Chapter Four: The Man Who Was Supposed To Be Dead

I stared at the man standing outside my mother’s apartment. Dorian Veyl. For a few seconds nobody moved, my mother looking like she’d seen a ghost while Dorian looked like the exact opposite, calm, perfectly dressed in a black suit, one hand resting casually in his pocket, his expression giving nothing away. His eyes found mine, and something inside me tightened before he even spoke.

“You knew,” I said.

Dorian didn’t answer. My mother stepped between us like her body alone could stop whatever this was. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

His eyes shifted to her. “I gave you years.”

Her face went pale. “Please.”

That single word stopped me cold, because my mother had never begged anyone in front of me, not even when things were at their worst. I looked between them, my pulse climbing.

“What the hell is going on?”

Dorian looked at me again, steady, unmoving. “Your mother owes you the truth.”

“Then tell me.”

His jaw tightened slightly. “It’s not my story to tell.”

I laughed, bitter and sharp. “Funny. Because apparently my entire life is a story everyone knows except me.”

He took one step forward and my mother immediately grabbed my wrist. “Zaire, don’t.”

I pulled my hand away from her. “No. I’m done being protected from the truth.”

Dorian studied me for a long moment before reaching inside his jacket, and my whole body tensed until I saw what he pulled out. Another small black envelope. He held it toward me.

“I think this belongs to you.”

I didn’t take it. “What is it?”

“Something your father left behind.”

My heart stopped. “My father?”

“He knew I would eventually find you.”

“How?”

“He knew what kind of man I was.”

The answer made no sense, so I pushed harder. “What kind of man are you?”

His eyes darkened. “The kind who keeps his promises.”

“Don’t listen to him,” my mother whispered, but Dorian didn’t even look at her.

“I’ve spent years trying to find you.”

“Why?”

Silence stretched between us until he finally said it. “Because your father asked me to.”

My chest tightened. “You knew him?”

“Very well.”

“And he wasn’t dead?”

Something shifted in his expression, only slightly, but I caught it. “No.”

That single word hit harder than anything else he’d said all night. I stepped closer. “Where is he?”

Dorian said nothing.

“Where is my father?”

“Zaire.”

“Where is he?”

His eyes held mine, unflinching. “I don’t know.”

I froze. “You spent years looking for me, but you don’t know where he is?”

“I found you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “It’s not.”

I tore the envelope open myself and a photograph fell into my hand, my breath catching the second I saw it. My father, older than the man in the first photograph, standing beside another man I recognized instantly. Dorian’s father. Behind them stood a large black gate, and written across the bottom in faded ink was a date. My birth date.

I looked up. “Why was my father with your family on the day I was born?”

Dorian didn’t answer. My mother did.

“Because that was the day everything changed.”

I turned toward her. “What does that mean?”

She covered her mouth with one hand, and for a moment I thought she was finally going to break down completely. Then a car door slammed outside and everything in the room shifted at once.

Dorian’s entire posture changed, his eyes cutting toward the window, and I hadn’t even noticed Elias appear behind him until his voice cut through the tension.

“Dorian.”

One word, but whatever Elias had seen outside made his expression harden into something none of us wanted to name out loud. Dorian turned to me.

“Stay here.”

I almost laughed. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t leave this apartment.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

His eyes locked onto mine and for one dangerous second the room around us seemed to disappear entirely. There was something in that stare, not anger, not exactly, but control, the same kind I’d noticed every single Friday at Velvet Room, the kind that always made me wonder what would happen if I finally stopped fighting it.

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to something quieter and more dangerous than before. “Zaire, this isn’t a game.”

“Neither is my life.”

“I know.”

“Then stop keeping secrets from me.”

His eyes dropped briefly to the photograph still shaking in my hand. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

My stomach twisted into a knot. “Alive from who?”

Before he could answer, the lights went out and my mother screamed into the sudden darkness. Then we heard it. Glass breaking somewhere in the apartment.

Dorian grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him without a word, and a second crash came from the direction of the kitchen. Elias moved toward the hallway fast, his voice low and urgent.

“Someone’s inside.”

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt. Dorian’s hand tightened around my wrist. “Stay behind me.”

I wanted to argue, but then I heard footsteps, slow and heavy, coming closer through the dark. My mother whispered my name like a prayer.

“Zaire.”

The footsteps stopped. A shadow filled the doorway, and a voice came out of the darkness that stopped my heart completely.

“Finally.”

I stopped breathing. The voice was familiar. Too familiar. Dorian’s grip on my wrist tightened until it almost hurt, and when the emergency lights flickered back on I finally saw the man standing in front of us.

My father.

Alive.

Looking straight at me.