The message comes at dusk, slipping across Aria’s tablet like a whisper from a ghost.
SABRINA KNOX:
I know the truth about Navarro.
Come alone. Basement gallery. 22:00.
If you want answers… hurry.
Aria’s blood turns cold.
For hours she has been drowning in tension—Damian’s possessiveness, the tower’s whispers, the Syndicate’s threats, the sniper shot that grazed him because of her. She can’t breathe inside Wolfe Tower anymore, not with guards at every turn and Damian pacing like a caged storm outside her door.
So when Sabrina’s message appears, promising truth—promising answers about the cages, about Navarro’s horrors—Aria’s resolve cracks.
She needs to know. She has to know.
She waits until Damian’s war room meeting begins, the one he didn’t want her anywhere near, and slips past the guards he stationed at her door. It hurts—knowing he put them there because he fears losing her—but the need for answers is louder than the fear.
She takes the service elevators down, her heart punching her ribs with every passing floor. The lower she goes, the darker the halls become—silent, abandoned, smelling faintly of rust and old paint.
The gallery basement used to hold priceless stolen art during Navarro’s reign. Now it’s nothing but shadows and forgotten secrets.
Aria pushes the door open.
“Sabrina?” she whispers.
Her voice echoes.
The lights flicker on in a slow, humming crawl.
And Sabrina Knox steps out from behind a marble pillar like she’s been waiting her entire life for this moment.
Her heels click against the floor—precise, venomous, beautiful in the most terrifying way. Her red lips curve upward, but her eyes are dead.
“Well,” Sabrina purrs. “You actually came.”
Aria stiffens. “Where are the files?”
Sabrina laughs—a sharp, broken sound.
“Oh, sweetheart. Still so naïve.”
She circles Aria like a predator marking its prey. Her perfume is sweet and poisonous, filling Aria’s lungs until she feels dizzy.
“You really believed I had evidence?” Sabrina mocks. “That Navarro wasn’t the monster everyone says? That someone else ran the cages?” She leans in, her breath brushing Aria’s cheek. “You wanted hope that badly?”
Aria steps back, trembling. “What do you want, Sabrina?”
Sabrina’s smile shatters, revealing something ugly beneath.
“I want the world to make sense again.”
Her heels stop clicking.
Her voice drops to a whisper laced with betrayal.
“I want Damian Wolfe back.”
Aria’s pulse stutters. “He never belonged to you.”
Sabrina’s eyes blaze.
“And he sure as hell doesn’t belong to you.”
Aria feels the danger rising and forces her voice not to shake. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. Damian won’t let anyone touch me.”
Sabrina’s expression twists.
“That’s the problem.”
She steps closer, rage trembling beneath every movement.
“He looks at you like you’re gravity and he’s falling. He hears your scream over gunfire. He’d die for you.” Her voice breaks. “He never… not once… looked at me like that.”
Aria whispers, “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Sabrina explodes.
“BUT YOU TOOK IT!” she screams, slamming Aria back against the cold concrete wall.
The impact knocks the breath from her lungs.
“You became his weakness,” Sabrina spits. “The entire Syndicate feels it. You’re unraveling him. Damian Wolfe does not protect. He does not soften. He does not… kiss.”
Aria freezes.
Sabrina’s eyes narrow.
“Oh, yes. I know.” She gives a sickening smile. “The tower has ears, honey. Everyone knows.”
Aria feels her cheeks burn—but not from shame. From fear. The kind of fear that tastes like blood.
Sabrina grips her chin hard enough to bruise.
“You think a man like Damian can love?” she whispers fiercely. “If he does, it will kill you. He destroys whatever he keeps. Ask the graveyard of women who tried before you.”
Aria wrenches her face from Sabrina’s grip. It hurts, but she stands tall, voice shaking but steady.
“Damian chose to protect me. You don’t get to rewrite that.”
Sabrina goes still.
Her mascara smudges, streaking down her cheeks like war paint.
“That,” she whispers, voice hollow, “was the wrong thing to say.”
She reaches into her coat.
Aria’s stomach plummets.
“Sabrina… don’t.”
Sabrina pulls out a gun.
A sleek, black, silenced pistol.
It looks horrifyingly small in her manicured hand.
Aria’s breath leaves her in a single, trembling gasp.
“You’re right,” Sabrina says softly. “Damian doesn’t belong to me. Not anymore.” She raises the gun. “But I can still fix him.”
Aria’s pulse thunders. “Damian will kill you.”
Sabrina’s smile is empty.
“Oh sweetheart… I’m counting on it.”
The gun clicks into place.
“I kill you,” she whispers, “and Damian goes back to the only thing he understands: vengeance.”
Aria backs away, hands shaking. “Damian won’t forgive you.”
“He doesn’t need to,” Sabrina replies. “He just needs to become himself again.”
Aria’s voice cracks. “This won’t bring him back. It’ll break him.”
Sabrina laughs without joy.
“He’s already broken.”
The gun lifts higher.
Aria flinches—
And Sabrina steps closer.
“Goodbye, Aria Navarro.”