Aria POV:
"Never speak of my dead child again," I commanded, my voice shaking with a fury that burned in my throat.
Silas simply smiled-a cold, calculated expression that belonged to the criminal underworld he claimed to have left behind.
"Then fix the mess you made online," he said, straightening his suit jacket. "Or maybe I should pay a visit to your adoptive mother."
My throat closed.
My mother was a fragile civilian woman who had scavenged the streets to feed me when I was a starving orphan.
She was currently lying in a different hospital across town, hooked up to an array of machines, desperately waiting for a heart transplant.
Silas had sworn on his life to protect her when he had first proposed to me.
"I know the underground broker handling her donor list," Silas continued casually, inspecting his fingernails. "It would be a shame if that heart accidentally went to a higher bidder."
"You wouldn't," I whispered, my chest tightening so hard my ribs ached with the pressure.
"Watch me," he replied, his eyes completely devoid of humanity.
I was cornered, suffocating under the weight of his extortion.
He held the only life that mattered to me in the palm of his hand.
"I'll do whatever you want," I choked out, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
Silas snapped his fingers toward the doorway.
His consigliere stepped into the room, holding a printed script and a recording camera.
"Read it," Silas ordered, pointing at the paper.
I took the script, the paper feeling weightless in my hands, the typed words blurring before my eyes.
The consigliere pressed record, the red light blinking like a warning siren.
I looked into the lens, swallowing my pride, and began to speak.
"My name is Aria," I said, my voice monotonous and dead. "I have been suffering from severe psychotic delusions for the past six years. Silas's death was a hallucination created by my own mental illness. Petra is a good woman, and all the rumors online are false."
I finished reading and dropped the paper onto my lap, feeling entirely empty.
Silas nodded in approval, reaching into his inner pocket.
He pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and tossed the slip of paper onto my chest.
"One million dollars," Silas said. "Hush money. Transfer to another hospital immediately-I don't want you breathing the same air as Petra."
He turned and walked out, his consigliere following closely behind.
I sat alone in the quiet ward, staring at the check until the ink blurred through my tears.
I packed my few belongings, signing the discharge papers against medical advice.
As I walked out into the hospital corridor, my phone rang.
It was my boss from the legitimate accounting firm where I worked.
"Aria, we are terminating your contract effective immediately," my boss said, his tone entirely professional and cold. "We received a call from upper management. You are a liability."
Silas had used his legitimate empire to cut off my only source of income.
I hung up, leaning against the cold hospital wall for support.
I opened social media and saw my coerced confession trending at the top of every page.
The public was calling me a psycho, praising Silas for his patience, and clearing Petra's name entirely.
My phone buzzed again, this time with a text message from an unknown number.
It was a picture of Petra smiling in a luxurious hospital bed, holding a glass of sparkling water.
The text below it read: "You always were trash."
Before I could even process the message, the screen switched to an incoming call from my mother's hospital.
I answered it, my hand gripping the plastic phone case so hard my knuckles turned white.
"Aria," a nurse said, her voice frantic and loud over the background noise. "You need to get here right now. Your mother is crashing."
