Chapter 3 THE LINE BETWEEN US

Elena froze, her fingers still clinging to the damning file she'd pulled from her father's drawer.

Clinton Estate – Closed Case.

False testimony.

Fabricated evidence.

Her world tilted.

And behind her, Ares Clinton stood in the doorway, a storm cloaked in shadows.

"I warned you not to dig into the past," he said, voice low and edged with steel.

She turned to face him, heart pounding so hard she swore he could hear it. But she didn't flinch. Not this time.

"I didn't know," she said quietly. "I didn't know what my father did to you."

Ares stepped inside and shut the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click.

"No," he said. "You didn't. But now you do."

His gaze dropped to the file in her hand. She instinctively clutched it tighter.

"So this was your plan?" she asked, her voice sharper now. "Get close to me. Make me trust you. Just so you could destroy my family?"

He didn't answer immediately. He took a slow step forward, then another, eyes never leaving hers.

"I didn't expect you," he said finally. "You were a complication I didn't plan for."

"Nice," she scoffed. "So what am I to you now? A pawn? A liability?"

He was standing just a breath away now. His presence filled the room, crackling with restrained violence and something else. Something unspoken.

"I haven't decided," he said, voice like thunder on the edge of breaking.

She stared at him, anger rising like a tide. "You used me."

"I warned you not to trust me."

"You made me trust you."

Ares stepped even closer. She could feel the heat of him now, smell the faint scent of smoke and cologne.

"I made you nothing," he said quietly. "You chose to let me in."

Her hand struck his chest before she realized what she was doing with an open-palmed shove, fueled by rage and betrayal.

He didn't move.

Instead, he reached up, caught her wrist, and held it between them.

His grip was firm, but not cruel.

"I should hate you," she whispered. "I do."

"Then why are you shaking?"

Because she was. Because he was close, and her world had cracked open, and she couldn't tell if she wanted to slap him again... or pull him closer.

"You're not who I thought you were," she said.

"No," he murmured. "But neither are you."

He released her wrist, and for a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Then he turned and walked toward the door.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said without looking back. "Now you're in the middle of it."

"In the middle of what?"

He paused, hand on the doorknob. "War."

And with that, he vanished into the hall.

Elena collapsed into the chair behind her father's desk, her pulse still racing.

Her father had lied to her.

Her entire life, he'd painted the Clintons as unstable, criminal... guilty.

But the file told another story.

Her father hadn't just betrayed them.

He set them up.

And now Ares was back with every reason to tear their world apart.

She didn't know what scared her more: what he might do...

Or how much of her wanted to follow him into the dark.

Elsewhere, that same night...

Ares stood on the rooftop of the unfinished Clinton tower, his birthright turned into a hollow skeleton of steel and glass. The city sparkled below, oblivious to the reckoning creeping through its veins.

Julian appeared behind him.

"She confronted you?" he asked.

"She found the file."

Julian whistled low. "That didn't take long."

Ares's hands clenched the railing. "She knows now."

"Is that a problem?"

Ares was silent.

Julian frowned. "Ares... this girl, Elena, she's his daughter. Don't forget why you came back."

"I haven't."

"Then why haven't you cut her out already?"

Ares didn't answer.

He couldn't.

Because cutting her out wasn't as easy as it should've been.

And every time he looked into her eyes, he saw a future he'd buried with his mother's body.

The next morning...

Elena didn't sleep.

She sat by her window all night, watching the city shift from black to gold, trying to decide what to do.

She could run.

She could tell her father.

But neither option felt right.

She had to know more. About Ares. About her father. About what really happened ten years ago.

Because the truth wasn't finished.

And neither was Ares.

She dressed, grabbed her coat, and slipped the file into her bag.

She didn't know where she was going...

But she knew who she had to find.