Aria's POV
"My father is dead."
I say it again, louder, because the words need to be true. "I found his body. I buried him."
Robert Chen's smile doesn't waver. "You buried someone. But Thomas Moretti is very much alive."
Damien moves in front of me, his body a shield. "Robert. This is between us. Let them go."
"Us?" Robert laughs. "There is no 'us,' Damien. You destroyed my life. Turned me into a criminal to save your empire. And now I'm going to return the favor."
"By lying to his daughter?" Damien's voice is ice. "That's low, even for you."
"I'm not lying." Robert's gun never wavers. "Thomas contacted me six months ago. Said he needed help getting his family back. Said you'd stolen everything from him."
"No." I shake my head, clutching Marco tighter. "You're insane. I saw him. I—"
"Saw a body your father staged." Robert pulls out his phone with his free hand. "Here. Proof."
He tosses the phone toward me. It lands at my feet.
Damien tries to stop me, but I'm already picking it up.
The screen shows a video. I press play.
My father's face fills the screen. Older, thinner, but unmistakably him.
"Aria, baby, if you're watching this, I'm alive." His voice breaks. "I'm so sorry for what I put you through. But I had to disappear. Damien Cross was going to kill me. He found out I knew about his criminal empire—"
I drop the phone like it burned me.
"No. No, no, no." I can't breathe. Can't think.
Marco grabs the phone, watches the video. His face goes white. "That's... that's Dad."
"Deepfake," Damien says sharply. "Robert, this is pathetic—"
"Then explain this." Robert gestures behind him.
A black van pulls up. The door slides open.
And my father steps out.
I stop breathing.
He looks exactly like the video. Older, worn down, but alive. Real. Standing twenty feet away from me.
"Aria," he says, his voice cracking. "Marco. I'm so sorry."
Marco makes a sound I've never heard before—half sob, half scream. He breaks from my grip and runs toward Dad.
"Marco, no!" I lunge after him, but Damien holds me back.
"It's a trap," he hisses in my ear. "That's not your father."
"Let me go!"
But Marco has already reached Dad. They're hugging, both crying.
And seeing them together—seeing my father alive—something inside me shatters.
"How?" I whisper. "How is this possible?"
"Because I helped him fake his death," Robert says. "Helped him escape Damien's reach. And now he's ready to take back what was stolen from him. Starting with his children."
Dad pulls back from Marco and looks at me. "Come here, sweetheart. Please. Let me explain everything."
I take one step forward.
Damien's hand tightens on my arm. "Aria. Listen to me. This man—whoever he is—he's not who you think."
"He's my father!"
"He's a stranger who looks like your father. Thomas Moretti would never have put you through three years of hell. Would never have let you believe he was dead while you worked yourself to exhaustion trying to survive."
Dad's face hardens. "I had no choice! You threatened to kill my family if I didn't disappear! You forced me—"
"I never threatened anyone," Damien says coldly. "You embezzled from my company and blamed me when you got caught. That's the truth Aria deserves to hear."
"Liar!" Dad shouts. "You've poisoned her against me!"
I look between them—my father, alive and furious, and Damien, calm and deadly.
One of them is lying.
But which one?
"Aria," Marco calls. "Come on. Let's go home. We can be a family again."
Home. Family. The words I've wanted to hear for three years.
But something feels wrong.
"Why now?" I ask Dad. "Why come back now? Why not when we were being evicted? When Marco almost went to foster care? When I was working three jobs just to survive?"
Dad's expression flickers. Just for a second. "I didn't know how bad things were. Robert only told me recently—"
"I sent you emails," I interrupt. "After you died—after I thought you died—I sent emails to your old account. Begging for help. Telling you everything that was happening to us."
Silence.
"I... I never got them," Dad says. "My account was compromised—"
"Three years," I say, my voice shaking. "For three years, I grieved you. Hated myself for not saving you. Worked myself to the bone to pay your debts. And you were alive the whole time?"
"To protect you!"
"From what? From Damien? He offered me a contract that would have saved us! He got Marco into the best school in the state!" Tears stream down my face. "What did you do except abandon us?"
Dad's face twists with anger. "He turned you against me. Just like I warned you in my note—"
"The note that blamed him for your death? The note that was a lie?" My voice rises. "You made me hate an innocent man for three years!"
"Innocent?" Dad laughs bitterly. "Damien Cross is a criminal. A monster. And I can prove it." He pulls out a USB drive—the real one. "This contains evidence of everything. His money laundering, his corruption, his—"
A gunshot cracks through the air.
Dad staggers backward, blood blooming on his shoulder.
Robert still holds the smoking gun. "Sorry, Thomas. Change of plans."
"What—" Dad collapses.
Marco screams.
And Robert turns the gun toward me.
"The USB drive was never about Damien's crimes," Robert says calmly. "It's about the two hundred million dollars your father stole from the Russian mob five years ago. Money he hid offshore under his children's names."
My blood turns to ice. "What?"
"Congratulations, Aria. You and Marco are the heirs to a fortune built on blood money. And every criminal organization in the world is looking for you."
Damien moves like lightning, tackling me to the ground as Robert fires.
The bullet hits Damien's shoulder. He grunts but doesn't let go of me.
His security team finally arrives, weapons drawn, but Robert is already running for the van.
"Next time, Aria," he shouts. "We'll finish this conversation!"
The van speeds away.
I'm on the ground, Damien bleeding on top of me, my father unconscious nearby, and Marco crying over him.
Sirens wail in the distance.
Damien rolls off me, clutching his shoulder. Blood seeps between his fingers. "Are you hurt?"
"No. But you—"
"I'm fine." He struggles to sit up. "Your father needs an ambulance."
"Is it true?" I grab Damien's jacket. "What Robert said about the money. About us being heirs to—"
"Yes." Damien meets my eyes. "Your father didn't just embezzle from me. He stole from people who kill entire families for less. That's why I offered you the contract. Not to control you." His voice weakens. "To protect you. Because the moment they find out you exist, they'll come for you. And they won't stop until you're dead."
He passes out in my arms.
Police swarm the pier. Paramedics load Dad and Damien into separate ambulances.
A detective approaches me. "Miss Moretti? We need to ask you some questions."
But I'm staring at the USB drive on the ground where Dad dropped it.
The real one.
The one that apparently makes Marco and me targets for the Russian mob.
I pick it up with shaking hands.
And realize my father didn't just fake his death to escape Damien.
He faked it to escape people far worse.
And now they know we exist.