Chapter 224 What kind of things?
Aria’s POV
I woke to darkness pressing against the windows.
For a disorienting moment, I had no idea where I was. The unfamiliar weight of the blankets. The scent of cedar and something medicinal. Then it all came rushing back—the helicopter, the estate, Damian alive and bandaged in this bed beside me.
I’d fallen asleep.
My phone was vibrating insistently on the nightstand, screen lit up like a beacon in the dim room. I reached for it carefully, not wanting to wake Damian, and my heart sank when I saw the notification count.
Forty-three messages. Twelve missed calls.
*Damn it.*
I’d been so consumed with getting to Damian, so desperate to confirm he was alive, that I’d completely forgotten about everything else. The company. The projects. The people depending on me to keep things running smoothly while I was gone.
My fingers flew across the screen, scrolling through the backlog. Most were work-related—status updates, approval requests, the usual flood of information that came with running a business empire. But several stood out.
Four missed calls from Victor. Three from Jennifer.
And a string of messages from Victor that made my stomach twist with unease.
The first few had been recalled—deleted before I could read them. Whatever he’d initially wanted to say, he’d thought better of it. The final message was brief. Almost *too* brief.
[Project review might be delayed a few days. Don’t worry about it.]
Don’t worry about it.
As if that were possible.
The V&A Group was in the middle of launching a new pharmaceutical product—one of the most critical ventures we’d undertaken since I’d inherited the company.
The regulatory review process alone was a minefield of compliance checks and governmental oversight. One wrong move, one missed signature, and months of work could go up in smoke.
And I’d just handed temporary authority to Victor and walked away without a backward glance.
*How could I not worry?*
I understood why Victor had been cautious in his messages. Phone lines weren’t secure.
Pack politics meant everyone was watching everyone else, looking for leverage, for weakness, for any opening they could exploit.
But the timing felt wrong. Damian’s "accident" happens, and suddenly there are delays in my company’s most important project?
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
My thumb hovered over Jennifer’s messages next. She’d been more direct, less cautious. I could practically hear the worry in her typed words.
[Victor’s been meeting with Sylvia. Frequently. Please be careful.]
[I know you trust him, but something feels off. Call me when you can.]
[Aria, please. I’m worried about you.]
I bit down on my finger, anxiety coiling in my chest like a living thing.
Jennifer wouldn’t send messages like this unless she genuinely thought I was in danger. She was too level-headed, too practical to sound alarm bells over nothing.
But Victor? Meeting with Sylvia?
That *was* concerning.
Sylvia had made her feelings about me abundantly clear from day one. She wanted me gone. Wanted me to sign away my inheritance and disappear back into whatever hole I’d crawled out of. She’d tried intimidation, manipulation, legal maneuvering—everything short of outright violence.
And now she was in contact with the one person I’d tentatively begun to trust?
I glanced at Damian, still sleeping soundly beside me. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths, the bandages stark white against his tanned skin in the moonlight filtering through the window.
He needed rest. Needed time to heal.
And I needed to handle this.
I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could, padding across the room in my bare feet. The temperature difference between countries meant it was late evening here but mid-afternoon in New York. Jennifer should still be at the office.
I pressed her contact and held the phone to my ear, my heart hammering.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Aria!" Her voice cracked with relief, and I heard the telltale hitch that meant she was fighting tears. "Oh thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. I thought something happened. I thought—"
"I’m fine," I cut in gently, leaning against the wall. "I’m sorry. I should have checked in sooner. Something came up. Family emergency."
"Is everything okay?" The concern in her voice was immediate and genuine.
"Don’t worry,it’s OK." I didn’t elaborate. Couldn’t. "But I need to know what’s happening back there. Tell me everything."
Jennifer’s relief morphed into professional efficiency immediately.
"The pharmaceutical review has hit a snag," she said. "Victor’s been handling it in your absence, but there’s some kind of issue with the compliance documentation.
Tax audit data isn’t matching up with what we submitted. He’s having the entire department re-verify everything before the next submission window."
My jaw tightened. "What kind of discrepancy?"
"I don’t have the details. Victor’s keeping it close to the vest." She paused. "But Aria... he’s been meeting with Sylvia. Multiple times. I’ve seen them together twice this week alone, and Nathan confirmed they’ve been in contact even more frequently than that."
Nathan. Victor’s son. My nominal cousin who’d made no secret of his resentment when I’d inherited instead of him.
"Nathan told you this?" I asked carefully.
"Not directly. But I overheard him on the phone with her." Jennifer’s voice dropped lower, like she was worried about being overheard.
"I couldn’t make out everything, but I heard your name. And something about timing."
*Timing.*
The word sent ice down my spine.
Damian’s accident happens. My project gets delayed. Victor starts meeting with Sylvia behind my back.
Either I was being paranoid, or someone was making a move while I was distracted and vulnerable.
"Jennifer." I kept my voice steady with effort. "I need you to do something for me."
"Anything."
"I want you to monitor every communication going out of Victor’s office. Emails, calls, everything. Don’t let him know you’re watching, but I need to know who he’s talking to and what he’s saying."
"Aria, if he finds out—"
"He won’t. You’re smarter than that." I softened my tone. "I’m not asking you to do anything illegal. Just... keep your eyes open. And if anything seems off—*anything*—you call me immediately. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good." I exhaled slowly. "Now tell me about the pharmaceutical launch. Everything."
For the next twenty minutes, Jennifer walked me through every detail of the project’s current status. The regulatory hurdles.
The compliance reviews. The market projections and distribution contracts. She was thorough, precise, and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders ease as I realized the situation wasn’t as dire as I’d feared.
The tax discrepancy was legitimate—an honest error that Victor had caught before it became a problem. He’d halted the review submission to fix it, which was exactly what he should have done.
But the meetings with Sylvia...
Those still bothered me.
"One more thing," Jennifer said, her voice taking on a different quality. Hesitant. Almost guilty. "I... I had dinner with Nathan. Twice this week."
I blinked. "Nathan?"
"I know." She sighed. "I know he’s not trustworthy. I know he’s working his own angle. But Aria, he’s *telling* me things. And I can’t figure out if he’s trying to help or if this is some kind of elaborate setup."
"What kind of things?"