Page 97 of Rescuing Aria
The nameless girl flinches almost imperceptibly at this direct reference to Wolfe’s business. Her gaze remains fixed on the floor, but her shoulders draw up, as if anticipating a blow.
“At least I don’t pretend to be anything other than what I am,” Wolfe responds. He reaches into his jacket again, producing another recorder. “Rebecca knew exactly what she married, in the end. Listen.”
He presses play. My mother’s voice emerges, so familiar it physically hurts to hear it after all these years. But this isn’t the serene, composed woman I remember. This voice is frantic, frightened.
“I can’t stay anymore, Damien. The things he’s doing, the business in Thailand—those people aren’t volunteers. They don’t survive the procedures. He’s built everything on suffering, and if I try to leave, he’ll—” Her voice breaks. “He says he’ll make sure I never see Aria again. That I’ll be committed. That no one will believe me.”
“Turn it off,” my father says, his voice low and dangerous. “Damien, I swear to God?—”
“No, no. The best part is coming.” Wolfe’s smile is vicious. “The part where she begs me to help her escape. Where she tells me about the bruises you hid with the designer clothes you forced her to wear. Where she wonders if Aria might not be yours after all.”
My father’s mask slips. Rage contorts his features into something unrecognizable—something ugly and raw and terrifying.
“You bastard,” he hisses. “You’ve always been jealous. Always wanted what was mine.”
“She was never meant to be ‘yours,’” Wolfe counters, voice rising to match my father’s intensity. “She was a person, Marcus. Not a possession. Not a trophy. Not another asset for your portfolio.”
The recording continues, my mother’s voice growing more desperate: “If I stay, he’ll kill me. It’s just a matter of time. I need to get Aria away from him before she’s old enough to become another victim—another decoration for his perfect life.”
The serving girl edges further from the table, pressing herself against the wall as if trying to disappear into it. The tension between the men feels like a living thing, expanding to fill the room, squeezing the air from my lungs.
“You manipulated her,” my father snarls. “Filled her head with paranoia?—”
“I loved her!” Wolfe slams his hand on the table, making the crystal jump and the girl startle violently. “I loved her, and you destroyed her because you couldn’t stand that she loved me first.”
Something shifts in my father’s expression—a calculation, a reassessment. When he speaks again, his voice has regained some of its habitual control.
“Rebecca made her choice. She chose stability over chaos. Legitimacy over criminality. She chose me.”
“Did she?” Wolfe’s rage recedes, replaced by something more dangerous—a cold certainty. “Or did she choose to protect her parents from financial ruin? To protect me from whatever threats you made? Did she ‘choose’ to endure your control, your violence, your ownership for over a decade?”
The chandelier light catches on the silverware, flashing like blades. The heavy draperies seem to absorb sound, creating a suffocating intimacy to this destruction of everything I thought I knew.
“This is pointless,” my father says, looking at me rather than Wolfe. His expression shifts, softening into the concerned father I’ve always known. “Aria, darling, you can’t possibly believe these fabrications. Your mother loved us. We were happy.”
But I’m remembering differently now. The way my mother startled at loud noises. How she always seemed to know my father’s schedule better than her own. The “spa retreats” that coincided with visible exhaustion or unexplained injuries. The way she taught me to be perfect, compliant, unobtrusive—especially around my father.
“Were we?” My voice sounds strange to my own ears.
Something flashes in my father’s eyes—surprise, quickly masked. He’s not used to me questioning him. Not used to me seeing beneath the perfect façade.
“Of course we were,” he insists, voice gentle but firm—the tone he uses in board meetings when someone has suggested something inconvenient. “Damien has always been disturbed. Jealous. Vindictive.”
“And yet,” Wolfe interjects softly, “Rebecca came back to me. When she tried to escape you.”
The silence that follows is absolute. Even the girl has gone completely still, barely breathing.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, though something in me already knows the answer.
Wolfe’s gaze shifts to me, something almost gentle in his expression. “Twenty-four years ago, your mother contacted me. She’d finally gathered the courage to leave Marcus. She had evidence of his business dealings, his abuse—enough to ensure her freedom, or so she thought.”
My father’s breathing has changed, becoming shallow and rapid. His control is slipping.
“Your mother, Aria… She stayed with me for three weeks while we made arrangements,” Wolfe continues. “Three weeks of planning a new life, away from him. Three weeks of—reconnection.”
The way he saysreconnectionmakes my blood go cold. The implication hangs in the air between us. The timing… I count the years, coming to a conclusion I refuse to admit.
“And then?” I prompt, my heart pounding.
