Chapter 2

Aria POV:

I did not sleep that night.

My studio apartment was located on the top floor of a historic brownstone overlooking the marina.

By midnight, I had packed my entire life into two standard military-spec duffel bags.

The Borealis Initiative did not permit personal luxury items.

The base was a sealed, high-pressure thermal dome situated three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Anything that could not withstand forty below zero was dead weight.

I had a row of wooden boxes lined up on my kitchen island.

Inside them were the pieces of my past.

The first box belonged to Dylan.

Inside lay his gold state championship medal from our senior year of high school.

The second box belonged to Alec.

It contained thirty-two bound leather notebooks-his early strategic algorithms and business models, annotated in my handwriting.

The third box held Karson's encrypted hard drive, containing twenty years of raw family footage and childhood home videos.

The fourth box was empty, waiting for Jorden.

At six in the morning, I loaded the boxes into the trunk of my beat-up Subaru and drove to the athletic training complex where Dylan lived during the off-season.

The sun had not yet crested the horizon.

The morning mist off the harbor was damp and salty.

I walked into the private rink facility.

The air smelled of chilled ozone, rubber, and floor wax.

Dylan was already on the ice, shirtless under his padded gear, running high-speed interval drills.

Calla was sitting on the bench by the player's box, wrapped in a down coat, holding a thermos of hot cocoa.

Beside her were four enormous Louis Vuitton rolling trunks.

When Dylan saw me, he dug his skate blades into the ice, spraying white shavings against the plexiglass, and hopped over the boards.

"Aria," Dylan panted, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his glove. "You're up early. Did Jorden talk to you?"

I didn't answer.

I reached into my canvas tote bag, pulled out the velvet-lined case, and held it out.

"This is yours," I said.

Dylan took off his heavy leather glove, frowning as he opened the box.

The gold medal caught the fluorescent arena lights.

His expression hardened into defensive irritation.

"Why are you giving this back?" Dylan asked, his voice rough. "You've kept that in your bedside drawer for four years. I told you, nobody else holds my first championship."

"I'm leaving today," I said. "I won't have a bedside drawer where I'm going."

"Oh, come on," Dylan scoffed, rolling his eyes with familiar, arrogant ease. "Stop playing games. Jorden told us you were throwing a tantrum last night. It's just five years, Aria. You'll be home for Thanksgiving. We'll fly out, pick you up in Jorden's jet, and bring you back for the holidays."

"I am leaving today," I repeated, enunciating every syllable. "I will not be coming home for Thanksgiving."

Dylan chuckled, entirely unconvinced.

He tossed the velvet case onto the metal bench behind him.

It landed in a plastic crate filled with spare skate blades, rolls of black tape, and rusted allen wrenches.

The heavy gold medal clattered violently against the scrap metal.

"Whatever," Dylan said, waving his hand dismissively. "Since you're here, grab Calla's two blue trunks and take them down to my truck. We're moving her into the Sutton Tower suite this morning."

I looked at the blue luggage.

Then, I looked back at Dylan's broad, sweat-streaked face.

"No," I said.

Dylan froze.

His eyebrows pulled together in disbelief.

For eight years, I had organized his equipment, balanced his nutritional intake, and packed his gear bags before every away game.

"What did you just say?" Dylan asked, his voice dropping dangerously.

"I said no," I replied calmly.

Calla immediately stood up from the bench, her thermos trembling in her hands.

"Dylan, it's fine!" Calla cried softly, her big eyes filling with sudden moisture. "I can carry them myself! I don't want Aria to be mad at me! My chest only hurts a little bit when I lift heavy things!"

"Sit down, Calla!" Dylan commanded, his protective instincts instantly flaring.

He turned back on me, his teeth clenched.

"Are you serious, Aria? She has a medical condition! You're an engineer, you lift engine blocks for fun, and you can't carry two bags down one flight of stairs?"

"She has two hands," I said. "And you have four working limbs. Move them yourself."

I turned on my heel and walked out of the arena.

Behind me, Dylan's furious roar echoed off the concrete walls.

"You're being an absolute psycho, Aria! When you get to Alaska, don't bother calling me to complain about the cold!"

I didn't break my stride.

At seven in the morning, I entered the private research archives of the Becker Financial Center.

Alec was sitting at his mahogany desk, surrounded by four flat-screen monitors displaying live commodity feeds from Tokyo and London.

I placed the heavy box of thirty-two leather notebooks directly onto his keyboard.

The keys clattered under the weight, sending random characters across his financial charts.

Alec looked up, annoyed, and adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Aria," he said smoothly, surveying the stack of books. "What is this?"

"Your competitive strategy manuscripts," I said. "From high school through our third year of university. The models I refined for your portfolio."

Alec leaned back in his ergonomic leather chair.

He didn't touch the books.

His eyes narrowed behind his lenses, scanning my face with clinical detachment.

"Dylan just texted the group chat," Alec noted quietly. "He said you returned his medal. Now you're returning my notebooks. You're exhibiting signs of emotional severance behavior."

"I am returning what does not belong to me," I said.

"It belongs to us," Alec countered, his voice dripping with condescension. "These notebooks are our shared IP. They stay in your custody. That was our agreement."

"The agreement was based on mutual partnership," I told him. "You voided that partnership when you falsified my academic status."

Alec sighed, taking off his glasses to polish them with a silk cloth.

"Aria, you're looking at this from an emotional deficit," Alec said patiently. "Think of Calla as an operational variable. If we didn't absorb her into our local ecosystem, her family's trust would have liquidated its stake in the Sutton logistics corridor. We needed her here to protect the group's collective assets. Your transfer to Alaska was an arbitrage maneuver. You gain senior federal status; we maintain operational stability."

Before he could finish his speech, the frosted glass door opened.

Calla stepped inside, holding a university course catalog with colorful post-it notes sticking out of the pages.

"Alec," Calla whined softly, leaning over his shoulder. "The registrar's office says I need a signature from a departmental sponsor to waive the advanced calculus prerequisite. Can you sign it for me?"

Alec immediately put his glasses back on, turning his chair entirely away from me.

"Of course, Calla," Alec said, taking her gold pen. "Let me review the syllabus."

I stood there for three seconds, looking at the back of Alec's tailored wool vest.

"Keep the notebooks, Alec," I said softly. "You'll need them to figure out the math I won't be doing for you anymore."

I walked out.

He didn't even turn his head.

When I stepped out onto the cobblestone courtyard of the estate district, Karson was leaning against the hood of his matte-black sports car, blocking my Subaru.

He was wearing an oversized hoodie, his fingers tapping rhythmically against an external solid-state hard drive.

As soon as I reached my car, he tossed the drive at my chest.

I caught it by instinct.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The childhood archives," Karson said flatly, blowing a bubble of gum. "I need you to re-render the 4K timeline."

"Why?"

"Calla's birthday party is next Saturday," Karson explained, not looking at me. "Jorden wants to project our childhood journey on the ballroom screens. Calla wasn't there for the summer in Maine or the ski trips in Aspen because she was in Switzerland receiving respiratory treatments. It looks bad if she's completely missing from our history."

I stared down at the small metal drive.

"What do you want me to do, Karson?"

"Edit yourself out of the group photos," Karson said, as casually as if he were asking me to pass the salt. "Use AI inpainting to stitch Calla into your spots. Make it look like she was always part of the core five. You're the only one with the graphics processing power on your home rig to finish it before noon."

The air left my lungs.

I looked at Karson.

He had lived next door to me since I was three years old.

When his older sister drowned in the lake, I sat with him in the dark for three days until he stopped shaking.

"You want me," I said slowly, "to erase myself from our childhood."

Karson clicked his tongue, irritated by my tone.

"Don't make it sound so tragic, Aria," Karson snapped. "It's just a damn photo montage. Calla feels left out. She was crying this morning because she looked at our middle school albums and didn't see herself. You're going to Alaska anyway. You won't even be at the party. What does it matter to you?"

I held the hard drive out toward him.

"Do it yourself."

Karson didn't reach for it.

He crossed his arms, stepping back toward his car.

"I don't have time," Karson sneered. "Just finish it and drop it off at Jorden's penthouse. Stop being so petty. If you do this for Calla, Jorden might actually forgive you for embarrassing him at the St. Regis last night."

He opened his car door, got inside, and gunned the engine.

The black sports car roared out of the driveway, leaving behind a cloud of exhaust.

I stood in the driveway, clutching the cold metal hard drive.

I looked down at the box in my hands.

The final stop was Jorden.

At eight in the evening, I sat across from Jorden in the private dining room of Le Cirque.

A single white rose sat in a crystal vase between us.

Jorden had ordered a bottle of 1982 Château Margaux.

He sat with his phone propped against his water glass, his thumbs flying across the screen.

Every three seconds, a bright chime sounded.

[Calla: The penthouse AC is too cold. Which switch controls the bedroom vent?]

[Calla: Jorden, the delivery guy looks scary. Can you come back?]

[Calla: My throat is itchy. Did you pack my lozenges?]

Jorden typed rapid replies, a gentle, indulgent expression on his face that I hadn't seen directed at me in over two years.

I didn't touch my water.

I didn't touch the bread.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the small velvet box containing the Harry Winston ring, and placed it next to the crystal vase.

Calla had given it back to him after I left the hotel, pretending she was too modest to keep it.

Jorden had sent a courier to my apartment this morning, returning it with a note that read: Put it back on before dinner.

The velvet box sat between our plates.

Jorden finally put his phone down.

He looked at the ring, then up at me, an amused, superior smirk playing on his lips.

"Are we still playing this game, Aria?" Jorden asked, sipping his wine. "I told you. You don't have to like Calla, but you will respect her presence. When you return from Alaska, this ring will be waiting in the family vault. If you behave yourself out there, I might even bring the boys up for your birthday next summer."

"There is no game, Jorden," I said quietly.

"Good," Jorden said, reaching across the table to pat my hand.

I pulled my hand back onto my lap.

Jorden's jaw tightened slightly, but he forced a tolerant smile.

"Eat your steak," Jorden commanded softly. "You need the protein. The plane ride tomorrow is long."

I stood up.

My chair scraped against the hardwood floor.

"I'm not hungry," I said.

Jorden didn't rise.

He leaned back, his eyes tracking me with cold amusement.

"Go home and pack, then," Jorden said. "Call me when you reach the Anchorage staging facility. Don't freeze your fingers off, Aria. You still need to sign our prenuptial agreement when you get back."

I didn't answer.

I walked out of the restaurant, leaving the untouched food, the expensive wine, and the two-million-dollar ring sitting alone in the candlelight.

When I got back to my apartment at midnight, I plugged Karson's hard drive into my secure terminal.

I looked at the files.

Twenty years of memories.

Camping in the pines, skinning our knees on gravel roads, building solar batteries in my father's barn.

I did not erase myself.

I did not paste Calla's smiling face over my body.

Instead, I transferred every original, uncompressed raw master file to my personal, encrypted federal cloud vault.

Then, I disconnected the drive.

I left the original, unedited hard drive sitting on the center of my kitchen counter.

My history belonged to me.

No one had the right to rewrite it.