Page 11

Ares

I sit on the edge of my hotel bed, watching Boston's skyline blur through floor-to-ceiling windows. The first warning sign hits like a whisper—a slight pressure behind my right eye, familiar as an old enemy. My jaw clenches, knowing what's coming.

Within minutes, the pressure transforms into pain, each heartbeat driving it deeper, like a hot needle stabbing straight through my skull.

My fingers press into my temple, desperate for relief, but it's too late.

The city lights splinter at the edges of my vision, fractals of light that shouldn't be there dancing like warning flares.

Shit. Not now.

I need my medication before the full assault begins. Before nausea coils in my gut and the world morphs into a torture chamber of light and noise.

My phone buzzes against the nightstand, illuminating the dim room. Another text—probably Jessica or Mother with their endless demands. I turn it face-down, silent, and push to my feet. The room tilts slightly as I take an unsteady step toward the bathroom, my sanctuary of darkness and pills.

The hotel phone's shrill ring stops me cold.

"Mr. Saint?" the front desk manager says. "There's a Miss Jenkins here to see you. She's quite..." A muffled voice carries through. "...insistent."

Isabella.

Her name alone makes me forget everything else—the migraine, the pills, even breathing.

"Send her up."

I hang up and catch my reflection. The stark black shirt and pressed trousers project the image I've cultivated—successful, controlled, untouchable. My fingers smooth phantom wrinkles and adjust my already-perfect collar, a nervous habit I can't shake.

The knock comes before I can sort through the chaos in my mind. My heart pounds louder as I move to the door, knowing exactly who waits on the other side.

When I open it, she steals what's left of my composure. Her auburn hair, caught in a messy braid, has rebellious strands that frame her face like wildfire. But it's her eyes that undo me—green as summer leaves and blazing with a fury that makes my pulse stutter.

"Look at what you've done." She thrusts her phone at me, hand trembling slightly, knuckles white against the dark case.

The screen shows what I've been dreading and explains my mother and Jessica's endless messages: photos of me at Isabella's house, splashed across an online gossip site.

One of her by the window. Headlines as sensational as they are inevitable.

"Isabella—"

"Don't." She steps into the room, body radiating tension like heat from a furnace. Her artist's hands clench at her sides. "Fix this. Call whoever you need to call, make whatever statement you have to make, but get my name out of your mess."

The pain behind my eye sharpens to a knife point, but I force myself to focus. "My mess?"

"Yes, I don't want to be in it, because I know how it ends."

"And how is that?" My anger rises to match hers.

"With my life destroyed."

"Destroyed?" I step closer, fighting the way my vision blurs. "You're the one who destroyed everything when you stole from us. I saw the security footage—you walking into my mother's closet, taking those necklaces."

"But you didn't see what happened next!" The words explode from her like shrapnel.

"You hid them in the cott—"

"I gave them to your mother!" She surges forward, fifteen years of fury crackling in every syllable. "Your mother set me up, Ares."

I freeze, migraine forgotten. The fire in her eyes, the way she stands her ground without backing down an inch—it's intoxicating and infuriating all at once. I force myself to focus on her words, not the way her proximity makes my skin burn.

I let the security footage loop in my mind: Isabella entering, leaving with the necklaces. Jacob's voice: We found them in the cottage, sir.

But then Ethan's words echo: "Someone transferred twenty thousand dollars from one of your father's shell companies to Wells, a day after Evelyn and Bella left the property."

My stomach churns as implications click into place. Wells had been head of security, with access to every corner of the estate, every security feed, every locked door.

"Three days before everything went to hell," her voice drops, razor-sharp, "I was covering my grandmother's shift because she was sick. Your mother called me into your father's office."

Ice creeps up my spine.

"She ordered me to get two necklaces from her walk-in closet."

"They didn't allow any staff in there. Everyone knew that."

"Oh, I knew." Her laugh cuts like broken glass. "When I reminded her of that rule, she said—and I'll never forget this— 'Since I make the rules and sign your grandmother's checks, you'll do as you're told.'"

My stomach lurches. I hear my mother's voice perfectly—that cultured contempt, that velvet-wrapped steel. How many times have I heard that same tone?

"I was terrified she'd fire grandma if I refused." Isabella's voice cracks. "So I obeyed. Three days later, we're accused of theft, and those same necklaces mysteriously turn up in our cottage."

Something shifts inside me—a tectonic plate of denial grinding against the bedrock of truth. I search her face, looking for any hint of deception, but find only raw, unfiltered pain etched into every line. Pain that hasn't faded in fifteen years.

"Ares," her voice softens, raw with honesty, "I handed those necklaces to your mother. She was waiting in the hallway."

The security footage flashes through my mind: Isabella entering, leaving with the necklaces. But the hallway cameras—they would have shown the exchange with my mother. Where was that footage?

"Jesus." The word escapes like a prayer as pieces click into terrible alignment.

My mother's voice echoes across time: "It's for the best, darling.

That girl would only hold you back." The tickets to Switzerland appearing overnight, my boarding school admission expedited through "special connections.

" Being whisked away within 24 hours of the accusation, no chance to ask questions.

"We're being merciful, Ares," my father had explained, voice grave with false benevolence.

"Most families would press charges, involve the police.

But Jacob Wells conducted a thorough investigation as head of security.

We have all the evidence we need. We're simply removing them from the property. That's generosity."

I'd believed them. Thanked them, even, for their supposed mercy.

But now, hearing Isabella's side of the story and knowing Wells received twenty thousand dollars from my father's shell company the day after Bella and Evelyn were evicted from the estate.

.. the coincidence is too perfect, too damning.

My gut twists with certainty that there's more to this story—layers of deception I'm only beginning to uncover.

Would my parents really orchestrate such an elaborate deception just to separate me from a girl they deemed unsuitable?

I grunt, a bitter sound that catches in my throat. The fact that I can't immediately dismiss the possibility says everything about who they truly are—and who I've always known them to be, beneath the veneer of respectability.

"She'll try to manipulate you, Ares. She'll claim innocence despite the evidence. It's what people like that do."

People like that. The contempt in my mother's voice when she'd said it. The way my father had nodded, adding, "The sooner you forget about them, the better."

My fingers curl into fists, knuckles whitening as each memory realigns itself, revealing the calculated precision of their manipulation. The careful walls I'd built around my childhood crumble, exposing the ugliness beneath.

My stomach churns as unwanted realization floods through: The girl I'd fallen for—the housekeeper's granddaughter—was an inconvenience to be removed, an obstacle in their perfectly orchestrated life plan.

Sharp needles of pain lance through my temples, but the thundering in my skull crystallizes into white-hot fury, burning away doubt's fog.

My entire existence unfolds before me like a corporate flow chart—each milestone, each decision, each "coincidence" meticulously engineered.

From my first steps to my last board meeting, I've been molded into Saint Industries' perfect successor.

Their puppet, dancing on strings of obligation and expectation.

Until I severed those strings by refusing their hand-picked marriage match.

My gaze finds Isabella's face, and Evelyn's image floods my mind unbidden. Evelyn. The name cuts through my migraine like a blade. I need to hear her side as well.

"I need to speak with your grandmother."

Isabella goes perfectly still, tension radiating from her rigid shoulders. "You can't."

"Don't do this." Frustration bleeds into my voice. "I need to hear her side. Why didn't she fight back? Evelyn would never have just accepted—"

"Stop." The word explodes from her, raw and jagged. "You don't get to say her name like that. Like you ever gave a damn."

"I would have cared if I'd known the truth!" The words rip from my throat, desperate and wild.

She whirls on me, rage and hurt blazing in her eyes.

"If you'd known the truth?" Her laugh is sharp enough to draw blood.

"You didn't even try to find out the truth!

You just stood there, silent, while they threw us out like garbage.

" Her voice cracks. "You didn't ask one question.

Didn't try to see me, to hear my side. You just believed them, just like that. "

Each word hits like a physical blow because she's right. God, she's right. The guilt rises like bile in my throat as I remember standing there, silent and useless.