The words wouldn’t leave Aria’s head.
“I killed your father.”
No one moved for a few seconds.
It felt like the archive was closing in on them.
Aria looked at Victor, her emerald eyes cold with a coldness she didn’t know existed in herself.
“You killed him?”
Victor didn’t look away.
“Yes.”
Damien stepped up
“Expect us to swallow that?”
Victor’s face was still hard.
“I expect nothing from you.”
Aria held out one hand.
Damien paused.
She needed to hear it from Victor himself.
Every answer they found only opened up another question.
Each secret had spawned another.
But this was something else.
This was her daddy.
The man whose identity had been kept from her.
The man who’d been erased from her childhood.
The man Victor had just said he had killed.
“Why?” Aria asked.
Victor gritted his teeth.
“Because he didn’t want to lose the trust.”
Aria’s breath slowed.
“The trust?”
He thought it belonged to you.
Victor glanced at the old files around them.
He knew what would happen if the wrong people got hold of it.
He knew the power it gave him.
He also knew that once the truth of your bloodline were out, you would be a target.”
“So you killed him in the name of the trust?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Aria frowned.
Victor looked at her hard.
“I killed him because I thought I could control what came next.”
The face of Damien darkened.
“And you couldn’t.”
Victor smiled without the joke.
“Not.”
Aria stepped forward.
“What did you do when you killed him?”
Victor didn’t say anything.
“Answer me.”
“I saw to it that you disappeared.
Her stomach clenched.
“You made me vanish?”
“Not face to face.”
Victor dropped his voice.
“I severed your link to him.”
Aria glanced at him.
My name.
“Yes.”
“My family.
“Uh-huh.”
“My story.”
“Yes.
“Everything?
Victor’s silence was sufficient.
Aria’s fingers clenched.
You stole my identity out of me,”
“I stashed it.
“You wiped it out.
“I saved you.”
“That’s not protection, not by your standards.
Her voice trembled with rage.
For the first time, there was a change in Victor’s expression.
Not shame.
Something akin to regret.
But Aria didn’t believe it.
‘You made me grow up thinking I was somebody I wasn’t,’ she said.
“You let Richard raise me under an assumed name.
“You saw me live, not knowing who I was.
“You were better that way.”
Safer from what?”
Victor looked over at Damien.
“From everybody.”
Damien moved forward.
“You keep saying everybody.
Protecting her from who now?”
“Nothing,” said Victor.
Damien’s voice was harder.
“My father was in it.
Richard was in.
Elena was in on it.
The trust was part of it.
Project Eclipse was part of it.”
He stepped closer.
And still you keep telling us this was all to protect Aria.”
Victor narrowed his eyes.
“You know little about Eclipse,”
“Then tell me.
“I don’t think I can.”
Damien’s face chilled.
“Can’t?”
“Not here.”
Aria noticed the change instantly.
“Why not here?”
Victor looked at the door of the archive.
“Because this room isn’t safe anymore.
The closed doors were making a faint noise.
Everyone stopped.
A metallic click.
Then silence.
Damien glanced at Aria.
“Did you hear that?
“Yes.
Victor went for the files.
“There’s not much time.”
Aria went after him.
What do you want?
“The original Eclipse record.
Damien narrowed his eyes.
“You said the archive was incomplete.
It is,” said the second.
Victor yanked open another cabinet.
“But one copy remained.”
Aria saw his hands moving through the files.
“You knew it was here.
“I had an idea.”
“You’ve been here before.
But Victor didn’t answer.
Aria understood at once.
“You knew of this archive.”
“Yes,”
“How long?”
“Years.”
The answer hit her harder than she thought it would.
Victor had known.
He had known it all this time.
Aria glanced at Damien.
He looked no less upset.
“You knew this was here?” asked Damien.
Finally Victor looked at him.
“Yes.
And you never told me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t meant to know.”
Damien laughed, a harsh sound.
“I suppose nobody thought I was entitled to the truth.”
Victor drew out a thin black folder.
“Therefore.”
Aria looked at it.
There was no Headline.
No label
Nothing to tell what was in it.
Victor passed it to her.
Aria hesitated.
She took it.
Her hands did not tremble.
She pulled the folder out.
There was only one sentence on page one.
PROJECT ECLIPSE WAS NOT MEANT TO SEEK AN HEIR.
Aria’s eyes narrowed.
She flipped the page.
THE HEIR WAS KNOWN ALREADY.
Damien looked over her shoulder.
“Then what was Eclipse for?”
Aria flipped a page.
There were reports.
Dates (Dates).
Observations .
Transcripts of the talk.
Assessments of marriage
Financial flows.
Emotional reactions.
Aria’s face tightened.
“They were spying on us.”
Victor nodded.
“For years now.
Damien ran his eyes quickly through the pages.
They filmed us getting married.
“Yes.
“Our reasons?”
“Yeah.”
“Our financial decision?”
“Yeah.”
Our private dealings?”
Victor didn’t say anything.
Damien balled his fists.
“This is crazy.”
“No,” said Victor.
It’s worked out.”
Aria continued to read.
One report attracted her attention.
SUBJECT ONE: D A M I E N A L E X A N D E R L A U R E N T
SUBJECT TWO: ARIA SINCLAIR
MAIN VARIABLE: CONFIDENCE
SECONDARY VARIABLE: POWER
LAST VARIABLE: BETRAYED
Aria’s stomach clenched.
There was another sentence under it.
The subjects should believe that the choices are theirs.
She halted.
Damien saw.
“What?”
Aria turned the page to him.
He read it.
His face changed.
“They played us.
“Not exactly,” said Victor.
Damien looked at him hard.
“What does that mean?”
“So the decisions you made were still your decisions.”
Victor’s voice was low.
“But some were curious to see how you would react to certain choices.”
Aria’s thoughts raced.
Vivienne.
Divorce.
The photos.
The marriage
Her father was dead.
Suddenly things seemed to fall into place.
“Vivienne was one of the Eclipse?
Victor’s silence went on too long.
Aria’s eyes went cold.
“Answer me.”
“She was a help.”
Damien moved forward.
‘How useful?’
“She put pressure.”
“Pressure?
“She made you doubt the marriage.”
Damien regarded him.
“You knew she was coming back.
“Yes,” said he.
“You knew what she’d do.”
“I knew what she was capable of.
“And you let it pass.”
Victor’s face fixed itself.
I permitted nothing.
You saw.
“I watched because Eclipse demanded watching.”
Damien lowered his voice.
“You used my marriage.”
Victor turned to Aria.
“No.”
They were surprised at his answer.
Somebody else did.”
Aria narrowed her eyes.
“Who?
Victor said nothing.
Again the noise outside the archive’s door.
This time it was more.
Three brisk taps.
Damien moved in front of Aria in an instant.
Victor looked at the door.
“Don’t open it.
Aria looked on him.
“Why?” “
“Because whoever’s out there knows we’re inside.
Knock again.
Aria moved toward the door.
Damien seized her wrist.
-Aria.
She looked to him.
“We can’t be locked in here.”
We don’t know who’s out there.”
“We don’t need to.”
She pulled her wrist away.
“We need to know why they’re here.”
Victor snatched the black folder out of her hands.
Aria whirled around.
“What are you up to?
Victor flipped open the folder to the last page.
His face altered.
Aria noticed it.
Fear.
Real fright.
“Read it.”
Victor did not reply.
Damien moved forward.
“Victor ”
Victor glanced at them both.
Then he slowly turned the page over.
It was attached to a photograph.
Aria’s heart stopped beating.
It was she.
Not now.
Not twenty-seven.
She was a woman.
Seven or eight years old maybe.
Supporting Elena.
Aria stared at the picture.
“I’ve never seen this.
“I know,” said Victor.
She glanced at Elena.
Her mother was young.
And behind them was Richard.
But it wasn’t that that frightened her.
But there was another person in the picture.
A face deliberately scratched in.
Aria’s breath caught.
“Who’s that?”
Victor did not respond.
Damien looked at the picture.
“Why’d they take the face off?”
Victor closed his eyes for a moment.
“Because that person was supposed to have been dead.”
Aria stared at him.
“You said my father was dead.
“He is.”
“Then who is it?”
Victor’s face grew dark.
“The one who started Eclipse.”
There was no sound from the archive.
Aria looked at the picture that was ripped.
Her mind went over all the revelations again.
The stolen wealth.
The trust.”
Her father passed.
Elena is gone.
Lies from Richard.
A marriage arranged for Damien.
The ECLIPSE Project:
Vivienne.
It had all been deliberate.
Someone had been moving the pieces for years.
And somehow she and Damien had been caught in between.
Aria glanced at Victor.
“You know who it is.
Victor didn’t say no.
“You knew all the time.”
“Yes.
Then tell me.
Victor’s gaze moved to the archive door.
There was another noise outside.
This time it was no knock.
It was the sound of a lock being turned.
Victor’s face went pale.
“They found us.”
Damien leaned toward Aria.
“Who?”
Victor stared at him.
Then at Aria.
The man who ordered the death of your father.
Aria’s blood went cold.
Victor dropped his voice.
“And the one who hooked you up with Damien.”
The lock came open.
The door of the archive opened.
And before Aria could see who stood facing her from the other side, Victor whispered the one thing that made her entire world stop.
“Not Vivienne.”