thorne five years ago.
My breath hitched. Lucian hadn't just been watching me for the last month. He or his family had been funding my misery for five years. They had paid Mark to marry me. They had paid Sarah to ruin me.
Every tear I had shed, every night I had spent wondering why I wasn't "enough," had been bought and paid for by the Thorne family. They had cultivated my suffering like a garden, waiting for the moment I would "bloom" into the heiress they needed to unlock the Vance fortune.
A notification popped up on the screen. INCOMING CONNECTION DETECTED.
Lucian had found the server.
A text box opened on my screen.
Lucian: "Aria. I know you're reading the files. It's not what it looks like. Let me explain before you disappear."
I typed back five words, my heart turning to ice.
Aria: "Try to find me, Lucian."
I slammed the laptop shut, grabbed the bag, and vanished into the shadows of the tunnel.
The Aria who loved Lucian Thorne died in the harbor. The Aria who trusted her grandfather was gone.
I was no longer a bride. I was no longer an heiress.
I was a ghost with a billion-dollar secret, and I was going to burn their world down until there was nothing left but the truth.