Chapter 4 - RETURN TO THE MANSIONAria had imagined returning to Montgomery Estate many times.
In her nightmares, Victoria dragged her through the front door by the wrist. In her weaker moments, Aria returned as a ghost, passing unseen through rooms where her father’s laughter had once lived. Sometimes she imagined returning rich, powerful, and beautifully dressed, with people watching Victoria shrink in fear.
She had never imagined returning at four in the morning wearing borrowed black clothes, bandaged feet, and Ethan Cross’s security team moving through the rain like shadows.
The estate loomed ahead behind iron gates and stone lions slick with water. Every window glowed. The party was over, but the house was awake.
Awake meant dangerous.
Ethan sat beside Aria in the back seat of a different car, this one armored and silent. Marcus drove. Two SUVs followed.
Aria stared through the windshield.
“My bedroom is in the east wing,” she said. “The greenhouse connects through the old conservatory. Victoria rarely goes there. She said it smelled like dead memories.”
Ethan glanced at her. “Does she know about your father’s letter?”
“No.”
“Then she may not know what she’s looking for.”
“She knows enough to destroy everything she doesn’t understand.”
The front gates opened before they reached them.
Aria stiffened. “Why are they opening?”
Ethan held up his phone. “Because the estate’s security contract expired at midnight.”
She looked at him.
“And the new temporary security provider is CrossShield.”
Despite everything, Aria almost smiled. “You bought my stepmother’s gates?”
“I bought the company that controls them.”
The gate closed behind them.
Montgomery Estate had never looked so unfamiliar. The long driveway curved past soaked gardens, marble fountains, and hedges trimmed into shapes Aria’s father would have mocked gently. Her childhood home had become a museum of Victoria’s taste: cold, grand, flawless, and empty.
A man in a suit rushed from the front steps, holding an umbrella.
“Mr. Cross,” he called, panic hidden beneath professionalism. “Mrs. Montgomery is resting. This is not—”
Ethan stepped out of the car. “Move.”
The man moved.
Aria remained seated.
Her body remembered every rule of this place.
Do not enter wet.
Do not raise your voice.
Do not embarrass Victoria.
Do not speak unless asked.
Do not lock doors.
Do not cry where servants can see.
Do not mention your father.
Do not ask about money.
Do not say no.
Ethan opened her door.
“You don’t have to go in,” he said quietly.
Aria looked at the house.
Then she stepped out.
Rain struck her face, cold and clean.
“I do,” she said.
They entered through the side conservatory, avoiding the grand foyer. Aria led them down a corridor lined with portraits. Her father’s portrait was gone from its old place near the library. Victoria had replaced it with a modern painting of red streaks on white canvas.
It looked, Aria thought, like blood pretending to be art.
The greenhouse door was locked.
Aria reached for the old brass handle and remembered being seven years old, standing on tiptoe while her father taught her how to open it with the hidden latch beneath the frame.
She slid her fingers under the left edge.
Click.
The door opened.
Warm, damp air rushed over them. The greenhouse was dark except for lightning flashing through glass panes above. Rows of dead planters sat where Eleanor Montgomery’s roses once bloomed. Victoria had let them wither, then left the bones behind.
Aria walked to the far corner, where an old stone fountain stood dry.
“My mother kept winter roses here,” she whispered.
Ethan scanned the room with a flashlight. “Where exactly?”
Aria knelt by the fountain.
Her bandaged feet protested. She ignored them.
Beneath the fountain basin was a carved rose pattern she had traced with her fingers as a child. One petal sat slightly deeper than the others.
Aria pressed it.
Nothing happened.
She pressed harder.
A small stone panel dropped open beneath the fountain.
Inside was a metal case wrapped in plastic.
Aria’s breath stopped.
Ethan crouched beside her. “Don’t touch it yet.”
But she had already reached in.
The moment her fingers closed around the case, the greenhouse lights exploded on.
“Aria.”
Victoria stood at the entrance in a cream silk robe, her hair pinned perfectly despite the hour, her face pale with fury.
Behind her stood Gerald Vance.
The old man from the bedroom.
Aria’s blood turned to ice.
Ethan rose slowly.
Vance’s gaze moved from Aria to Ethan, then to the case in her hands.
“Well,” Vance said softly. “Richard really did raise an inconvenient daughter.”
Victoria smiled, but it trembled at the edges.
“Put that down, sweetheart.”
Aria held the case tighter.
Sweetheart.
The word made something inside her snap.
“No.”
Victoria’s eyes sharpened. “You are confused. You are injured. Mr. Cross has filled your head with fantasies.”
“He didn’t fill anything,” Aria said. “He listened.”
For one second, Victoria looked genuinely offended, as though listening to Aria was the greater betrayal.
Vance stepped forward.
Ethan moved between them.
“I wouldn’t,” Ethan said.
Vance chuckled. “You are in a private home, Mr. Cross.”
“Actually,” Ethan replied, “I’m standing in a property whose controlling trust may belong to the woman you attempted to assault tonight.”
The word hung in the greenhouse.
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You have no proof.”
Aria lifted the metal case. “Maybe my father did.”
Victoria’s composure cracked.
Just a little.
Enough.
She looked past Ethan and shouted, “Take it!”
Two men emerged from the shadows behind the planters.
Ethan’s security team moved faster.
The greenhouse erupted.
One man crashed into a table. Pots shattered. Marcus grabbed the other by the wrist and drove him to the ground. Vance backed away, cursing. Victoria lunged toward Aria with surprising speed.
Her fingers caught Aria’s sleeve.
For a moment, Aria was fifteen again, being dragged from the piano room. She almost froze.
Almost.
Then she remembered the bedroom door.
Aria yanked free and slapped Victoria across the face.
The sound cracked through the greenhouse louder than thunder.
Everyone stopped.
Victoria slowly turned back, one hand on her cheek.
Aria was shaking, but she did not step back.
“That,” Aria said, “was for tonight.”
Victoria’s eyes filled with something darker than hatred.
“That was a mistake.”
“No,” Aria whispered. “The mistake was thinking I’d stay your property forever.”
Ethan caught Aria’s arm gently. “We’re leaving.”
They moved fast.
Behind them, Victoria screamed orders no one obeyed.
Aria clutched the metal case to her chest all the way back to the cars. Rain washed dirt from her hands. At the gate, she looked back once.
Victoria stood in the open doorway of the mansion, small beneath the columns but burning with rage.
Then Vance stepped beside her and spoke into her ear.
Victoria’s expression changed.
She smiled.
Aria’s stomach dropped.
“What?” Ethan asked.
Aria stared at her stepmother’s smile.
“She wanted us to find it,” she whispered.
May you like
Ethan went still.
In Aria’s arms, the metal case began to beep.
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