Chapter 75
BLAKE
Matthew squared his shoulders and looked directly into my eyes. His expression changed from anger to something more controlled—cold contempt.
"You want to know what happened after you went unconscious? Fine. You've been out for three days while everything fell apart," he said. "The Grant family held a press conference. They revealed the truth about Emma—that she isn't their biological daughter. But that's not all. Emma finally decided to tell the truth about the Boston accident ten years ago."
The monitor beside me beeped faster as my heart rate spiked.
"Emma was a witness. She saw everything that happened that night," Matthew continued. "Christine tampered with Aaron's car. She cut the brake lines."
My stomach twisted violently. "Emma knew? She knew all this time and said nothing?"
"According to Emma, Christine threatened to kill her if she spoke up. How convenient that she remembers this detail now, when Christine isn't around to defend herself." The bitterness in Matthew's voice was unmistakable.
I fell back against the pillow, my mind racing. "Why would Christine do that? Why would she want to hurt Aaron and Aria?"
"To protect her deception. Aaron knew something wasn't right with the girls. He was getting too close to the truth about the baby switch. Christine couldn't risk exposure."
I stared at Matthew in shock. "And Emma's story is actually being believed?"
"The internet is eating it up." Matthew pulled out his phone and showed me social media posts praising Emma for her courage in coming forward.
"Emma has positioned herself as Aria's champion," he explained. "She's saying things like: 'I couldn't speak up before because I was young and Christine threatened my life. But now that I know Christine never changed and even killed Aaron, I had to tell the truth. I couldn't protect an evil person anymore!'"
I stared at the screen, reading comments that called Emma "brave" and "Aria's true friend."
"People are falling for this?" I asked in disbelief.
"Completely. Her fans are spinning a narrative that Emma is the victim here. They're saying she couldn't choose who raised her, that she shouldn't be blamed for Christine's actions."
Matthew scrolled through more comments. "Some are even suggesting the Grants should keep Emma as their daughter despite everything. And this one—" he pointed to a particularly popular post, "—is asking when you'll finally accept Emma as the future Mrs. Morgan."
My fists clenched so hard my nails broke the skin of my palm.
"This is bullshit. Complete bullshit," I snarled.
"Some reporter asked me if I would thank Emma for coming forward," Matthew continued. "Can you believe that? Thank her? I told them I don't believe a single word of her garbage explanation."
He put his phone away, his hands shaking with anger.
"Emma knew the truth ten years ago. She watched Aria suffer, watched her take the blame. She stood by while everyone called Aria a murderer. And now she wants to play the hero?"
Matthew turned back to me, his eyes burning with hatred. "Stay away from Aria. Don't go looking for her. Don't dishonor her memory with your grief. You don't deserve to mourn her."
"Matthew—"
"No," he cut me off. "You had your chance. You had years of chances. And what did you do? You tortured her. You broke her. You don't get to be sad now that she's gone."
He moved toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me. "Blake, you're not worthy of her. You never were."
The door closed behind him with a final click.
I sat alone in the sterile hospital room, surrounded by machines that confirmed I was still alive when I felt dead inside. Matthew's words replayed in my head over and over, each repetition more painful than the last.
Through the window, I could see he was heading to another wing of the hospital. To visit Olivia, I realized. His sister who was pregnant and needed to be carefully monitored after collapsing when she heard about Aria.
I reached for my phone on the bedside table, needing to see these social media posts for myself. When I opened the apps, I was confronted with a barrage of negative comments about Aria—every single one calling her a gold-digger, a murderer's daughter, a fake. Emma's most rabid fans had flooded the internet with vicious rumors about Aria's suicide.
I couldn't stand it any longer. I immediately called my cyber security team.
"I want every single negative post about Aria scrubbed from the internet," I ordered. "Every comment, every account spreading rumors—make them disappear. Now."
"Understood, sir. We'll get right on it."
Within hours, the cleanup was complete. All the hateful comments had vanished without a trace. The accounts that had spread the most vicious rumors were gone as if they had never existed.
Hours later, I checked myself out of the hospital against medical advice. The rain outside matched my mood—relentless, dark, punishing. I slid into the back of my waiting Bentley.
"Where to, sir?" my driver asked.
"Peak Zero," I answered without hesitation.
The drive passed in a blur. My mind kept returning to Aria's face, to her voice, to all the moments I'd wasted. Every memory was a knife twisting deeper.
When we arrived, I stepped out into the downpour without bothering with an umbrella. The cold rain drenched me immediately, soaking through my clothes to my skin. I didn't care. I walked to the edge of the cliff where she had supposedly fallen.
I stood there, staring down at the churning ocean below. Was she really down there? Had those waters taken her away forever? I couldn't accept it. I wouldn't.
The memory hit me without warning. Our first meeting at the Grant estate, years ago. She was reading under an oak tree, wearing a light pink dress. Completely absorbed in her book, oblivious to everything else.
I'd been annoyed that she didn't notice me. Everyone noticed me. Everyone except Aria.
Then came our last conversation.
"I don't want your apology or your guilt anymore," she had said. "After today, I will completely forget you. I won't carry any memories of you with me anymore. We're done. We're even."
Even? How could we ever be even? I owed her everything. A life for a life. A heart for a heart. And now I could never repay that debt.
The realization crushed me, folding my body in half. I dropped to my knees on the wet ground, a pain like nothing I'd ever felt before ripping through my chest.
"We'll never be even," I shouted into the storm. "I still owe you! Do you hear me? I still owe you everything!"
My body betrayed me, convulsing as I coughed up blood onto the rain-soaked earth. The physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in my soul.
I threw my head back and roared into the darkness, my voice breaking. Tears streamed down my face, colder than the rain, sharper than any blade.
"ARIA!" Her name tore from my throat like a prayer and a curse combined.
Through my haze of pain, I heard the sound of tires on gravel. A white Mercedes pulled up nearby. A slender figure emerged, opening an umbrella as she ran toward me.