Chapter 159 CHAPTER 159
The Footage
Lila sat on Ares’ massive bed, surrounded by soft pillows, the scent of his cologne still lingering on the sheets. It wasn’t her room, and it wasn’t her bed, but she had made herself comfortable anyway. Ares was out handling something with his security team, which meant she had the whole place to herself.
And she planned to use it. She held a small black flash drive between her fingers.
“Old party footage you forgot you had,” he’d said when he delivered it earlier. “You’ll like this one. Real vintage.” The camera guy said.
Vintage meant one thing. A time when she was the queen of every scene. Era of scandals. Before Tessa.
Lila smirked and plugged the drive into Ares’ laptop. The screen flickered. A folder popped open.
MASQUERADE_9YRS_AGO_FINAL_CUT
Her heart fluttered with excitement. She loved nostalgia. She loved seeing herself throw extravagant, expensive events before the whole world started caring more about Ares and Tessa than about her hard work.
She clicked the file.
The video loaded to a dark screen first. Faint echoes of music played in the background, distorted from old speakers. Then the footage sharpened.
A ballroom bursting with gold light. Feathered masks. Champagne towers. People dancing like they owned the world.
Her party. Her theme. Her night.
Lila grinned.
The video panned across the crowd and zoomed into familiar faces. Industry heads. Designers. Influencers. Royals. Everyone wearing dramatic masks and glittering outfits.
Then she saw two men enter the ballroom. Ares and Julian, both fully masked.
Both wearing tailored black suits that fit too perfectly to be anyone else.
Lila’s heart gave a proud, smug little patter. “Well, well. Look at you,” she murmured to the screen.
The camera guy must’ve been tailing them because the lens followed them through the crowd. Julian grabbed a drink. Ares nodded to someone across the room. They separated briefly. Music intensified.
Lila leaned in, nodding slowly. “Damn, this brings back memories…”
And then the vibe of the footage shifted.
The camera zoomed in on Ares again, this time alone near the drink table. He was holding a nearly empty glass. And he looked drunk. Not stumbling drunk. Not sloppy. Just loose enough that his guard was down.
“Baby, what were you doing…” Lila murmured.
Ares lifted the glass to his lips, finished it, placed it down, and swayed slightly before steadying himself. Someone bumped into him. He caught himself and laughed. Then he turned away from the bar and stepped deeper into the crowd.
The camera followed, he walked up behind a girl. Small. Wearing a silver mask. Swaying on her heels like the room was spinning for her. She was clearly more than tipsy, holding onto the railing near the stairs to keep herself upright.
Ares stopped behind her, watching her.
The music thumped louder. The lights flashed.
Lila felt her smile fade slowly.
“…wait,” she whispered.
The footage showed Ares reach up and loosen his mask. He blinked hard as if trying to refocus the room, then slipped the mask off entirely.
His face was fully visible.
Ares pulled the mask back on but he did it backward, upside down, slightly crooked. He didn’t fix it.
He just stumbled forward and took the girl by the waist.
“What the hell?” Lila muttered. “I was busy having fun that year that I missed this.”
The girl turned her head slightly, her mask still covering half her face. Her movements were clumsy, slow, like she was too out of it to know what was happening around her.
Ares leaned in, whispered something in her ear, then pulled her closer. She nodded. Or maybe she just swayed. It was impossible to tell.
They disappeared into a shadowed hallway.
Lila sat there, frozen, her stomach tightening with a slow, crawling dread she couldn’t explain yet.
“Where did you take her…” she whispered to the screen.
The footage cut to a different angle. Same hallway. Same shadows. A door opened. Ares led the girl inside, steadying her when she wobbled.
Then the camera cut again, pointing straight at the doorway, zoomed just enough to see them as silhouettes. Their bodies pressed together. Ares held her face. The girl tilted her head, they kissed.
Lila’s heart slammed hard.
“Bad boy, but I won’t get jealous.” she whispered. “I made out with two guys that night…” She laughed.
Not because Ares had hooked up with someone. She had known he was wild in his twenties. She had known he had history, chaos, mistakes, nights he didn’t remember.
But she had never expected to see it.
Never expected to see it with this much detail.
Never expected the knot in her stomach tightening with every passing second.
The footage continued.
Ares kissed the girl again. Slower. More desperate.
The girl leaned heavily against him, barely holding her own weight. They slid out of view, deeper into the room.
The camera guy must’ve been standing just far enough to catch the movement without intruding.
Lila’s chest tightened until it hurt. “This is insane… What the hell were you doing that night? I didn’t have this much fun.”
She scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to swallow the panic rising in her throat.
Then the footage cut, the door opened again. Ares came out alone.
His mask still crooked. His hair slightly messy. His steps uneven. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed, and walked off.
The girl didn’t follow, not yet. A few seconds later, she stepped into the hallway. She used the wall to brace herself. Her hand shook as she reached for her mask. She peeled it off. The camera zoomed in instinctively.
Lila leaned so close her breath fogged the laptop screen, her heart stopped. Her blood iced. Her breath caught halfway in her chest.
Because the girl in the footage, the girl who had just unmasked herself…the girl Ares had taken into that dark room…was Tessa.
Lila’s body went still from head to toe, her fingers slipped off the laptop touchpad. Her throat closed. Her eyes widened, refusing to blink.
“No…” she whispered. “No, no, no… this can’t be real.”
Her whole body was numb, shaking with a realization that rewrote the last nine years of her life. The video reflected in her wide, stunned eyes.
Lila whispered into the silence of Ares’ bedroom:
“What… what did I just watch…?”