The doors to the study closed behind her with a soft sound. It felt like the house had swallowed her.
Aria stood rooted to the spot, fingers gripping her bag strap until her knuckles ached. The room was dim again, cloaked in warm lamplight and shadows that stretched like secrets too old to move.
She felt it before she saw him.
A breath drawn from the far side of the room.
Stillness that felt watchful.
Then her eyes adjusted, and she froze.
A figure by the tall window, back straight, hand resting on the glass like he was holding the night in place. Broad shoulders. A presence carved out of silence and stormlight.
Damian Cole.
Alive.
Her pulse misfired. For one wild second, she wondered if she had walked into a haunting, if grief had cracked the world open and let ghosts walk.
But ghosts do not breathe like that.
Do not stand like that.
Do not command air itself to stay still.
Her voice shook before she could steady it.
"You are supposed to be dead."
He did not turn immediately. When he did, it was slow, controlled, as if panic was a stranger to him. The lamplight kissed the edge of his face, cutting half of it into shadow. A man made of truth and darkness.
"If that were true, your life would be less complicated."
Her heart slammed hard against her ribs.
"You tried to leave," he said, voice low, steady, calm in a way that terrified more than shouting ever could.
Aria lifted her chin even though her throat felt tight. "Anyone would have. I did not know what was happening. Everyone saw you die. Everyone."
"And yet here you are," he replied softly. "Seeing what others do not."
Fear crawled up her spine, icy and electric. She forced herself to breathe, to stand still, to act like her knees were not shaking.
"Why am I here?" she whispered. "Why is everyone pretending you are a ghost in your own house?"
His gaze flicked to the packed bag resting by her leg. "You thought you could run."
"I had to try."
"You did," he said, "and you could have died on the way out."
Her breath faltered.
Danger. Real danger. Not whispered paranoia. Not mansion mystery drama. Something sharp enough to kill.
He moved from the window, and the way he shifted, the faint limp in his step, the weight in his chest, made it real.
Not ghost. Not illusion. A wounded man hiding from something big enough to hunt him.
She stepped back without meaning to. He noticed.
Aria tried to sound steady. "I saw your notes."
A flicker in his eyes. Not fear. Not surprise. Something colder. Acceptance.
"Truth lives in what we bury," he said, voice quiet as dust falling, "and some graves do not stay closed."
Aria's fingers curled at her sides. "What does that have to do with me? I was just trying to do my job as a writer."
"You walked toward truth," he answered. "And truth walks with consequences."
Her breath shook.
"Tell me what you want."
Damian studied her. Slowly. Like he was memorizing fear on her face, weighing it against her stubbornness.
"I want to make an agreement."
Her pulse stopped, restarted, too fast. "What kind of agreement?"
"A survival one."
He moved toward the desk, not touching anything, just leaning faintly as though the world pressed too hard on him.
"You finish the memoir here, under my supervision. You do not leave. You do not speak of what you saw. You do not dig further than I allow."
"And if I refuse?"
He did not raise his voice. He did not move closer. He simply looked at her.
"If you leave, they will come for you. They do not let loose ends breathe."
Cold hit her lungs. "They?"
"I am not your threat," he said quietly. "The ones who wanted me gone are."
If someone like him had to hide, what chance did she have?
Silence thickened, dense and breathless. Aria felt like she was balanced on the edge of a blade she never meant to step onto.
"So I am trapped."
"You are protected," he corrected. "Here, with me, you live. Out there, curiosity becomes fatal."
Aria's throat burned. Fear and anger tangled inside her. "I do not trust you."
"Good." His voice had a strange softness. "Trust would get you killed faster."
Her gaze drifted across the desk. Papers. Ink. A single sheet separated from the rest, as if it refused to sit quietly in a pile.
She lifted it.
Handwriting jagged, desperate. A sentence carved like a confession bleeding through paper:
They will kill me if this gets out.
Her stomach dropped. "This is not just corporate corruption."
"No."
"This is not just a hidden scandal."
"No."
Her voice trembled. "Then what is it?"
Damian's eyes locked onto hers. A shadow passed through them, so heavy it felt like truth might suffocate her.
"This truth will destroy you," he murmured. "It could destroy us both."
Aria's stomach tightened. Fear flickered, but beneath it burned something else. Curiosity. A pull she did not want to name.
"If I walk away, I still die wondering," she said. "At least this way, I have a chance."
Silence again. His eyes held hers, deep and searching, as if he were deciding whether she was a weapon or a salvation.
Finally, he nodded, slow and deliberate.
"Then we do this together," he said. "But every word, every step, you follow my lead. If you slip, we both fall."
"I do not want to fall," she breathed.
"Good." The word came soft, almost a sigh. A surrender of control, or maybe a sharing of it. "It has been a long day. Go and rest. Tomorrow we start again, and you will need your mind sharp."
He turned toward the door, footsteps quiet on the polished floor. He paused, looking back for the briefest moment. Something unspoken moved through his expression, a shadow of worry, or warning, or something gentler he did not want exposed.
Then he was gone.
The room felt larger with his absence, and somehow emptier. Aria lowered herself into the leather chair, breath trembling as the quiet closed around her.
She should be safe now. She was not.
She should be terrified. She was, but not of him. And that frightened her most of all.
Her life was already tangled in his secrets. In his world. And beneath the fear, a dangerous spark of curiosity pulsed in her chest.
This was not just writing a story anymore.
It was survival.
She leaned back, eyes drifting to the door he had walked through, and let herself feel it all.
Fear. Intrigue. The strange pull she could not explain.
The beginning of a decision she could not undo.
Whatever she had stepped into, she was in it now.
And she was not sure if she had just saved herself
or walked straight into ruin.