Aria’s POV

The next hurdle was dealing with my fiancé. He had played a significant role in convincing me to go in Emily’s place.

I always thought, out of everyone, he should care more about me. But it turned out, my assumption was wrong.

I suggested we meet at a restaurant. I picked my best dress—not for him, but for myself. Tonight would be another battle, and I refused to let myself appear even the slightest bit weaker.

When I stepped through the door, I spotted Damian sitting at a table near the terrace.

He turned his head as I approached, rising to his feet. “You’re here already? I thought you’d be a bit later.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, keeping my tone even.

“Well, I heard you signed the hostage agreement,” he said, pulling out the chair for me. “I figured you’d want to spend more time with your family before you leave in five days.”

“Emily called and told you?” I asked, my voice colder now.

Damian’s face flickered with embarrassment. “She was worried that you weren’t happy. She blamed herself for causing you and Mr. Moretti all this stress.”

“Is that so…” I muttered, my gaze drifting toward the window. The sunset was breathtaking, but it felt distant, almost irrelevant.

“Really, Aria,” he said, his voice softening, almost gentle. “I understand her, you know? I was never my father’s favorite either. I spent years trying to prove myself. If Emily hadn’t helped me secure the partnership with your family’s casino, my father might never have approved of me. She knows she’s adopted, and she just wanted to contribute. She has a good heart—she just made a mistake.”

Emily helped him with the partnership? I almost laughed. I was the one who secured it. I even put up my own money as collateral just to bring Damian in.

So why was Emily suddenly the hero in his story? Another thing to add to the list of mysteries I needed to unravel.

But none of it touched my expression. Instead, I let my voice slip into something almost casual.

“And now I’m the one paying the price.”

Damian hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching mine. “Aria, you’re the strongest, smartest woman I’ve ever known. If anyone can get your family out of this, it’s you. Emily—despite her innocence—she’s still a newcomer to our world.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, my gaze sharpening. “If she were smarter, she wouldn’t have gotten us into such a mess.”

I shifted my focus back to Damian, “Don’t worry. I have already signed that hostage agreement. I’m going.”

At my words, Damian exhaled in relief. Then, almost hesitantly, he spoke again. “About our engagement…”

I didn’t let him finish. “About our engagement, I think it’s best if we call it off. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

Damian looked surprised, “But you know about your father. If we called off the engagement, then my family’s partnership with yours…”

“Well, since we’re calling it off,” I said, looking away, “I think you and Emily can get engaged instead.”

He sounded almost desperate. “I am so glad to hear you offer this. Actually Emily and I have talked about this. And she already agreed to pretend to be engaged to me until you come back. It’s just for show—to show your father that our families are still united.”

I chuckled dryly. “Exactly.”

I glanced around the restaurant, “Now that we’ve talked this through, I think I’ll skip this meal with you. I have plenty to do before I leave.”

With that, I stood up.

“Aria…”

I didn’t turn back for once.

Before coming here today, I’d actually considered warning Damian—that once the casino was handed to Emily, he might want to pull his money out while he still could.

But then I saw the eagerness in his eyes. He couldn’t waste a single second to be engaged to Emily, just to protect his precious investment. And the fact he didn’t show any concern about me leaving, still persuading me to step up as the hostage.

I changed my mind. I wouldn’t say a word about the casino. Better to watch and see—would it be Father or Damian who looked more desperate once the casino crumbled in Emily’s hands?

...

Once the casino was officially transferred to Emily, I had no more business to attend to. The following days passed in a blur. I met up with a few friends, and the rest of the time was spent packing—though I wasn’t sure if I’d even need half of what I was packing.

Then, unexpectedly, Father called again and wanted me back at the casino. When I walked in, some of the staff whispered as I passed, others quickly averted their gazes, clearly uncomfortable with meeting my eyes.

I knocked on the door to what used to be my office, now Emily’s.

“Come in,” Father’s voice rang out.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I pushed open the door.

Damian was there, standing next to Emily, while Father stood on her other side.

“Aria, you need to explain this,” Father said sharply. “When the casino was going through the transfer agreement, we noticed some discrepancies in the financial flows. The numbers don’t match up.” He shot me a look of warning. “Are you smuggling money from the casino?”

Smuggling money? How little he thought of me.

Aria’s POV

“How much?” I asked, my voice steady.

“You tell me!” Father’s voice raised in anger. “How could I raise a daughter like you—stealing from your own family? If not for you handing over the casino to Emily, how long would we have waited before uncovering this?”

Damian intervened, his tone soothing. “Mr. Moretti, calm down. I believe Aria, and I think there’s more to this than we can see.” Then, turning to me with that same soft gaze, he added, “Aria, please, tell us. Did you need the money? You could have asked me or Mr. Moretti. You can’t just take it.”

“Are you two finished?” I asked, my voice cold as I walked toward the table. I pulled out my wallet, extracting a few cards. “This is my debit card. This includes my savings account. This is my credit card.”

Father raised an eyebrow, clearly confused.

“Run the test,” I said coolly. “See if the missing funds are in those accounts. If you don’t find anything, maybe the real thief is still out there.”

Father scoffed. “The real thief? Who could have gotten into the casino’s money except you?”

I smiled, smooth as ever. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you. Or mother. Or, perhaps…” I leaned in, my gaze locking with Emily’s, who flinched for just a moment. “Our innocent Emily?”

Emily jumped up, her eyes brimming with tears. “How could I?”

“How could you?” I let out a sharp, cold laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe when you signed the paper, you realized it was one more opportunity to set me up. You’re capable of many things, Emily. You may not have been born a Moretti, but you’ve certainly inherited the family spirit.”

Before I could even finish, a hard slap landed across my cheek.

Father’s hand remained suspended in the air, his face a mask of fury, but when I met his eyes, he quickly looked away.

“I said, don’t ever make fun of Emily when it comes to family. She is our daughter and your sister. Why do you insist on making her an outsider after all these years? What has she done to hurt you?”

The sting of the slap was sharp, but it was the constant ache of my family’s disdain that truly burned. I had always been the one to blame when things went wrong, the one they turned on the moment anything got messy.

If they’d bothered to find out when the funds went missing, or just trusted me once more, everything could have turned out differently.

“Yes, she’s done nothing to hurt me. Let me take a guess, Emily. You’re the one who found the missing funds and told Father and Damian, right?”

“Aria, I—”

“You don’t have to defend her. I found it.” Damian interrupted, ever the gentleman, ever the protector.

“Don’t get all protective, Damian.” My voice hardened, sharper than I intended. “I’m only asking Emily now.”

“Aria, I didn’t know Father would react like this,” Emily stammered, “I talked to him about the money… I thought you might need it, and that—”

“So I should thank you for this?” I let out another bitter laugh.

“What’s with that arrogant tone?” Father scoffed. “Emily was only trying to help you. You’re stubborn and closed off. She’s worried that if you really had troubles, you wouldn’t tell us!”

As I looked at the three of them standing in front of me, two of them too blind to understand the truth and one actress, trying to weave her dirty secrets into a trap, hoping it would break me.

The only reason I signed that damn paper and chose to leave the Moretti was because I was done with them—not the other way around.

I chuckled softly, a hollow sound. “Alright. I appreciate Emily’s concern. I’ve left my cards here. The password is my birthday. Use the funds in there to fill the casino’s missing money.”

“So you admit it? You stole the money?” Father’s voice was a mix of disbelief and outrage.

“No. I don’t. But whether I admit it or not, the result will be the same. So we may as well sort this out now.”

With that, I turned and yanked the door open.

“Aria!” Father’s voice, sharp and pained, called after me.

I turned to face him. His face was contorted, as if he were choking on his own words. He probably wanted to apologize for slapping me, but instead, all I got was, “Don’t act so childish. Come home for dinner tonight. After all, you’ll be gone tomorrow.”

Huh. That was it.

I walked out the door without looking back. “No need. I already have plans.”

And my plans didn’t include having dinner with a family that had chosen a liar over their own daughter.

Aria’s POV

I found myself at the amusement park I had visited as a child, back when it was just me, before Emily came into our lives.

As I walked through the gate, the scene in front of me shifted. I could almost see it—Father, younger then, holding me in his arms, smiling proudly at Mother. “Aria’s so smart. Already finished her math class. I think she’ll be the perfect heir to carry the Moretti name!”

Mother, with that soft smile only she had, looked at me and said, “Our baby must be tired. Let’s not talk about business or school today. Just focus on getting Aria on her favorite carousel!”

I giggled, all my attention was on the ice cream, balloons, and toys around me.

It was happy then, wasn’t it?

When did it change?

I walked to the carousel, handed the staff my ticket, and climbed aboard. The wind picked up my hair, and for a moment, I almost felt the joy of that little girl again.

Well, everything changed the day my father came home with Emily.

Emily was the daughter of my father’s right-hand man, who had died protecting him. My father, feeling indebted, took her in, giving her everything and telling everyone she was a Moretti. She was to be treated no differently than me.

I welcomed her—truly. It had always been my dream to have a sister. I imagined sharing a bed with her, building princess castles, sneaking out on adventures.

I had it all planned.

But I sensed Emily’s distance when I first met her, so I chose to respect her boundaries, waiting if she can accept me one day so that we can actually be sisters by then.

But somehow, it turned into me being the one who isolated and bullied Emily in Father’s eyes. He punished me hard that time, asking if I was spoiled, if I had forgotten how to listen to him.

I thought about finding Emily, clearing things up. But she only hid behind Mother, crying as if I were about to hurt her.

It was the first time Mother used a harsh tone with me. “Aria, I thought you were better than this! How could you be a bully?”

A bully. That word followed me for so long.

When school started, things only got worse. Friends began distancing themselves from me, calling me a monster. Teachers raised their eyebrows at me, labeling me a brat.

And every time, there was Emily, with her too-perfect, watery eyes, staring at me.

“No, it wasn’t me!”

“No, I didn’t do that!”

“No, I really didn’t!”

I had said those words a thousand times. And then I realized—it didn’t matter. No one cared about the truth. They only cared about what they saw.

And they saw me—a girl perfectly capable of taking care of herself, with a family and money to buy almost anything. On the other hand, Emily, who had lost everything, had no one to protect her. She was fragile—an easy target.

Everyone played the hero, and I became the villain.

I had my doubts about Emily stirring the waters. But then again, why would she do this? Why hate me that much?

It wasn’t until one day, when I overheard her talking to Father, that I knew for sure. “Aria made her friends talk bad about me. They all called me an orphan.”

That was it. It had been her all along.

I rushed to confront her when it was just me and her. “Why do you have to do this?”

Emily smiled to herself, a chilling smile that sent a shiver through me. “Because I just don’t want to see you happy. Why do you get to be happy when I was nothing? I lost my father because of yours, didn’t I? It killed me to see you and him all arrogant, tossing money at me like you’re bribing a dog.”

I regretted it. Regretted when Father asked me if I wanted Emily to be my sister, and I smiled, reaching out to hold her hand. I regretted how I welcomed her with open arms, how I tried to love her.

And then, I decided to make everyone see her for who she really was. But that failed too. Why would they believe the villain when they already had their precious heroine in mind?

The sun began to set on the horizon, casting a soft orange glow over the park. My phone buzzed incessantly in my pocket.

I pulled it out.

“Miss Moretti, the investigation you requested—about your family’s shipment accident and the missing funds at the casino—it’s finished.”

My pulse spiked, though I kept my voice steady. “Emily Moretti organized the accident, didn’t she?”

There was a pause. Hesitation. “Yes. According to the trail I followed, three days ago your family’s drug shipment resurfaced at the Mexican docks. The person who received it was Emily’s half brother. He sold it almost immediately to a local gang.”

I froze. “She has a half brother?”

“Yes. Her mother remarried years ago and had a son. Emily contacted him about three years back.”

“And let me guess,” I said, my mouth dry, “since then, a few things have gone missing from my family. Only to conveniently reappear in his possession.”

“Yes. And about the casino’s missing fund. Two days ago, I traced a withdrawal—she pulled a large sum from the casino account, then altered the records to make it look like it happened a year ago.”

A silence opened in my chest, heavy and suffocating. “So that’s why Father assumed I was the thief. A year ago I was still managing the casino.” My laugh was humorless. “And her relationship with Damian? When did that start?”

“About two years ago. I dig up some of Emily and her brother’s text messages about seducing Damian and how to exploit him to work for their benefit.” A beat of silence. Then, carefully: “Miss Moretti, I can send you the evidence right now. You knew, before you departure for that Ricci family.”

“No need.” My voice surprised me—it was calmer than I expected, almost detached.

The truth was, I hadn’t hired this investigator to convince my family. Not anymore. I only wanted proof that my instincts had been right all along.

Their regret—if it ever came—didn’t matter to me now. I had spent years trying to help them, trying to hold everything together. If they chose not to believe me, then they could live with the fallout.

It wasn’t me who abandoned them. They abandoned me. And the hostage agreement—that was the final betrayal.

“Send everything,” I said, my tone like steel. “The evidence. The videos. Everything you found on Emily after I leave.”

Let that be my last gift to them. One final attempt to make them see the truth before it’s too late.

As for me… by the time they realized, I would be long gone.