Chapter 9

Darkness engulfed the penthouse.  

The power outage wasn’t gradual.  

It happened in an instant.  

One moment, the room glowed with the cold light from screens and city reflections.  

The next, everything died.  

Damon’s pulse thundered in his ears.  

The city skyline outside the glass walls remained lit, confirming it wasn’t a grid problem.  

Only his building had gone dark.  

Luca’s voice broke the silence.  

“Stay behind me.”  

Damon almost laughed.  

“Of course you’d say that.”  

But he obeyed.  

For once, pride didn’t matter.  

Somewhere deep in the building, a metallic crash echoed through the ventilation shafts.  

Seconds later, the alarm system wailed.  

Sharp.  

Violent.  

Security breach.  

Luca moved instantly.  

His hand slid under his jacket and pulled out a compact pistol Damon had never seen before.  

The movement was smooth.  

Familiar.  

Professional.  

Damon stared.  

“You were carrying that the whole time?”  

Luca didn’t look back.  

“Yes.”  

“Comforting.”  

Luca stepped toward the hallway.  

The emergency lights flickered on faintly, casting dim red shadows across the apartment.  

“Stay here,” Luca said.  

“Not happening.”  

“Damon”  

“You expect me to hide while someone breaks into my home?”  

Luca hesitated, then nodded once.  

“Stay close.”  

They moved together through the hallway.  

The penthouse suddenly felt enormous.  

Every shadow appeared threatening.  

Every sound felt amplified.  

Halfway to the security room, Luca stopped abruptly.  

His eyes narrowed.  

“What?”  

“Footsteps.”  

Damon listened.  

Nothing.  

Then he heard a faint shuffle beyond the living room.  

Luca raised the gun.  

“Whoever you are,” he said calmly, “you’re in the wrong building.”  

Silence replied.  

Then a woman’s voice echoed through the darkness.  

“Damon?”  

Damon froze.  

His entire body went cold.  

The voice trembled.  

Soft.  

Familiar.  

“Damon… sweetheart?”  

The word sliced through his chest.  

Impossible.  

His breath hitched.  

“No,” he whispered.  

The figure stepped into the dim red emergency light.  

And Damon’s world stopped.  

His mother stood there.  

Evelyn Moreau.  

Alive.  

Her dark hair framed her elegant face just as he remembered.  

The same gentle eyes.  

The same calm presence.  

Even the same coat she wore during winter evenings.  

Damon’s heart slammed painfully against his ribs.  

“M-Mom?”  

Luca grabbed his arm immediately.  

“Don’t.”  

But Damon barely heard him.  

Evelyn smiled softly.  

“Oh, Damon.”  

Her voice broke slightly.  

“I’ve been trying to reach you.”  

Damon stepped forward.  

“This… this isn’t possible.”  

She looked older somehow.  

Tired.  

But unmistakably real.  

“Everything they told you was wrong,” she said quietly.  

“I had to disappear.”  

Damon’s mind raced.  

The funeral.  

The hospital report.  

The blood.  

He had watched her die.  

Hadn’t he?  

Luca tightened his grip on Damon’s arm.  

“Something’s wrong,” Luca murmured.  

Damon shook his head.  

“No.”  

He took another step forward.  

“Mom… how are you”  

Luca moved suddenly.  

His gun lifted and pointed directly at her.  

“Stop.”  

Damon stared at him.  

“What are you doing?!”  

Luca’s voice was cold.  

“Look at her.”  

“I am looking at her!”  

“No,” Luca said sharply.  

“Look carefully.”  

Damon’s eyes returned to the woman’s face.  

At first everything seemed right.  

Then something shifted.  

Tiny details.  

Her posture.  

Her breathing.  

Her eyes.  

The warmth he remembered wasn’t there.  

The woman smiled again.  

But this time the smile felt wrong.  

Like someone wearing someone else’s skin.  

“You’ve grown suspicious, Damon,” she said.  

Damon’s stomach twisted.  

That voice.  

It wasn’t quite the same anymore.  

Just slightly off.  

Luca’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper.  

“That’s not your mother.”  

The woman’s smile vanished instantly.  

Her eyes hardened.  

“Well,” she said calmly, “that was faster than expected.”  

Damon felt the world tilt.  

“What?”  

Luca stepped forward slowly.  

“Who sent you?”  

The woman laughed softly.  

“No one you’ll meet tonight.”  

Damon’s anger exploded.  

“Answer him!”  

She looked at Damon with cold amusement.  

“You really thought your mother came back from the dead?”  

The cruelty in her tone made something inside Damon snap.  

“Get out,” he said hoarsely.  

“Oh, I will.”  

But before either man could react,  

She grabbed something from her coat pocket and hurled it at the floor.  

Smoke exploded into the hallway.  

Thick.  

Blinding.  

Luca cursed.  

“Stay down!”  

Damon dropped instinctively as the smoke swallowed the room.  

Footsteps ran toward the emergency stairwell.  

Luca lunged through the haze.  

By the time the smoke cleared,  

The hallway was empty.  

The woman was gone.  

Damon stood slowly, his chest heaving.  

His mind struggled to catch up.  

“What… just happened?”  

Luca holstered his weapon slowly.  

“A message.”  

Damon turned to him sharply.  

“Someone sent a woman pretending to be my dead mother and that’s just a message to you?”  

“Yes.”  

Damon’s voice cracked.  

“You don’t understand what that just did to me.”  

Luca met his gaze steadily.  

“I do.”  

Damon laughed bitterly.  

“No. You don’t.”  

But Luca didn’t argue.  

Instead, he walked toward the glass wall overlooking the city.  

His jaw was tight.  

“She wasn’t here to kill you.”  

Damon frowned.  

“Then why?”  

“To see how we’d react.”  

Damon’s stomach dropped.  

“Test us.”  

“Yes.”  

Silence stretched between them.  

Finally, Damon spoke again.  

“My mother…”  

His voice trembled.  

“For a second, I believed it.”  

Luca looked back at him.  

“That’s why they chose her.”  

Damon clenched his fists.  

“Who would do something like that?”  

Luca didn’t answer.  

But something dark moved behind his eyes.  

Damon noticed.  

“You know something.”  

Luca shook his head.  

“Not yet.”  

Damon studied him.  

“You’re lying.”  

Luca didn’t respond.  

Instead, he asked quietly,  

“Did your mother ever mention investigating something before she died?”  

Damon blinked.  

The question caught him off guard.  

“Why?”  

“Just answer.”  

Damon thought for a moment.  

Then he remembered.  

The conversation.  

The warning she gave him.  

His stomach twisted.  

“She said… if something happened to her, I should look deeper before trusting anyone.”  

Luca’s expression darkened.  

“Then she knew something.”  

“Knew what?”  

Luca looked toward the door where the impersonator had escaped.  

“Something dangerous enough for someone to stage this entire performance.”  

Damon’s anger returned.  

“Then we find out what.”  

Before Luca could respond,  

Damon’s phone vibrated again.  

He opened the screen.  

Another message.  

Another unknown number.  

This one contained a photograph.  

Damon’s breath stopped.  

The picture showed his mother.  

Real.  

Not the impersonator.  

Evelyn Moreau sat at a table in a dim café.  

The timestamp read three days before her death.  

Across from her sat a man.  

His face hidden by shadow.  

Damon zoomed in slowly.  

Then froze.  

Because the ring on the man’s hand was unmistakable.  

Matteo Laurent’s signet ring.  

Damon looked up slowly.  

“Luca.”  

“What?”  

Damon turned the phone toward him.  

“I think my mother was meeting someone before she died.”  

Luca stared at the image.  

His expression hardened instantly.  

“Who?”  

Damon swallowed.  

“My closest friend.”  

Luca’s voice became very quiet.  

“Matteo?”  

Damon nodded slowly.  

But before either man could say more,  

A final message arrived beneath the photograph.  

Just one sentence.  

Cold.  

Precise.  

Ask Matteo why your mother was afraid of him.  

Damon’s pulse pounded.  

He looked toward Luca.  

“Tell me the truth.”  

“What truth?”  

“Do you think Matteo could be involved?”  

Luca hesitated.  

Just long enough to be dangerous.  

Damon noticed.  

And suddenly, the world felt far more unstable than before.  

Damon whispered slowly,  

“If Matteo knows something about my mother…”  

Luca didn’t answer.  

Because the security screens suddenly flickered back to life.  

And on one of them,  

A new camera feed appeared.  

The impersonator stood outside the building.  

Looking directly up at Damon’s penthouse.  

Smiling.  

Then she

lifted a phone.  

And someone answered on the other side.  

A voice echoed faintly through the recording.  

A man’s voice.  

Familiar.  

Smooth.  

Calm.  

“Did Damon believe you?”  

Damon felt ice flood his veins.  

Because he recognized the voice instantly.  

It was Matteo.