Chapter 298
Aria’s POV
Scarlett looked small in the orange jumpsuit. Smaller than I'd ever seen her, even accounting for the weight she'd lost. Her blonde hair—always perfectly styled, always gleaming—hung limp around her face. She had dark circles under her eyes and a bruise on her cheekbone that made my stomach turn.
"What happened to your face?" I asked, sliding into the chair across from her in the visiting room.
She touched the bruise self-consciously. "Inmate politics. Turns out being a rich girl from the Upper East Side doesn't make you popular in Rikers."
"Scarlett—"
"Why are you here, Aria?" Her voice was flat. Defeated. "Come to gloat? Tell me how I got exactly what I deserved?"
"Your mother's dead."
The words hung in the air between us. Scarlett's face went blank, processing, then crumpled.
"What?"
"She poisoned herself this morning. Same arsenic she used on my mother. She left a note." I pulled out my phone, showing her a photo of Victoria's letter. "She wanted me to tell you she's sorry. That you deserved better."
Scarlett read the screen through streaming tears, her hands shaking so badly I had to hold the phone steady for her. When she finished, she looked up at me with something like desperation.
"I didn't know," she said hoarsely. "Aria, I swear to God, I didn't know what she did to your mom. I didn't—"
"I know." And surprisingly, I meant it. "I believe you."
"Then why—" She gestured helplessly at the room, the jumpsuit, the situation. "Why didn't you say something? Why let me get charged with conspiracy?"
"Because you're not charged with conspiracy to commit murder," I said calmly. "I made sure of that. David talked to the DA. You're only facing the trafficking charges and obstruction. You won't do more than five years if you behave."
Scarlett stared at me like I'd spoken in a foreign language. "You... you helped me?"
"I made sure you were charged with what you actually did. Not with what your mother did." I stood, suddenly exhausted. "That's not help, Scarlett. That's just fairness."
"I don't understand." She wiped her face with her sleeve. "After everything I did to you—Ethan, the house, all of it—why would you care about fair?"
I thought about it. Really thought. "Because my mother was poisoned for four months while everyone pretended not to notice. Because justice matters, even when it's complicated. And because..." I paused at the door, looking back at this broken girl who'd spent so long trying to destroy me. "Because you're going to spend the next five years living with the consequences of your choices. That's punishment enough. You don't need to pay for Victoria's sins on top of your own."
I left her crying in the visiting room, and I didn't look back.
Devon was waiting in the parking lot, leaning against the car with his arms crossed. He straightened when he saw me, his eyes searching my face for... something. Permission to ask how I was, maybe. Or reassurance that I hadn't completely lost it.
"I'm okay," I said before he could speak.
"You sure?"
"No. But I will be." I let him open the car door for me, slide into the passenger seat. "Take me home?"
"Always."
---
The next few weeks blurred together in a haze of morning sickness, work meetings, and nesting instincts I didn't know I had. Devon threw himself into preparing for the baby with the same intensity he brought to hostile takeovers, reading parenting books at 2 AM and color-coding onesies by size.
"Devon," I said one night, watching him alphabetize board books on the new nursery shelves. "The baby won't be able to read for like, three years."
"I know that." He didn't look up from organizing Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. "But when they can read, we'll be prepared."
"You're insane."
"You married me anyway."
Fair point.
But despite the chaos and the grief and the morning sickness that laughed at the "morning" part of its name, I found myself... happy. Actually, genuinely happy in a way I hadn't been since before my mother got sick.
Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the relief of seeing my father and Victoria behind bars. Maybe it was just Devon, who'd somehow gone from the cold businessman I'd propositioned in a hotel room to the man who held my hair back while I vomited and alphabetized children's books at midnight.
Whatever it was, I wasn't going to question it. Not when questioning had gotten me nowhere for so long.
"Come here," Devon said suddenly, holding out his hand.
I crossed the nursery, letting him pull me against his chest. His hand settled on my stomach—slightly rounded now, just barely showing—with a reverence that still surprised me.
"I can't believe there's a person in there," he murmured.
"Technically still a fetus."
"Don't ruin the moment with medical accuracy."
I laughed, resting my head against his shoulder. Outside the windows, the city glittered in the gathering dusk. Somewhere out there, Sophia was probably eating gelato in some Italian piazza. My father and Victoria were in their separate cells, living with their choices. Scarlett was learning to survive in a world that didn't cater to her whims.
And here, in this yellow nursery with the man I'd accidentally fallen in love with, I was learning to let go. To stop carrying the weight of everyone else's sins. To believe that maybe, just maybe, I deserved to be happy.
"What are you thinking about?" Devon asked.
"That my mother would have liked you," I said honestly. "Once she got past the whole 'bought me like a business transaction' thing."
"You think?"
"Yeah." I tilted my head up to look at him. "She always said I needed someone who'd challenge me. Who wouldn't let me martyr myself or hide behind being strong all the time. Someone who'd see through my bullshit and call me on it."
"I do love calling you on your bullshit," Devon agreed solemnly.
"Ass."
"That's Mrs. Ass to you."
We stood there in the fading light, and I realized: this was it. This was the moment I'd been fighting for without knowing it. Not revenge. Not justice. Not even closure.
Just peace. Just the chance to build something new from the ashes of everything I'd lost.
"Hey Devon?"
"Mm?"
"Thank you."
He pulled back to look at me, confusion and affection warring in his gray eyes. "For what?"
"For being here. For trying. For..." I gestured at the nursery, the apartment, the life we were building together. "For giving me a reason to stop fighting and start living."
His expression softened in that way that still made my breath catch. "You gave me that first," he said quietly. "You made me want to be better than the man I was. Better than the man I thought I had to be to survive." He kissed my forehead, soft and sweet. "We saved each other, Aria. Let's not forget that."
We stayed like that until the sun finished setting, two broken people learning to be whole together. And when he finally led me out of the nursery and back to our bedroom, I fell asleep in his arms and dreamed of yellow walls and baby laughter and a future that didn't hurt anymore.
The dust, finally, had settled.
The new life was just beginning.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I was ready for it.