Just around the corner of the brick alleyway, concealed by the shadows of the studio’s loading dock, Damien stood perfectly still.

He had a phone pressed to his ear, his golden eyes narrowed as he listened to the voice of his operative on the other end of the line.

"So, it was Raymond Vale?" Damien asked, his voice low.

"Yes, sir," the operative confirmed, the sound of tires crunching over gravel filtering through the speaker. "The banged-up grey sedan that was tailing you and Mrs. Sinclair earlier today. We ran the plates. It was reported stolen out of a parking garage near the hospital."

Damien frowned, pulling a silver lighter from his pocket. "I thought Raymond was in the ICU. Did the doctors discharge him this morning?"

"No, sir. Unofficial, hushed reports from our contacts inside the hospital indicate that Raymond escaped the ICU sometime late last night or early this morning," the operative reported. "Local authorities are quietly looking for him to avoid a media scandal, which is why the news hasn’t hit the headlines yet. He’s in bad shape, Sir."

Damien flicked the lighter, the small flame illuminating the sharp angles of his face as he lit a cigarette. "How bad?"

"It looks like he was attacked. There’s severe bruising and swelling all over his body, consistent with a blunt-force beating," the operative explained. "He was barely conscious when we intercepted him. We searched his belongings and tossed the stolen car, but we found nothing on him."

Damien took a slow drag of his cigarette. "Did he say anything before passing out?"

"He was very paranoid, sir. Delirious. He kept thrashing around, repeating over and over that he had to tell Mrs. Sinclair something, and that ’they’ were trying to kill him."

"Tell Aria what?" Damien demanded.

"He didn’t say, sir. He lost consciousness before we could get any details."

Damien exhaled a plume of grey smoke into the dark alleyway. His mind raced. Raymond Vale was a coward, but a desperate, cornered coward with a secret was a dangerous wildcard. If someone had beaten Raymond to a pulp to keep him quiet, whatever he knew must be directly linked to Aria and likely her mother too.

"Take him to the safehouse," Damien ordered. "I’ll have Elias meet you there. Keep him alive until I arrive. I’ll handle his interrogation myself."

"Understood, sir."

Damien hung up, sliding the phone back into the pocket of his trousers.

He took one last drag of his cigarette, crushed the cherry beneath the sole of his shoe, and started in the direction he had arrived from.

But as he approached the corner of the brick wall, a voice echoed clearly through the quiet alley.

"But... you just said on live television that you wanted nothing to do with it."

It was Zoe.

Damien paused. He melted seamlessly back into the shadows of the brick wall, folding his arms across his chest. He stood in silence, listening to the conversation.

"I said that for the public," Aria’s voice carried over. "And I said it for Damien. If Damien thought I wanted it back, he would get it for me. But I can’t let him do that. I am going to go undercover. I am going to buy the remaining fifty percent of Vale Entertainment myself."

Damien went rigid in the dark as he listened.

"Nothing is ever going to feel earned anymore," Aria’s voice trembled. "No matter how hard I work, no matter how many hours I put in on set... I will always know the truth. Any award I win, any role I land, any contract I sign... people will whisper that I only got it because I’m Damien Sinclair’s wife. They won’t cast me because I’m talented. They’ll cast me because they’re terrified to offend him."

Damien’s chest tightened. He understood. He had spent the first five years of his career carving out his own legacy just so the world would see him as more than just another successor to the Sinclair Empire. As a matter of fact, right now, he was even more popular and influential than his family name.

He wasn’t angry that she had lied. He didn’t feel betrayed that she was conspiring to keep this a secret from him.

His wife wasn’t a fragile doll looking for a savior. She was a predator finding her teeth. She wanted to play the corporate game. She wanted to step into the shark tank, completely unshielded, and tear her mother’s legacy back from the jaws of the elite with her own two hands.

It was the most attractive thing he had ever witnessed in his life.

As much as Damien wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap, spend all his money on her, and keep her safely tucked into his bed as his pampered queen, he knew Aria would actually hate that life. She was a fighter. And he was going to support her decision.

A wicked smirk spread across Damien’s handsome face.

The bidding war for the available fifty percent of Vale Entertainment shares was scheduled for tomorrow night. Damien initially had no intention of participating or even attending. It was a dead company, and he had better things to do with his evening.

But now?

Now, the idea of walking into that auction room completely unannounced sparked a deeply playful, sadistic thrill in his chest. He was going to go. He was going to sit across the room from her, bid against her, and watch her beautiful face contort in panic as she realized she was going toe-to-toe against the Demon King. He wanted to see her bare her fangs at him in a professional setting.

Just to mess with her a little bit. Just to give her a taste of what it was like to operate in his world without her "wife privilege" activated.

"Okay, mastermind," Zoe grumbled, "I’m in, but I have one question."

"If you’re not going to use Damien’s money, where are you going to get the money from?"

Damien tilted his head, genuinely curious. It was a very valid question. Aria didn’t have much liquid capital of her own, and the revenue from The Empress’s Shadow wouldn’t start rolling in for months.

"My mother was an incredibly soft-hearted, slightly naive woman when it came to my father," Aria’s voice drifted over, laced with pride. "But she definitely wasn’t an idiot, Zoe."

Aria let out a soft, knowing chuckle.

"She knew Raymond was terrible with money. She left me a little rainy-day fund that neither my father nor Lydia ever knew existed."

Zoe let out a loud gasp of sheer delight. "A secret trust fund?! Aria, that’s amazing! How much is it? Where is it? A Swiss bank account? A safety deposit box in the Caymans?!"

"Not exactly," Aria hummed, her voice dropping into a mysterious, teasing lilt. "It’s... buried. In a very strange place."

"Buried?" Zoe repeated, her voice going flat.

"Yep," Aria confirmed cheerfully.

"Aria," Zoe whispered, a creeping sense of dread settling into her bones. "When you say buried..."

Zoe took a slow step backward, staring at her best friend with wide, terrified eyes.

"Please," Zoe begged, her voice pitching up into a frantic squeak. "Please look me in the eye right now and tell me that your mother did not bury a stash of millions of dollars with her in her casket. Please tell me we are not going to have to drive to a cemetery with a shovel at three in the morning."

Aria didn’t confirm or deny the accusation.

She threw her head back and let out a villainous cackle.

"Aria!" Zoe shrieked, legitimately hyperventilating now. "Are we going to be grave robbers?! Is it a felony to dig up your own mother?!"

"Come on," Aria laughed, grabbing Zoe by the arm and completely ignoring her best friend’s spiraling meltdown. "We should head back inside before Damien starts looking for me. He has tracking instincts like a bloodhound."

"Aria? Right? We’re not digging up a grave, right?!" Zoe panicked, stumbling in her heels as Aria dragged her back toward the metal exit doors. "Why are you only laughing?! Aria, answer me!"

The metal door groaned open and then slammed shut with an echoing clang.