Chapter 157: Brittney’s Story - 3

Brittney had been willing to throw away everything she had for this man. The realization made Aria stop eating, the bag of nachos resting on her lap.

"The problem was that robbing my father wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be," Brittney continued. "I was angry and eighteen, so in my head, taking his money meant taking away his power. Except rich people don’t keep their entire fortunes sitting in one bank account waiting for their rebellious daughters to steal it. A lot of my father’s wealth was tied up in companies, investments, stocks, properties, trusts, and Goddess knows what else. Even if I’d emptied every account I knew about, I couldn’t have made him poor."

"But you could hurt him," Aria said.

"Oh, definitely." Brittney’s lips curved bitterly. "The Thorne family had several private accounts containing liquid funds for investments, acquisitions, emergencies, and whatever rich-people nonsense required millions to be moved quickly. Because I was the heir, I knew more about those accounts than my father probably realized. I had access to authentication codes, account information, and enough family credentials to get us through security if we knew what we were doing."

Aria frowned. "We?"

"Hype knew a hacker. I didn’t ask too many questions about him because, at the time, I thought the less I knew, the better." Brittney gave a humorless laugh. "Which should tell you how incredibly intelligent I was. We couldn’t touch anywhere close to my father’s entire wealth, but we could take enough money that even someone as wealthy as my father would notice it missing."

"Damn," Aria breathed, her head reeling.

"Yeah," Brittney admitted. "The clever part was protecting Hype. We knew that if my father discovered one of his former employees had stolen from him, he’d make sure Hype spent the rest of his life in prison. So everything was arranged to point back to me. My credentials authorized the transfers, and the receiving account was opened under my identity. We deliberately left behind a trail to make it look like I had stolen from my own family."

Aria stared at her. "You deliberately made yourself look guilty?"

"That was the point. I knew my father." Brittney looked at her. "He might not have loved me the way I wanted him to, but I was still his only child. More importantly, imagine the scandal if people discovered his own daughter had robbed him. He would never hand me over to the authorities and allow our family name to be dragged through the mud. I thought he’d cover it up, which meant Hype would be safe."

The more Brittney spoke, the more Aria realized how far she had actually gone. Brittney had risked her freedom, her inheritance, and whatever relationship she still had with her family, then deliberately placed evidence against herself to protect Hype from the consequences. It was simply crazy.

"And it worked," Brittney said. "We pulled it off. By the time anyone realized what had happened, the money was already gone from the family accounts and sitting somewhere my father couldn’t immediately reach. Hype and I had new identities, fake passports, everything. We were supposed to leave United Dorminia together."

Aria didn’t like the way she’d said ’supposed to’.

"What happened?"

"Hype betrayed me."

The answer came without hesitation, but Brittney’s face had gone strangely blank.

"Hours before we were supposed to leave, we celebrated. Nothing extravagant because we couldn’t risk drawing attention to ourselves. We simply ate together, talked about where we’d go first, what kind of house we’d get eventually, all that stupid shit people talk about when they think they’re about to start a new life together."

Brittney’s fingers tightened around the chip she was holding until it broke. "At some point, I started feeling tired. I thought it was everything finally catching up with me, so when Hype told me to sleep, I did."

"No, he didn’t..." Aria shook her head, already knowing where this was going.

"He drugged me."

"Britt..."

"When I woke up, he was gone. His clothes were gone, along with both of our fake passports." Brittney let out a laugh devoid of amusement. "And when I checked the account, every fucking cent was gone too. He’d transferred everything somewhere else before leaving the country."

Aria felt sick on her behalf. "So he left nothing."

Brittney snorted. "Oh, he did leave a letter."

Of course he fucking did. Aria could already feel anger coursing through her veins. She would kill the bastard right now if she could.

"It’s been two months, so I don’t remember all the words anymore, but I remember the parts that mattered. He told me not to hate him for choosing himself. He claimed my father would forgive me because I’m his daughter, while he would be treated like a criminal."

Her mouth twisted. "Then he said the money was compensation for everything my family had cost him. His career, his reputation, his future. Since I was the reason my father destroyed his life in the first place, I owed him another one."

"That son of a biscuit," Aria hissed, her hands curling into fists. Ugh! How she wished she could get her hands on him.

"The funny thing is, I wasn’t even angry about the money," Brittney said, the pain in her eyes making Aria’s chest tighten. "I would have given it to him, Aria. Every cent. If he’d told me he wanted the entire amount for himself, I probably would have fucking agreed because that was how stupidly in love with him I was. It was waking up and realizing that while I had been planning our life together, he’d been planning how to leave me behind. That was what destroyed me."

Aria couldn’t think of anything to say.

"And the worst part?" Brittney continued. "Hype was right about one thing. My father didn’t send me to prison."

Somehow, the way she said it made Aria certain that wasn’t the mercy it sounded like.

"Everything led back to me. According to the evidence, I had robbed my own family and then somehow lost the money. My father knew Hype had been involved, of course, but by then, he was outside United Dorminia and the money had disappeared with him. Father could have reported everything and let the authorities tear the whole thing apart, but that would mean admitting publicly that the Thorne heir had helped rob her own family." Brittney shook her head. "He couldn’t tolerate that kind of humiliation, so he buried as much of it as he could."

"But people found out," Aria guessed.

"You know how socialites are. You can hide something from the newspapers much easier than you can hide it from people whose favorite hobby is knowing everyone else’s business. By the time my father contained the situation, whispers were already spreading through our circle."

Brittney set the chip aside, having lost her appetite. "I became a social pariah. Parents who used to invite me into their homes suddenly didn’t want me anywhere near their daughters because I might corrupt them too. People whispered whenever I walked into a room, and some of my old friends weren’t even allowed to speak to me anymore. In my family’s eyes, I had gone from being an embarrassment they could manage to someone they couldn’t trust with anything."

Aria finally understood. "That’s why you’re here."

Brittney gave her a sad smile. "When the Concordia Program came along, my father must have rejoiced. The universe had personally delivered him a solution. Send his troublesome daughter away in the name of strengthening human-beast relations, let everyone praise the Thorne family for contributing their precious heir to the cause, and get me out of his life at the same time. He did everything he could to make sure my name ended up on that list. That—"

Brittney never got to finish because Aria suddenly pulled her into a hug.

"Don’t," Aria murmured when Brittney stiffened against her. "You don’t have to make a joke out of this one."

For a moment, Brittney didn’t move. Then something in her finally gave way, and she embraced Aria. The first tear slipped down her cheek, followed by another, and finally, she began to sob.