LOGINChapter 46Caleb’s POVPart I: The Ghost in the KitchenThe digital clock on the oven flickered to 2:14 AM.I had discarded the Jean-Pierre wig and the heavy glasses, leaving them on the prep table like the skin of a shed snake. My knuckles still throbbed from the wall, and my nerves were shot from the Julian encounter. I’d known the Sterling hawk would try to pluck a feather; I just hadn't expected him to be so bold. Shoving the dog’s brushed-out fur into the edge of my prosthetic had been a desperate gamble, and the thought of Julian staring at a Golden Retriever lab report almost made me smile.But the smile died as the air in the kitchen changed.The heavy, swinging door didn't creak, it sighed. I didn't have to turn around. My body knew her. My skin recognized the shift in the room’s temperature before my brain could process the soft pad of bare feet on the marble."You look different without the hat, Jean-Pierre," Evelyn whispered.I froze, my back to her. I was wearing only a
Chapter 45Julian’s POVIn the Sterling Empire, we don’t believe in ghosts. We believe in data. We believe in leverage. And we believe that when something smells like a corpse coming back to life, you don't call a priest, you call a lab tech.I stood in the darkened gallery of my sister’s penthouse, the shadow of a marble bust obscuring my frame. My tailored suit felt like armor, but my mind was a scalpel, dissecting the anomaly currently standing in the kitchen."Jean-Pierre."The man was a walking caricature. The accent was too thick, the movements too deliberate, and the timing of his arrival too coincidental. Evelyn might be blinded by her grief and the suffocating pressure of the Alaric merger, but I am the Second to the Chairperson. I am the one who keeps the shadows out of the light.I watched through the cracked door as the chef cleaned the counter. He had just finished hauling a drunken, babbling Alaric to the elevator. The "chef" didn’t move like a servant. He moved like
Chapter 44Caleb’s POVThe kitchen was a cathedral of stainless steel and silence, illuminated only by the under-cabinet LEDs. Evelyn had retired to her wing early, citing a lingering migraine from the merger paperwork. This left me alone with the man who intended to sit in my ex-wife's chair, sleep in her bed, and spend my children’s inheritance.Alaric was alone in the formal dining room, the clicking of his fountain pen on legal documents echoing down the hallway. He was impatient. He wanted his late-night indulgence.I looked at the counter. The Truth Serum was ready.I started with the base. A classic Grand Marnier soufflé requires finesse, egg yolks, sugar, flour, and a splash of citrus. But for Alaric, I was crafting something far more potent.In a small copper saucepan, I prepared the reduction. I didn't just use the orange liqueur. I reached into the back of the pantry for a bottle of Clandestine, a high-proof, over-proofed moonshine I’d acquired during my time in the shadow
Chapter 43 Evelyn’s POVThe penthouse felt smaller tonight, the air thick with the scent of Alaric’s expensive cologne and the lingering, metallic tension of the confrontation I’d missed in the kitchen. Alaric sat across from me at the mahogany dining table, his ego visibly bruised, nursing a glass of Scotch as if it were medicine.But my focus wasn't on the man I was supposed to marry. It was on the man standing behind him.Jean-Pierre moved with a fluidity that mocked his ridiculous wig. He reached forward to refill my glass, his movements precise, almost clinical. Yet, as the deep crimson Cabernet hit the crystal, his sleeve pulled back just an inch, revealing the corded muscle of a forearm I knew better than my own reflection."Merci, Jean-Pierre," I murmured, my voice a fraction lower than intended."Ce n'est rien, Madame," he replied. That gravelly, forced accent. It was a shield, a wall he’d built brick by brick.I didn't look at the wine. I looked at his hand. The knuckles
Chapter 42Caleb’s POVThe knuckles of my right hand throbbed, a dull, rhythmic ache that served as a reminder of the punch I’d thrown at the hallway wall. It was a silent strike, a muffled explosion of years of regret, but the wall hadn’t budged. Neither had the reality of my situation.I stood in the service kitchen, the "Jean-Pierre" wig sitting on the counter like a dead animal. I looked at it with loathing. For weeks, I had tucked my pride into that itchy mesh, swallowed my voice into a ridiculous caricature of a Frenchman, and bowed to a man who wasn't fit to tie Evelyn’s shoes.But tonight... Tonight the mask had slipped. Not just the physical one, but the emotional one. Telling that story to Luna, my daughter, who had my eyes and her mother’s stubborn spirit had been like opening a vein.“The Knight is on guard,” I had whispered."The Knight is an idiot," I muttered to my reflection in the stainless steel backsplash.I heard the heavy, uneven gait of Alaric approaching. He wa
Chapter 41 Evelyn’s POVThe silence in the kitchen wasn’t just quiet; it was deafening. It was the kind of silence that rings in your ears after a bomb goes off.I stared at the man standing by the counter. The "Jean-Pierre" I had hired was a collection of nervous tics, slumped shoulders, and a voice that grated like sandpaper on silk. But the man standing there now, his laughter fading into a heavy, focused stillness, was someone else.The way he tilted his head, just a fraction to the left. The way his hands rested on the marble, fingers splayed in a protective, confident stance I’d seen a thousand times in the dim light of our old apartment.Caleb.The name screamed in my mind, but my throat was paralyzed. My heart hammered against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate to escape. I looked at the wig, it was fake. I looked at the mask, it was a lie. But those eyes... they were the only truth left in this house of mirrors."Evelyn? Why are you looking at the help like he’s a ghost? He







