The world tilted the moment Vincent's body hit the ground.
Aria froze for half a second — just long enough for the shock to punch the air from her lungs — before she dropped to her knees beside him.
"Father—" The word cracked out, sharp and unfamiliar on her tongue.
Vincent's face was pale, a thin sheen of sweat slicking his brow. His chest rose in shallow, ragged jerks. His mouth moved, forming broken sounds she couldn't quite catch.
Her hands hovered uselessly for a second before finding his shoulder. He was too still. Too small. The man who ruled boardrooms like a tyrant now looked terrifyingly human sprawled across the dusty floor of a forgotten room.
"Help!" Aria's voice tore out of her throat, louder than she intended, slamming against the marble corridors.
No response.
No footsteps.
Just the crackle of the dying fireplace and the frantic hammer of her own heartbeat.
Vincent's lips moved again.
Closer this time.
Her ear nearly brushed his mouth as she leaned in, desperate.
"Your mother... Aria... don't...it's fine..."
The rest splintered into a cough so violent it arched his body off the floor.
"Stay still—" Aria hissed, hands pressing him gently back, panic slicing through her control.
The slam of hurried footsteps echoed down the hall. Doors burst open.
Servants spilled into the room — wide-eyed, frantic, the carefully maintained calm of the Moreau estate cracking apart in real time.
A butler barked orders. Someone scrambled for the estate doctor. Another staff member dashed toward the back entrance to call an ambulance — though they all knew it would take too long.
Aria pulled back, giving the approaching medics space, her hands curling into fists against her sides to keep them from shaking.
Isabelle arrived moments later, stopping just inside the doorway.
Her silk robe was immaculate. Her makeup flawless even at this early hour. Only the faint tightening around her mouth betrayed the fact that she hadn't expected this.
"Oh, Vincent..." Isabelle murmured, voice like glass about to shatter — yet her hands never moved from the folds of her robe. She made no attempt to cross the room. No attempt to kneel.
Selene and Juliet hovered behind her, one clutching a silk shawl around trembling arms, the other blinking rapidly as if trying to summon tears.
Aria stared at them all.
Not a single one of them touched him.
Not one.
The staff lifted Vincent carefully onto a stretcher. His hand dangled limply at the edge, fingers brushing the floor once before someone tucked it neatly against his side.
The movement made Aria's stomach twist.
Too careful.
Too final.
She stepped back automatically, letting the professionals pass, but her gaze locked on the figure now being carried out of Marie's room — the past bleeding into the present like a wound that refused to close.
A flutter of white caught her eye.
Under the old writing desk — half-hidden by the shadows — one of her mother's letters lay abandoned, the ribbon untied, pages curling at the edges.
Aria's foot shifted toward it without thinking.
A sharp intake of breath at her left made her pause.
Selene. Watching her.
Not now.
Not with wolves circling.
Aria forced herself to turn away, locking her arms behind her back as if she'd never seen the letter at all.
They carried Vincent down the hall, the heavy, shuffling sounds of retreat echoing against stone and silence.
Aria didn't move.
Isabelle finally tore her gaze from the stretcher, her expression snapping back into something brittle and composed.
"Aria," she said, voice oiled with false concern. "You should rest. There's nothing more you can do."
The words twisted inside Aria like a blade.
She smiled — small, tight, humorless.
"On the contrary," she said quietly.
"This is only the beginning."
Without waiting for a reply, Aria stepped around them all, back straight, movements unhurried.
She heard Juliet's soft intake of breath.
Selene's hissed whisper.
Isabelle's sharp turn of heels.
Let them talk. Let them panic.
"Vincent was falling.
And once he was gone, there would be no shield left between her and the wolves."
Aria didn't return to her room immediately.
Instead, she found herself back at the threshold of Marie's door, staring into the half-lit emptiness.
The fireplace was nearly dead now. Only a few stubborn embers clung to life, throwing long, broken shadows across the worn floor.
She stepped inside.
Each footfall was measured. Soft.
The air smelled like old paper, smoke, and something bitter — regret, maybe.
The letters remained where they had fallen.
Slowly, Aria crouched and gathered them.
Not with trembling fingers.
Not with hesitation.
With precision.
One by one, she placed them back into the drawer they came from — locking them away for now.
Not because she didn't want answers.
But because the battle had changed.
The war wasn't over paper anymore.
It was about power.
It was about survival.
And if Vincent died — if he left her alone among the wolves — she needed to be ready.
No mistakes.
No mercy.
Back in her room, Aria stripped off her jacket with mechanical motions.
The mirror caught her reflection — shoulders drawn tight, mouth a hard, unyielding line, eyes darker than she remembered.
Not the scared girl who once begged for scraps of love.
Not the obedient daughter who thought she could earn her place.
This time, she knew better.
They would smile in public.
They would whisper in corners.
They would move behind closed doors.
But so would she.
And she would strike first.
Somewhere beyond the estate gates, the sirens finally howled.
The ambulance.
Too late.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Aria didn't flinch at the sound.
She stood at the window, watching the gray light break across Lyon's skyline — cold and sharp as the blade she would now have to wield.
This time, she wasn't playing defense.
This time, she was writing the end of their story.