All Chapters of THE ENEMY'S CLAIM: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

HE FOUND HER The bookshop was called Paige & Prose.It was the kind of place that had no business existing in a city like this — tucked between a laundromat and a phone repair shop on a street that couldn't decide if it was charming or forgotten. The sign above the door was hand-painted. The windows were always slightly fogged. Inside it smelled like old paper and cinnamon and something warm that Rain had never been able to name but had always associated with safety.She had worked here for two years.She loved it more than almost anything.She was on her knees behind the front counter Tuesday morning, reorganizing the bottom shelf of new arrivals, when the bell above the door chimed."I'll be right with you," she called without looking up, tucking a paperback into its slot.Nobody answered.She registered the silence a half second before she registered everything else—the way the air in the shop shifted and the way the warm, familiar smell of the place was suddenly undercut with something

WHO IS DAMIAN WOLFE It started with a Google search.Rain told herself it was perfectly reasonable. She was a practical person. A sensible person. A person who, when a mysterious stranger showed up twice in one week knowing things he shouldn't know and looking at her like she was something he was trying to solve, did the logical thing.She typed his name into the search bar at eleven thirty on a Wednesday night, sitting cross-legged on her bed in an oversized t-shirt, laptop balanced on her knees.Damien Wolfe.The results loaded.Rain stared.Then she scrolled. Slowly. Then faster.Damien Wolfe, CEO of Wolfe Industries — Forbes 30 Under 30.Wolfe Industries posts record third quarter — shares surge 18%.Damien Wolfe acquires Harrington Group in landmark $4.2 billion deal.The Wolf of Crestwood — profile piece, Business Insider.Damien Wolfe — net worth estimated at $14.7 billion.Fourteen point seven billion.Rain closed the laptop.Opened it again.The photo at the top of the

HIS MOVE Rain didn't hear from Damien for three days. She told herself she wasn't counting. She was absolutely counting. Friday passed. Then Saturday. Then Sunday with its grey sky and its rain — real rain, the weather kind, which she had always found either poetic or annoying depending on her mood and today found both. She worked her shift at Paige & Prose on Saturday, walked home on the main roads without being asked to, and spent Sunday reading on her sofa with the particular restless energy of someone waiting for something they won't admit they're waiting for. The warm pulling feeling in her chest had not gone away. If anything it was worse. It had developed a direction now, which was new and deeply inconvenient — a faint persistent tug, like a compass needle, that pointed somewhere northeast of her apartment and absolutely refused to be ignored. She had taken to pressing her hand flat against her sternum when it happened, which helped approximately nothing but gave her s

EVERYTHING The penthouse was very quiet. Rain sat on the opposite side of the kitchen counter from Damien and watched his face and waited. She had the distinct feeling of standing at the edge of something — a before and after moment, the kind you only recognize as such when you're already in the middle of it and can't go back. Damien looked at his hands flat on the counter. Then at her. "Have you ever felt like you were almost yourself?" he asked quietly. "Like there was a version of you just underneath the surface that you could never quite reach?" Rain stared at him. Of all the things she had expected him to say. "Yes," she said softly. "My whole life." Something moved through his expression — deep and complicated and layered with a guilt she didn't yet have context for. "That feeling," he said, "has a reason." He pushed off the counter and moved to the window. Stood with his back to her for a moment, looking out at the city — at the lights, at the dark sky, at whatever