The file sat on the kitchen table like a corpse.
Ariella stared at it—too afraid to touch it, too curious to look away. Naomi stood by the sink, arms crossed, as if she could physically hold herself together through sheer will.
"You weren't supposed to find that," Naomi said, voice low.
Ariella didn't blink. "But I did."
Outside, the streets of Los Angelus pulsed with life. Inside, a family secret decades old was bleeding into the present.
"Tell me everything," Ariella demanded.
Naomi hesitated. Then slowly, she sat.
"I was nineteen. Stupid. Hungry for a place in the world. He was... older. Powerful. He said I was different."
Ariella didn't interrupt. She knew this script—every girl did. But the ending? That was what terrified her.
"He promised things. Then he vanished. And when I told him I was pregnant, he offered money to disappear."
Naomi's eyes locked with hers.
"I took it. I didn't want you growing up in his world. That name? It's not a blessing. It's a brand. It burns."
Ariella's voice was flat. "So I'm a Devereux."
"No. You're a Gray. You're mine. Everything else is just blood."
Grayson LaRoche sat in his car outside a gated estate he wasn't supposed to be near. The Devereux mansion loomed like a memory too big to forget.
He had no reason to be here—except he did.
Something about Ariella's performance had triggered something in his father. A tension he hadn't seen since the scandal three years ago with the Blackwoods.
And then there was the name: Gray.
He pulled out his phone and opened a private search engine. The connection between Naomi Gray and Richard Devereux wasn't on the surface. But with the right keywords, buried headlines began to appear.
Whispers.
Rumors.
A payout.
And a baby.
---
Later that day, Ariella wandered through the city alone. Viremont was too loud. Too alive. She needed silence.
She ended up at the river. Same bench. Same spot where she'd first told Grayson about her music. Only now, she wasn't sure what any of it meant.
She didn't hear the footsteps behind her until it was too late.
"Ariella Gray?"
The man was tall, dressed like someone who thought they were blending in. He flashed a badge—corporate security. Not police.
"You've been requested for a private audition," he said.
"By who?"
He didn't answer.
But she already knew.
---
Sophia Devereux tilted her head as she studied the Devereux dossier in her hand.
Across from her, a young intern looked visibly nervous. "We pulled everything. Naomi Gray. The girl. Even the LaRoche connection."
Sophia's red nails tapped the folder thoughtfully. "LaRoche is always sloppy. But Devereux?"
She stood and crossed to the window of her high-rise suite.
"If Richard's bastard is back in the picture, that changes everything."
"Should we intervene?"
Sophia's smile was sharp.
"No. Let the past bleed. Sometimes truth needs a little oxygen to burn."
---
In a dim, private studio beneath Devereux Tower, Ariella stood before a single microphone. The room was gold-trimmed, but cold. Watching her from behind a pane of glass was Richard Devereux himself.
She didn't recognize him.
Not yet.
But he recognized her.
He watched her eyes. Her posture. The shape of her mouth. The rage she buried beneath every word.
He smiled as she began to sing.
And the smile didn't reach his eyes.
---
Meanwhile, Grayson paced his room like a caged animal. His phone buzzed.
Charles: "Whatever you're thinking, stop."
Grayson replied instantly: "I think I know who she is."
Charles: "Then leave it alone. Devereux doesn't play fair."
But Grayson had never been good at playing safe.
---
When Ariella finished the song, the room remained quiet. Then a voice came through the intercom.
"Beautiful. Unique. You're not just an artist, Miss Gray. You're a symbol."
She flinched. "Of what?"
Richard Devereux entered the studio slowly, like a man unveiling a chessboard.
"Of survival."
He extended a hand.
Ariella didn't take it.
Instead, she met his eyes—and felt something hollow inside her shift.
"Have we met before?" she asked.
Richard smiled like a man who had rehearsed lies for decades.
"No. But we will again."
---
Naomi Gray stood in her living room, phone clutched in her hand. She had called Ariella ten times.
No answer.
She was too late.
Again.