Chapter 18
I didn’t blink. I just looked at him like he was a name I’d already burned out of my mouth.
He looked older. More tired. But still dangerously beautiful in that cold, infuriating way. And for a moment, I saw the cracks in him. The panic in his pupils, the disbelief shaking under all that rage. But I stayed silent. I let the silence choke him.
Then her voice cut through the air like a banshee crawling out of a crypt.
“Harvick!”
Elodie came storming across the floor in heels that begged for attention, dress too tight perfume too loud, voice louder.
“Are you seriously chasing that ghost again?” she snapped, her voice shrill and breaking. “Tha woman is not Danica, Harvick! She’s not your dead ex–fiancee. She’s just a cheap knockof wearing paint and velvet!”
Murmurs burst around us like bullets.
“Wait… wasn’t he Jeremiah?”
“Harvick faked his death?”
“He lied and cheated for that mistress?”
“Wasn’t she the fiancée who died in that crash?”
“He left her for Elodie… damn. What a scumbag.”
Lara’s voice sliced the tension with ice. “For God’s sake, stop acting like dogs in the market We’re in an elite gala, not a village cockfight.”
But Harvick didn’t let go.
He ignored them all and tightened his grip like he was holding onto something that could slip through his fingers again.
“Say something,” he whispered, voice frayed. “I buried you. I saw the grave. Danica, please, if this is you, don’t run again. Don’t leave me like that. Not again.”
And then I felt it. Jeremiah.
He moved like a shadow drawn by fire. One moment he was in the distance, and the next, he was beside me…calm, unreadable, lethal.
He reached out and peeled Harvick’s hand off my arm without force but with absolute finality. Then he stepped between us like a wall of steel and smoke.
“Know your circle, Mr. Ferrante,” Jeremiah said, voice sharp and controlled. “You’re not in your kingdom tonight.”
Harvick’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak.
“What you just did?” Jeremiah continued, stepping closer, his eyes cold and unblinking. “That could get you killed. Touching what doesn’t belong to you in this room is suicide.”
And then, with a tilt of his head, the final cut:
“Miss Aria is not a woman you can drag around like a leftover engagement.”
4:51 pm D D
The silence that followed was deafening.
Harvick didn’t move. Elodie stood a few steps away, eyes darting, lips twitching like she didn’t know whether to scream or sob.
ㄓㄨ
Then darkness swallowed the entire ballroom.
A gasp rippled through the guests. I didn’t move. I just closed my eyes and let the moment wash over me like ash falling on silk.
The stage lit up in a flash of red and gold.
A voice echoed through the speakers, sleek and wicked:
“Ladies and gentlemen… the auction begins.”
2
The auction began like a slow seduction. Quiet, calculated, and cruel.
The room was veiled in candlelight and sin, and every face held secrets worth millions. Men in tailored suits leaned forward as blades, blood–stained letters, hacked access codes, and even private assassination contracts were paraded across the stage like rare art.
I stood at the edge of it all, my face hidden behind velvet and lace, my lips painted in blood–red defiance. I watched men sell destruction like jewelry, and I didn’t blink. Not when an ivory dagger once owned by the Camorra was sold, not when a rare virus program coded by a vanished hacker was bidded off to the highest arm dealer.
But then the speaker’s voice shifted–sleek, amused, and wicked.
“Item #93: A one–week companion contract with Aria Velenza.”
Gasps tore through the room like gunshots. The room froze. Then came the murmurs:
“Did he say Aria?”
“A woman?”
“A mafia contract for her?”
Someone choked on their drink. Another dropped a cigar.
And I stood. Slowly. Smoothly. Deliberately.
I didn’t move. I just tilted my head and smiled. Slow. Controlled. Dangerous.
could feel their stares crawling up my skin like lust–soaked desperation. I could feel Harvick’s age before I saw him.
‘Five hundred thousand dollars,” barked a Don from Valencia.
‘Seven fifty,” muttered a heavy–accented Bratva prince without even blinking.
Then I heard it–his voice. Cold. Cursed. Familiar.
‘Fifty million,” Harvick said flatly. No emotion. Just dominance. Like he still thought he could buy me.
Jeremiah didn’t even glance at me. His eyes were on Harvick like a predator watching another predator bleed. “Fifty point five,” he said with a smirk that sliced through the air.
Whispers surged again.
“Two mafia men bidding on the same woman?”
“She must be more than she looks.”
“Wait, that’s the woman from the crash. The fiancée.”
“The one he buried?”
I smiled wider. My pulse didn’t race. My hands didn’t tremble. This was the plan. This moment… the breaking point…it was mine.
Inside, I spoke to myself like a vow:
“This isn’t revenge. This is rebirth. This is me showing every man in this room that I no longer break. That I no longer beg. That I no longer belong to anyone but myself.”
‘Five hundred million. Final,” Harvick snarled, his hand shaking as he held his bidding paddle like
a knife.
Jeremiah didn’t even flinch.
‘One billion,” he said. Then added, without blinking, “Final.”
The silence that fell was thick and deadly.
Harvick stiffened like he’d been shot. Lara gasped like the world tilted beneath her heels. And Elodie? Elodie’s perfect porcelain face cracked. Her fake smile crumbled as jealousy sunk its claws deep in her gut. She stormed out, heels pounding, a mess of sobs and pride and fury. Lara chased her, whispering curses under her breath like a mother trying to hold onto the last thread of dignity.
The gavel came down. Jeremiah won.
And I, Aria Velenza, walked off that stage without looking at Harvick. Not once. But when I
eached the edge of the spotlight, I stopped.
turned slowly.
And I removed my mask. A hush fell like death. People gasped. Some covered their mouths. Others leaned closer like they couldn’t believe the ghost was standing in front of them, alive and
Durning.
Harvick’s face? He was pale. No. He was livid. His lips parted like he was choking on every lie he ever told, and he stepped forward.
You…” he growled, voice cracking. “You fucking lied. You faked your death. Danica! What the uck are you doing?!”
stepped beside Jeremiah and smiled sweetly.
