When Thomas, seated behind his office desk, heard the news about Doyle from Daniel, his expression kept shifting without settling on anything. He looked at his assistant standing before him and held his silence for a long, uncomfortable moment before finally drawing a slow breath. "Is this news actually reliable?" Daniel, whose face had gone noticeably pale, gave a heavy nod. "It came directly from Marius himself. He described it as strictly confidential — the kind of thing only a handful of people will ever be allowed to know about." "Then..." Thomas exhaled carefully, cold sweat already gathering at his temples, and asked in a voice that came out slightly unsteady, "Does this mean they've already started moving?" Daniel immediately understood what he was implying. He paused, thinking it through carefully, before shaking his head. "I'm not certain. The footage showed nothing — not a single useful image. But..." He stopped, his expression turning grave. "If someone genuinely did t

"What do you mean? Do you think I'm your personal assistant?" Evelyn snatched the list of herbs from Arya's hand and read through it, her irritation climbing with every line. None of the items were particularly rare — but they weren't cheap either. And he had the nerve to just hand this to her, as if she were here to run his errands? Did he have any idea who she was? She was supposed to be the one giving orders here, not the other way around. Arya, completely indifferent to whatever was happening in Evelyn's head, simply gave a light wave and turned to leave. "Nothing on that list is hard to find. As the president of a cosmetics company, you should be able to source all of it without much trouble. Just contact me once you have everything together." He paused at the door. "Oh — one more thing. Try to move the product as quickly as possible. I could use the money." "Hey! You! How dare you—?!" Evelyn's voice cracked with fury as she stared at his retreating back. Arya offered a thin

At Villa 01. Arya stood in the bathroom, watching his daughter soak in a tub of dark greenish-black water, a slight frown on his face. "What was that just now?" He couldn't identify it clearly — only a vague, distant sense that something had happened somewhere. But what? "Daddy! Daddy!" Kiara's voice pulled him back. The little girl was looking up at him with a pout, and Arya let the feeling go for now and smiled. "What is it?" "Daddy lied!" She pinched her nose shut and complained in a voice muffled enough to be genuinely funny. "Daddy said he'd teach Ara magic, but instead he made Ara sit in this big stinky bathtub!" Arya laughed softly and bent down to stroke her hair. "Daddy is going to teach you magic — but first, Ara has to bathe in this water, so your body will be clean and ready to learn. Does that make sense?" A pause. Some visible thinking. "Okay. Understood!" Arya found it endearing, but he didn't say so. He straightened and said, "Now close your eyes. Don't ope

"Hey, hey... don't look at me like that. All of this is a consequence of your own stupidity." Marta's smile widened as he watched the cold settle into Arya's expression. "Do you remember what you did five years ago? You touched a woman you had no business touching. Do you have any idea what kind of chaos you caused?" Arya's brow furrowed slightly as he listened. The pieces were falling into place — everything that had happened, all the way back to the beginning, connected to what had occurred five years ago. The deaths of his parents. Lana's disappearance. There was a deeper story behind all of it, and the man standing in front of him — who had just openly confessed to his crimes with the easy confidence of someone who expected no consequences — clearly knew it. "Tell me what you know." "Hehehe..." Marta laughed, perfectly aware of what Arya was doing. But he didn't particularly care, and continued anyway. "Oh, I know plenty. But as someone who's about to die — do you really nee

"Well? Are you going to accept my offer?" Danan asked again, watching Aruna's silence with impatience. "I..." Aruna surfaced from her thoughts and looked at the man in front of her. For the first few seconds, she felt the weight of it — five years of struggling, of barely holding on. There had been moments when she had almost let go entirely. But then Kiara's face came to her. The quiet sullenness that had become that little girl's default expression, the way she had slowly learned to expect nothing good. And then, more recently — Kiara laughing. Kiara running. Kiara smiling like a child was supposed to smile, because Arya had come home. Aruna bit her lip and looked at Danan with eyes that had gone very steady. Kiara wasn't her biological daughter. But she was still her niece. She had raised that child through years when there was no one else in the world to do it — was that something to be ashamed of? Wasn't it simply what you did for family? And now, to give up. To take everyt