Chapter 198
Aria
First Person POV
I could still feel the heat from the hot tub on my skin as I followed them into the room. It wasn’t the main study. It was a side room with a large round table, soft chairs, and maps pinned to the walls. The triplets were already there, seated like they had been born in those chairs, each of them looking sharp and dangerous in black shirts and clean–cut pants. Even their boots looked like they had a job to do.
Chiara was standing by the window with her arms folded. She didn’t say anything when I walked in, but she gave me a little nod. Her lips were tight, like something was on her mind.
I took the empty chair next to Dante and waited.
No one spoke right away. It was one of those silences where everyone was thinking the same thing but no one wanted to be the first to say it. Matteo was spinning a pen between his fingers. Enzo leaned back with his hand on his jaw. Dante’s eyes stayed on the map in the center of the table.
Then Dante spoke.
“We’ve hit a wall,” he said, finally looking up. “Our guy on the inside is close to something, but he can’t get far enough without risking exposure.”
“There’s too much missing,” Matteo added. “The Russians are moving, but we don’t know where or why. Every time we think we’ve got a lead, it disappears.”
Enzo looked at me next. “We think your father might’ve known more than we realized.”
I froze a little.
“My father?” I asked.
Enzo nodded. “You said you have a journal. Something he left behind. Right now, we’re working blind. But if there’s anything in there, even a word or a name or a hint… it could change everything.”
I looked down at my lap. My hands were resting there, still damp from earlier. I hadn’t touched that journal since the night I first found it. I didn’t even know why I had kept it buried in my stuff instead of reading it fully. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I didn’t want to see who my father really was in his own words.
“I’ll read it,” I said quietly.
Matteo gave me a soft look. “You sure?”
I nodded once. “Yeah. I’ll go through it. I’ll see if anything stands out.”
I stood up slowly. No one tried to stop me or follow. They trusted me with this, which only made the pressure feel heavier.
Back in my room, the air was cool and still. The sun had started sinking lower in the sky. My bed looked freshly made, the pillows fluffed, like the staff had been in earlier. I walked over to my things and dug into the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. The journal was right where I left it, wrapped in one of my old hoodies.
I carried it over to the bed and sat down.
I didn’t open it right away, I just held it for a while, staring at the faded leather cover. It had a small mark in the corner, like it had been burned or scratched at some point. It looked old. Familiar. Like it belonged to a different version of my life.
After a few minutes, I got up and took a quick shower. I needed to clear my head. The water helped a little. I changed into a simple tank top and soft cotton shorts. Something comfortable. Nothing fancy, I dried my hair with a towel and let it fall loose down my back.
Then I sat back down on the bed and finally opened the journal.
The first page had my name.
1/2
Chapter 198
Aria, My light. My reason.
I stared at the words for a long time before flipping to the next page.
The early entries were soft. Warm. He wrote about small things. Like what I said when I was five. Or how I refused to eat anything green unless it was a gummy. He talked about how he missed my mother. How he was trying his best. There were parts where he doubted himself. Where he sounded tired and unsure. It made him feel real. Not like a shadow from my past but like a man I could have talked to if I had the chance now,
I turned more pages.
Then the tone started to change.
As I kept reading, I noticed how his handwriting changed depending on the day. Some pages were written neatly like he had time and peace in his mind but others were messy and rushed like he had written them under stress or in a hurry. On one page the ink had smudged like maybe he had spilled something or maybe his hand was shaking while he wrote. There were notes in the margins too small scribbles where he would second guess himself or ask questions he probably never got answers to. Things like What if they find out and I shouldn’t have trusted him and Does Aria know anything yet. That one made my stomach twist. It was underlined twice and circled like it mattered. I didn’t know what he meant or who he was talking about but it made me sit up straighter. I kept flipping through slowly now more focused. There were names mentioned but never fully written. Just initials or nicknames. He wrote about deals and meetings and long silences that lasted through dinners. He described people watching him and how he had started sleeping with a knife under his bed. The more I read the more it felt like I was stepping into a world he never wanted me to see. But now I had no choice.
He started writing about being watched. About deals he couldn’t avoid. About mistakes. He never named names. But he mentioned powerful men. Men who promised protection in exchange for silence. He talked about being pulled in slowly. About doing one small favor and then being asked for more. The deeper I read, the more my stomach turned.
One line made me stop breathing for a second.
It started small. A favor. Then a deal. Then a secret I couldn’t undo.
I read that part three times.
He was writing about how he got pulled in. Into the world I was now standing in. This wasn’t just his story. This was the beginning of mine too. And maybe there were things in these pages that would help me understand all of it. Maybe something in here could explain what happened and why I was now caught in it too.
I turned the page slowly.
My eyes moved over the next line of words.
And I kept reading.
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