It took nearly an hour before her hands stopped shaking.

Aria paced the vast room like a caged animal, trailing her fingers along the carved edge of the vanity, then the velvet-lined chaise, then the heavy doors of the armoire. Every object was absurdly elegant—theatrical, almost. A perfume bottle shaped like a crystal tear. A pair of opera gloves folded beside it. Even the telephone was bone white and gold-trimmed, like a prop from a film.

None of it made sense. And yet... it all did.

It was 1968. She'd found a calendar folded behind a stack of unopened letters on the writing desk. October, with the twentieth circled in blue ink. She'd opened the armoire. The gowns inside were haute couture. Paris was real. The silence was real.

So was the name addressed on the envelopes: Mme Maria Callas.

Aria pressed her palms to her eyes, willing her mind to quiet. Then she spotted the fountain pen.

It was black enamel, heavier than she expected. The nib glinted like a blade.

She found paper—thick, creamy stationery with a gold monogram—and sat down at the desk.

And then she began to write.

Names. Dates. Scars.

She wrote down the things she remembered from the film Maria, the one she'd watched late one night last winter out of morbid curiosity—Angelina Jolie in eyeliner and sadness, a woman unraveling in silks and shadows. But the film had left her hungry. Not for romance, but for truth. The real Maria—the woman behind the legend—had clawed at her. Aria had gone digging. What she found had nothing to do with the film. This was history, ugly and unadorned.

And it made her sick.

The abortion—at least one, perhaps more.

The isolation.

The way he'd flattered her, wooed her, then bent her world around him like glass in flame.

He told her to rest, then mocked her idleness. Urged her to sing, then sneered that her voice was fading. Praised her beauty, then compared her to younger women.

He chipped away at her voice, her confidence, her face in the mirror.

She was too dramatic.

Too emotional.

Too old.

Too loud.

Too much.

Not only his words, but the chorus around him. Friends, rivals, gossip columns—all repeating the same refrain. And he did little to silence it.

He reduced her entire artistry to a mechanical function—as if decades of training, passion, and genius were just a technical trick anyone could learn. He made sure others heard his dismissals. The cruelty wasn't private; it was performed, designed to isolate her from potential allies who might have defended her worth. Every part of her he had once claimed to worship became a target: her voice, her appearance, her dedication to her art—all transformed into weapons against her self-worth.

He struck when she was most vulnerable: after difficult performances, during career transitions, in the moments when she needed support most. The cruelty wasn't random; it was strategic.

He didn't want her onstage—he wanted her still.

He hollowed her brilliance to keep her within reach. Because needing her was never enough unless she was diminished.

Because Maria Callas was the only person who had ever seen him clearly. And that terrified him.

He cheated constantly, methodically, like it was a performance he could direct.

He made sure she found out. Made sure she felt it.

He liked her jealous. Liked her unsure.

He'd come back with gifts, with charm turned on like a spotlight—the benevolent conqueror.

And she would crumble just enough to stay.

That was the game: keep her off balance, wear her down, feed her just enough affection that she mistook it for love.

He didn't care what she dreamed of.

He only cared that she stayed.

Aria had read the interviews, the backstories, the headlines that painted it all as tragic, star-crossed passion.

Tragic, her ass.

It was textbook. Manipulation, gaslighting, possession dressed up in tuxedos and yachts. And no one had protected her—not the industry, not the press, not even her own legend.

She had cried over it. Once.

Now she was just angry.

The nib carved into the page, ink biting deep into the paper. The words didn't just sit there; they cut. With every word, the heat returned—that same storm that had built in Aria during the final weeks of her old life. Back when her own husband had started locking the door from the outside. When her bruises had to be hidden under sleeves.

When her voice was no longer heard—not in her home, not in the world.

When every day was survival by silence.

And every night, a little more of her vanished.

She hadn't meant to die.

But her body had broken under the weight of staying.

It wasn't surrender. It was erasure—slow, deliberate, engineered.

Now she was here. In this body. In this life.

And this time, she would not be erased.

No debts. No bruises. No locked doors. No screaming in the walls. No permission to ask for.

Just Maria Callas, in Paris, on the day after he married Jackie Kennedy.

And she was still alive.

Aria stood and turned to the mirror.

The woman who looked back at her was not broken.

Elegant, yes. Shadowed, yes. But there was something now in her eyes, something that hadn't been there before. Not tragedy. Not grief.

Control.

She lifted her chin.

"Okay, Maria," she said quietly. Her voice didn't shake. "Let's do this."

Then she smiled—slowly, dangerously.

"Let's take our life back."

A pause.

"And let's give Onassis hell."