Chapter 297
Aria’s POV
As autumn deepened into early winter, I settled into a routine that felt almost... normal.
Morning sickness, unfortunately, was not a myth. Most days I woke up nauseous, and more than once I barely made it to the bathroom in time. But Devon, in a show of attentiveness that would have seemed impossible six months ago, developed an uncanny ability to predict my nausea attacks.
He'd appear with ginger tea and saltine crackers before I even knew I needed them. He'd hold my hair back when the tea didn't work. He'd run a cool cloth over my face afterward and murmur reassurances that I absolutely did not look as green as I felt.
"How are you so good at this?" I asked one particularly rough morning, after he'd just prevented me from face-planting on the bathroom tile.
"Practice," he said simply, helping me back to bed.
"Practice?" I raised an eyebrow. "Been secretly nursing pregnant women on the side?"
"Evelyn." His expression shuttered slightly. "After the fire. She had medication that made her nauseous. I learned to read the signs."
Oh. Right. His sister. The ghost that haunted him, the guilt he carried like a second skin.
I took his hand, threading our fingers together. "She's lucky to have you."
"I'm the reason she needs me," he said flatly.
"Devon—"
"Don't." He cut me off, but gently. "I know what you're going to say. That it wasn't my fault, that I was just a kid, that Connor's the one who started the fire. But I was there. I could have gotten her out faster, done something different, been less of a coward—"
"You were fifteen years old," I said firmly. "And you pulled your sister out of a burning building. That's not cowardice. That's heroism."
He didn't look convinced. But he also didn't pull away. He just sat there on the edge of the bed, my hand in his, staring at nothing.
"The baby's going to ask about her," I said after a moment. "About Aunt Evelyn. What are you going to tell them?"
His jaw worked. "The truth. That their aunt is the bravest person I know. That she survived something that would have broken most people. That she's..." He paused, swallowing hard. "That she's proof that you can come back from the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Even if you're never quite the same."
I pulled him down to lie beside me, his head on my still-flat stomach, one hand splayed protectively over where our child was growing.
"You're going to be a good father," I said softly.
"You don't know that."
"I do." I ran my fingers through his dark hair. "Because you care enough to be terrified of screwing it up. Bad fathers don't worry about being bad fathers."
He huffed something that might have been a laugh. "Is that the bar? 'Marginally better than complete indifference'?"
"It's a start."
We lay there for a while, quiet and content. Outside the windows, the city hummed with its usual chaos. But in our bedroom, with early morning light filtering through the curtains and Devon's warmth pressed against me, everything felt...
Peaceful. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt genuinely at peace.
Of course, it couldn't last.
"Aria." Devon's voice had gone tense. "Your phone's ringing. Unknown number."
I groaned, rolling over to grab it from the nightstand. "If it's another reporter asking for a statement about my father, I'm going to lose it."
But it wasn't a reporter. It was David White, my lawyer.
"Aria," he said without preamble. "Are you sitting down?"
My stomach dropped. "What happened?"
"Victoria Harper was found unresponsive in her cell this morning. The medical examiner suspects she ingested something—poison, most likely. She's in critical condition but they don't expect her to make it through the day."
I sat up so fast my vision went spotty. "Poison? How the hell did she get poison in prison?"
"That's what they're investigating. But Aria..." David's voice gentled. "There's a note. She left a note. Addressed to you."
---
Devon drove me to the DA's office despite my protests that I was fine, that I could handle it, that I didn't need him hovering. He ignored all of it, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my knee in that possessive way that had become familiar.
"You're not doing this alone," was all he said.
I didn't have the energy to argue.
Katherine Reeves met us in her office, looking tired and grim. She handed me a plastic evidence bag containing a single sheet of paper, Victoria's handwriting stark against the white.
"Aria,
By the time you read this, I'll be gone. I'm not asking for forgiveness—I don't deserve it and you wouldn't give it anyway. But I need you to understand something.
I loved your father. Not the way you probably think—not some shallow golddigger seduction. I actually loved him. And he loved your mother more than he'd ever love me, and I HATED her for it. Hated that she got everything—the perfect family, the legacy, his devotion—while I had to smile and play the devoted employee and pretend I didn't want to claw her eyes out every time she looked at him.
So yes, I poisoned her. Yes, I watched her die slowly and felt nothing but satisfaction. Yes, I married William six months later and thought I'd finally won.
But I didn't win. Because he never stopped loving her. Even when we were together, even when we had Scarlett, he was always comparing me to Elizabeth. Always finding me wanting. And I realized: I'd murdered a woman and destroyed a family for a man who would never truly be mine.
That's my hell, Aria. Not prison. Not the trial. Not even dying. It's knowing that I committed the worst sin imaginable for a love that was never real. That I poisoned an innocent woman for nothing.
I hope that's enough for you. I hope my suffering gives you closure, since my confession apparently wasn't enough.
Tell Scarlett I'm sorry. She deserved better than me for a mother.
—Victoria"
I read it twice, my hands shaking. Then I handed it to Devon and watched his expression darken with each line.
"She killed herself," I said numbly. "She poisoned herself."
"Seems like it," Katherine said. "We're analyzing the substance, but preliminary tests suggest it was the same arsenic compound she used on your mother. She must have smuggled it in before her arrest, kept it hidden all this time."
"Jesus." I pressed my hands to my face. "She held onto it for months. Just in case."
"Aria." Devon's hand found mine. "This isn't on you."
"I know that." But did I? Part of me wondered if this was what I'd wanted all along. Not justice, but destruction so complete that even Victoria chose death over living with what she'd done.
"She made her choices," Katherine said firmly. "Every single one of them, from the moment she decided to pursue a married man to the moment she swallowed that poison. You don't get to carry guilt for her cowardice."
I wanted to believe her. But guilt wasn't something you could logic away. It just sat there in your chest, heavy and cold, reminding you that every action had consequences you couldn't predict or control.
"Can I see Scarlett?" I asked suddenly. "Before she's transferred to federal prison?"
Katherine and Devon both looked surprised.
"Why?" Devon asked carefully.
"Because her mother just killed herself and she's alone." I stood, feeling steadier than I had any right to. "And because Victoria asked me to tell her something."