Chapter 5 The man with two Faces

The city looked different when you knew someone was watching you.

Aria pulled her coat tighter as the elevator descended from the penthouse. She'd made her decision in silence, her movements calm-deliberate-yet her heart hadn't stopped racing since dawn.

She needed answers. Not from Damon. Not anymore. From someone who didn't speak in half-truths.

The black SUV Damon had assigned to tail her was still idling outside. She spotted it the moment she stepped onto the curb. Its tinted windows. The subtle glint of a communication earpiece worn by the man behind the wheel.

She walked in the opposite direction.

Fast.

Every step away from that car felt like rebellion.

She could hear her own breath now. Controlled. Clipped.

Ten minutes later, she slipped into the back of a yellow cab she'd hailed on impulse.

"Corner of Sixth and Harrison," she said, not looking up.

The driver nodded.

The cab pulled away, merging into the morning traffic. Aria leaned back, gripping her phone. Her hands hadn't stopped shaking.

She opened her messages. Liam had sent another voice note-short, tense.

> "Aria, there's something you need to know. About Damon. About your family. I didn't want to say anything until I was sure, but it's not safe for you there. Call me back. Please."

She hadn't replied yet. Not because she didn't trust him, but because trust felt like a luxury she could no longer afford.

Instead, she opened the photo again. The Polaroid from the envelope. She stared at the curve of her own smile. At the shadow of a figure just out of frame.

That shadow haunted her.

Someone had been close enough to capture her joy-and weaponize it.

She didn't recognize the handwriting on the back. But the message felt personal. Like the ink had been laced with venom and memory.

"You looked happier with him."

Her mind went spiraling.

Who was him?

Liam?

Her father?

A man she couldn't remember?

Or worse-someone she could, but had forgotten.

The cab slowed.

"We're here," the driver said.

Aria looked up at the building. It was an old café, quiet, modest. One of the few places she and Liam used to visit during their university days.

She stepped out and checked her surroundings. No black SUV. No glint of metal. No watchers-at least not obvious ones.

But her instincts prickled.

As she reached the door, her phone buzzed again.

This time, it wasn't Liam.

Unknown number.

She opened the message.

> "You left his cage. Good. Let's see how long before the wolf comes looking."

The café still smelled like cardamom and coffee grounds, just as she remembered. Aria stepped inside, her boots clicking softly against the wooden floor.

There were only a few patrons-students hunched over laptops, an elderly couple reading newspapers, and a barista who barely glanced up as she walked past.

She slid into a booth in the farthest corner, facing the door. Her heartbeat hadn't slowed since the last message.

"You left his cage. Good. Let's see how long before the wolf comes looking."

She deleted it.

Not because it didn't matter-but because it mattered too much.

Liam arrived minutes later. No words at first-just a look, full of worry. He looked exhausted. Hollow.

"Aria," he said as he slid in across from her. "You're really here."

Her voice was low. "You said it was important."

"I didn't expect you'd come," he confessed. "After everything..."

She looked at him-really looked. He hadn't shaved. His knuckles were scraped. And behind the softness of his gaze was something else. Fear. Not for himself.

For her.

"Talk," she said.

Liam pulled out his phone, set it on the table, and opened an image. It was a grainy photo of a man in a dark coat, face obscured, slipping into the back of a black car.

"That's Damon," she said automatically.

"No," Liam replied. "That's not Damon. That's the man who works for Damon. And that car?"

He tapped the license plate.

"Registered to a private shell company-same one connected to six other incidents involving... missing people. Mostly women."

Aria's throat dried.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you're in the middle of something you don't understand," Liam whispered. "This isn't just about a jealous billionaire with a power complex. It's deeper. It's older."

Aria blinked. "Older?"

Liam hesitated. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a document. It looked like an old court filing-faded and stamped.

"Damon Callahan legally changed his name ten years ago."

She leaned forward, her blood rushing in her ears.

"Changed it from what?"

Liam slid the paper to her.

Darius Castellano.

Her breath caught.

She knew that name.

Her mother had whispered it once, in a fight with her father. A name tied to scandal. Power. And death.

"I thought he was dead," she murmured.

Liam's jaw clenched. "A lot of people did."

Before Aria could speak, the barista approached, holding a folded napkin.

"This was left for you," he said, setting it in front of her.

Aria unfolded it slowly.

"You shouldn't have trusted him."

No signature. No explanation.

Just the scent of cologne-Damon's cologne-clinging faintly to the paper.

Aria's stomach turned. She looked up at Liam.

But Liam's face had gone pale. He was staring past her, toward the café's entrance.

She turned slowly.

A tall man in a charcoal suit had just stepped inside, scanning the room.

His eyes met hers.

And he smiled.

His smile was the kind that could freeze fire.

The man walked slowly-like he had all the time in the world and no one to fear. Every step echoed in Aria's bones. Her body didn't move, but her instincts screamed.

Danger.

Run.

Now.

He stopped two tables away. His suit was tailored to perfection. His hair slicked back, untouched by the wind outside. But it was his eyes-those strange, storm-grey eyes-that sent chills down her spine.

"You're even more stunning up close," he said, his voice smooth like velvet soaked in poison.

Aria stood slowly. "Who are you?"

The man's gaze flicked to Liam, then back to her. "A friend. One who knows the truth behind the mask your 'husband' wears."

Her fingers clenched at her sides. "I never said he was my husband."

He chuckled. "Didn't have to. You carry the scent of him like a mark. It's practically branded into your skin."

"Leave," Liam said, rising beside her, eyes blazing. "Now."

But the man didn't even blink. "Careful, Mr. Cross. You don't want to play protector in front of the wrong people. Not again."

Aria caught the flicker in Liam's eyes. Recognition. And fear.

"You know him?" she asked.

Liam didn't answer.

The stranger's lips curled. "I'm known by many names. But you, Aria, can call me Casimir."

Casimir turned to leave but paused after two steps. "I hope Damon warned you, sweetheart," he said without looking back. "Because the ones hunting you now... aren't bound by love. Or rules."

Then he was gone.

Aria sat down hard, the breath knocked from her chest.

"What the hell was that?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

Liam dropped his head into his hands. "That was the one man Damon has never been able to buy, silence, or kill."

She looked at him, the fear finally settling deep in her bones.

"What does he want with me?"

Liam slowly lifted his head.

"I don't think it's you he wants. I think it's what you're about to remember."

The silence in Aria's apartment felt unnatural.

She had returned alone, needing space to breathe, to think-to try and process the chaos of the café, of Casimir, of Damon's concealed past. But the walls no longer felt safe. Every shadow felt like an eye. Every creak of the floorboards a whisper from the dark.

She poured a glass of water with trembling hands and stared out the window into the night. The city lights shimmered, oblivious to her unraveling.

Her mind spun back to Liam's words:

> "I think it's what you're about to remember."

Remember what?

She rubbed her temples, trying to pierce the fog in her head. She could feel something-something buried so deep inside her it felt more like a bruise than a thought.

A memory tugged at her consciousness.

She was small. Maybe six or seven. Hiding behind a velvet curtain. Someone-her mother?-was arguing in the next room.

"...he said Darius is back. Changed his name again. You know what that means."

"You're imagining things-"

"No. You don't understand. That man, that family, they don't let go."

The words spun in her ears like a broken lullaby.

Suddenly, something fell from her bookshelf-a leather-bound journal she hadn't opened in years. Her hand reached for it on instinct.

It was her mother's. She flipped through the pages, old ink smeared, pressed flowers crumbling in the creases.

And then-she found it.

A folded letter, yellowed by time.

She opened it.

> "If anything ever happens to me, don't trust the man with the silver wolf ring. He isn't who he says he is. And he will come for you, when the time is right. The past always does."

Aria dropped the letter.

Silver wolf ring.

Damon's ring.

A sharp knock at the door made her jump.

She approached it slowly, carefully. No peephole. No voice.

"Who is it?" she called out.

Silence.

Her heart pounded harder.

Then a slip of paper slid under the door. Her hand trembled as she picked it up.

Five words in red ink.

"It's time you chose sides."

Aria's grip on the card tightened, the red ink seeming to shimmer faintly beneath the hallway light. It's time you chose sides.

She backed away from the door, each step more unsteady than the last.

"Chose sides...?" she whispered, her voice barely a thread in the quiet apartment. What sides? What war am I in the middle of?

The room felt colder suddenly. As if something-or someone-was watching.

She bolted the door, threw the chain lock on, and stumbled back into the living room, clutching the letter from her mother like a lifeline. Her pulse roared in her ears, the walls closing in.

Damon. Casimir. Darius. The man with the silver wolf ring.

And now this card.

It felt like she had been living in a beautifully decorated lie. And piece by piece, someone was peeling back the wallpaper to show her the mold beneath.

She stared down at the journal again.

Her fingers shook as she flipped through more pages-desperate for answers. And then, a familiar name leapt from the margin of an entry.

Darius Knight.

Not just a name-an identity.

Her mother had circled it, and below it, a scrawled warning:

> He wears many names, many faces. If you ever hear that name again, run.

Her stomach clenched.

She had heard that name. At the café. Casimir had said it. Not loud. Not directly. But it was there, buried in his words.

And Damon had flinched.

Aria's breath hitched.

Who the hell is Damon?

She shoved the journal aside and grabbed her phone. Her thumb hovered over his contact name-Damon Calloway.

Just seeing it made her fingers go numb.

Calloway... was that even his real surname?

Instead of calling, she clicked open her browser. Searched: "Damon Calloway-CEO, Venture Capitalist, Origin."

The results were glossy. Polished. Almost too perfect.

His company profile, interviews, articles with his smiling face captioned "The Golden Billionaire." But no childhood details. No college yearbooks. Nothing older than seven years.

Like he appeared from nowhere.

Manufactured.

Her stomach turned.

A soft ding from her phone made her jolt.

A message. Unknown number.

Unknown: Stop digging. You're safer in the dark.

Her blood turned to ice.

She looked up instinctively, her eyes darting to the window. But the curtains were drawn. Her apartment was four floors up. Still, a chill swept over her like a phantom breath.

She opened the door to her closet and yanked out a small lockbox. Inside were spare keys, emergency cash... and her late father's old burner phone. Something he'd told her never to get rid of.

"This phone's not for games, Aria. It's for vanishing."

She powered it on.

It still worked.

The screen blinked, the signal searching... and then connected. A few unread messages popped up from years ago. But one new message appeared instantly.

From: Unknown Source

> We warned her once. She didn't listen. Now it's your turn to decide. Meet me at 5th & Delacroix. Midnight. Come alone.

Aria stared at it.

The clock read 11:17 p.m.

She had forty-three minutes.

Every part of her screamed to stay, to hide, to bury her head under the blankets and pretend none of this was happening.

But that wasn't her. Not anymore.

She had questions. She had shadows clinging to her name. And maybe-just maybe-she was done being in the dark.

She slipped on her jacket, shoved the burner phone into her pocket, and stared into the mirror near her door.

Her eyes no longer looked soft. They looked like glass pulled from flame-shattered, yes. But sharp.

She turned off the lights, grabbed her keys, and stepped into the night.

Unaware that across the street, from the rooftop of a neighboring building, a figure watched her through the lens of a long-range scope-silent, still, and waiting for her to cross the line she could never return from.