THE DEAD DON'T LIE

The message came wrapped in red silk.

No name. No return address. Just a single line typed on ivory paper:

    “You think he’s dead. He’s not. And he remembers everything.”

Leo stood motionless, jaw tight, fingers crumpling the edge of the message like it personally insulted him.

Across the room, Jacob leaned against the doorway, watching him.

He hadn’t meant to walk in on anything. But when the guards left the office door wide open and Leo didn’t yell, Jacob knew something was wrong.

Very wrong.

“What is that?” Jacob asked.

Leo looked up sharply. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“That’s not what your face says.”

Leo stepped forward, folding the message into his pocket. “Drop it.”

“Why?” Jacob challenged. “Because you’re scared?”

Leo’s hand shot out, gripping Jacob’s wrist so fast it stole his breath. “Do I look scared to you?”

“No,” Jacob said, voice calm. “You look like someone whose past just knocked on the front door wearing your dead lover’s face.”

For a beat, they stared at each other, fury, fear, something hotter under the surface.

Leo let go.

“Get out,” he muttered.

Ten minutes later, the estate was in lockdown.

Security doubled. Doors reinforced. Phones buzzing with encrypted calls. Matteo moved like a shadow through the hall, barking orders and rerouting surveillance.

Jacob sat on the grand staircase, arms crossed, mind racing.

He wasn’t stupid. Something, or someone, had just punched a hole through Leo’s perfectly controlled world. And Jacob, married to the man with the most secrets in the city, was now sitting right in the blast radius.

Matteo passed him, paused, then tossed a file into Jacob’s lap.

“What’s this?” Jacob asked.

Matteo didn’t stop walking. “The man Leo buried. You might want to know who’s haunting your husband.”

Inside the file:

Name: Gabriel Thorne

Age at death: 26

Role: Moretti’s former right-hand. Former lover. Former heir to another syndicate.

Official cause of death: Gunshot wound to the chest.

Unofficial story: Betrayed Leo. Stole intel. Died running.

Except now… maybe he hadn’t.

Jacob flipped through photographs, old news clippings, redacted reports, and at the very bottom: a surveillance photo dated two days ago. Grainy, but unmistakable.

Gabriel. Alive. Scarred. Staring at the camera like he knew who was watching.

Meanwhile, Leo stood in the cellar. Alone.

It was cold. Dark. The room smelled of gun oil and old ghosts.

He stared at the wall where Gabriel’s name had once been etched. A small brass plaque. Removed now. Scratched out. Erased.

But not forgotten.

He remembered the way Gabriel bled. The way he lied. The way he whispered “I love you” with a wire taped to his ribs.

If he were alive…

Leo would finish the job.

Or drown trying.

Upstairs…

Jacob paced.

Everything he’d assumed about Leo, about their forced marriage, about the broken silence between them, was cracking.

He wasn’t just a bad boy in a sharp suit. He was a grieving animal with unfinished business.

A husband to a ghost.

A killer holding hands with the past.

That night, Jacob found Leo in the garden.

No guards. No phone. Just moonlight on marble and a bottle of bourbon dangling from his hand.

Jacob approached slowly. “Did you love him?”

Leo didn’t answer.

“I saw the file,” Jacob continued. “He was your right hand. Your everything. You buried him. Now he’s back.”

Leo sipped. “You think this is about love?”

“No,” Jacob whispered. “I think it’s about guilt.”

Leo’s jaw clenched.

Jacob stepped closer. “Did you pull the trigger?”

Leo didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

Jacob’s breath hitched.

Leo finally looked up, eyes hollow. “He begged. I didn’t care.”

“Then why does this scare you?”

Leo’s voice cracked like gravel. “Because if he’s alive… that means someone else pulled the strings. And that means I don’t know who I’m married to.”

Hours later…

Jacob couldn’t sleep.

Again.

He walked through the halls barefoot, the tattoo on his chest itching, his mind unraveling. Everything about Leo screamed control, but Gabriel's return shattered that illusion.

As he turned the corner, he saw a sliver of light under the door of the study.

He pushed it open quietly.

Leo sat at the desk, shirtless, blood on his knuckles, staring at a photo.

Gabriel.

The man, Jacob, would never live up to.

The man who had come back from the dead.

Jacob stepped inside. “You’re bleeding.”

Leo didn’t look up. “I know.”

Jacob walked over, grabbed a clean cloth from the sideboard, and pressed it to Leo’s hand.

They sat like that for a long time.

Silent.

Breathing.

Bleeding.

Together.

The next day…

An envelope arrived.

No name. Just a black wax seal.

Inside: a USB drive.

Leo and Jacob sat side-by-side in the private screening room, the screen flickering to life.

Surveillance footage.

Date stamped last night.

A warehouse.

A man with a limp. A scar down the jaw.

Gabriel.

Alive.

Walking.

And speaking to someone offscreen.

Then he turned directly to the camera.

"Hello, Leo. Miss me?"

The screen went black.

Leo stood up slowly.

Jacob grabbed his wrist. “What are you going to do?”

Leo’s eyes were ice. “Find him. And kill him. Again.”

But as Leo walked out, Jacob noticed something.

The man in the background of the footage.

His face was blurred.

But Jacob had seen that ring before.

On Matteo’s hand.

The betrayal had already begun.