Chapter 27 The Countdown
Aria's POV
Aria dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment, every muscle screaming from the thirty-six-hour shift that had ended with three hours of surgery on Dante's second-in-command.
Her hands still trembled slightly. Not from exhaustion from the lingering adrenaline of knowing she'd just saved the life of a career criminal while the man she was falling for burned a warehouse full of people alive across the city.
The duality was making her insane.
She reached her door and stopped. A package sat on the mat. Plain brown paper, no return address, just her name written in block letters.
Aria's pulse kicked up. After everything the surveillance photos, Isabetta's accusations, Dante's deflections, anonymous packages felt like grenades with the pins already pulled.
She should call the police. Should at least call building security.
Instead, she picked it up and went inside, locking three deadbolts behind her.
The package was light. She set it on her kitchen counter and stared at it for a solid minute before tearing it open.
Inside: a USB drive and a folded note.
The note was brief: The truth about your father. Watch alone. Trust no one. -A friend
Aria turned the USB over in her fingers. It could be anything. Malware. Evidence. More lies disguised as truth.
She opened her laptop anyway.
The drive contained a single video file. Timestamp: three years ago. Location: Sant'Angelo Hospital parking garage, Level B2.
Aria's throat tightened. She knew that location. That was where her mother used to park when she'd visit for lunch.
She hit play.
The security footage was grainy but clear enough. Night. Empty garage. A car—her mother's silver sedan—sitting alone under flickering fluorescent lights.
A figure in maintenance coveralls approached. Male, average height, moving with purpose. He knelt beside the driver's side front wheel, and even through the poor video quality, Aria could see what he was doing.
Cutting the brake lines.
Methodically. Professionally. Like he'd done it a hundred times before.
When he stood and turned, the camera caught his face for just a second.
Aria's stomach dropped.
Luca. One of the estate's longtime employees. The man who'd worked for her father for fifteen years. Who'd driven her to school when she was young. Who'd smiled at her at family dinners.
The man who'd murdered her mother.
The video continued. Luca walked away. Getting into a black SUV. The license plate visible for a frame: registered to one of Bruno's shell companies.
Then her mother's car, the next morning, pulled out of the garage. The timestamp jumped forward. News footage Aria remembered with sickening clarity: the accident. The intersection. Her mother's car was unable to stop, slamming into cross-traffic at sixty miles per hour.
The report had said brake failure. Mechanical defect. Tragic accident.
It had been murder.
Aria's hands shook so badly she could barely pause the video. She stood, walked three steps, and vomited in her kitchen sink.
Her mother. Sweet, gentle Camilla who'd loved her father, who'd believed in family, who'd died thinking it was just bad luck and faulty brakes.
Bruno had killed her.
Had his own wife murdered and made it look like an accident.
Aria's knees gave out. She slid down the cabinet to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest, and screamed.
Not a delicate cry. A raw, animalistic sound of something fundamental breaking inside her chest.
Everything was a lie. Every birthday, every holiday, every moment Bruno had played the grieving widower who'd loved his wife so much. Every time he'd told Aria she looked just like her mother, his voice catching with false emotion.
All of it. Performance. Manipulation.
While her mother's murderer still worked at the estate, probably getting paid very well for his loyalty.
Aria grabbed her phone with shaking hands. Called Sienna. Straight to voicemail probably in surgery.
She almost called Dante. Stopped with her thumb over his contact.
Could she trust him? He'd been lying about his identity, his past, his reasons for being in her life. Maybe he'd sent the video. Maybe this was part of his revenge turning her against her father before the final move.
Or maybe Isabetta had sent it. Another manipulation. Another chess piece being moved into position.
Aria threw her phone across the room. Heard it hit the wall with a satisfying crack.
Then she walked to her liquor cabinet and pulled out the bottle of wine Sienna had given her last Christmas. Expensive. Special occasion stuff.
Finding out your father murdered your mother felt like a special fcking occasion.
She drank straight from the bottle. Didn't bother with a glass. Just tilted it back and let the burn drown out the screaming in her head.
Three years. She'd believed the accident story for three years. Had mourned alongside Bruno. Had comforted him when he cried at the funeral.
He'd probably been crying from relief that she'd bought the lie.
The wine bottle was half-empty when Aria finally passed out on her couch, still in her scrubs, surveillance footage of her mother's murder frozen on her laptop screen.
\---
Friday morning arrived with brutal sunlight and a headache that felt like divine punishment.
Aria groaned, rolling over, her mouth tasting like battery acid and regret. Her phone somehow intact despite the wall incident showed six missed calls.
Three from Bruno. All timestamped early in the morning. All with the same voicemail: "Tesoro, don't forget breakfast tomorrow. We need to discuss tonight's dinner. Call me."
Like she was a child who needed reminding. Like he gave a single sht about her beyond how useful she was to his image.
The other calls were from a number she didn't recognize.
One voicemail. She hit play.
"Dr. Salvini, this is Lorenzo Lazzari. I'm looking forward to our dinner tonight. Seven PM at La Pergola. Your father speaks very highly of you. I hope we'll have the chance to get to know each other better."
His voice was smooth. Educated. Exactly the kind of man Bruno would approve of: wealthy, connected, controllable.
Everything Aria wasn't interested in.
She deleted the message and saw the text underneath from an unknown number: Wear something nice for the funeral. His or yours. -IR
Isabetta.
Cryptic as ever. Was that a threat? A warning? Both?
Aria sat up slowly, head pounding, and looked at her reflection in the darkened TV screen. She looked like hell. I felt worse.
But beneath the hangover and heartbreak, something else was building.
Rage.
Cold, focused, deadly rage.
Her father had murdered her mother. Had used Aria her entire life as cover for his crimes. Had forged her signature on documents that facilitated God-knows-what illegal operations.
Dante had seduced her as part of a revenge plot. Had lied about his identity, his past, everything fundamental about who he was. Had called her collateral damage while making her fall in love with him.
Isabetta was manipulating her toward some endgame Aria didn't fully understand. Using her grief and confusion as weapons.
Everyone wanted something from her. Everyone thought they could use her.
Aria stood, walked to her bedroom, and opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand.
Her mother's handgun sat there, wrapped in soft cloth. Camilla had kept it for protection a woman living alone while her husband traveled needed security. She'd taught Aria to shoot when she was sixteen, despite Bruno's protests.
"Better to know and not need it," Camilla had said, "than need it and not know."
Aria picked up the weapon, checked the clip. Still loaded. Still ready.
She set it on her bed next to the wire device Isabetta had given her.
Two weapons. One literal, one technological.
Tonight's dinner at La Pergola was supposed to be Bruno's test of her loyalty. Lorenzo Lazzari was supposed to be a safe, appropriate choice. A message that Aria would choose family over dangerous men like Dante.
But Bruno had underestimated one critical thing.
Aria wasn't his little girl anymore. Wasn't the naive daughter who believed her father was a respectable art dealer. Wasn't the innocent surgeon who thought she only saved lives.
She knew the truth now. All of it. Or enough of it to know everyone was lying.
And she was done being the pawn.
Aria picked up the gun, felt its weight in her palm. Then I picked up the wire device.
Both went into her purse.
She walked to her closet and pulled out a black dress. Elegant. Expensive. The kind of thing Bruno would approve of for dinner with a potential husband.
Perfect funeral attire.
She laid it on the bed, then texted Lorenzo: See you tonight. Seven PM.
Then Bruno: I'll be there for dinner. We have a lot to discuss.
Then Dante: I know what you are. What you've been planning. Come to La Pergola tonight if you want a chance to explain before I tell my father everything.
She didn't wait for responses. Just tossed the phone aside and headed for the shower.
Tonight, everyone's carefully laid plans were going to blow up spectacularly.
And Aria was going to enjoy watching them all scramble.
Let them underestimate her one more time.
It would be their last mistake.