All Chapters of SHADOWS OF OBLIVION : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The elevator doors slide open on the fortieth floor, and Elena's stomach drops the way it always does. Not from the height. From him.She grips the handle of her cleaning cart and steps out into the hallway. The carpet is the color of wine, thick enough to swallow her footsteps.Somewhere behind these walls, Dante Moretti is home. She can feel it, the way you feel a storm coming before the sky even changes color.Just get in. Get out. Do your job.That's what Victor told her. Simple words for something that isn't simple at all.She pushes the cart down the hall, past a wall of black-and-white photographs she has never let herself really look at.Old buildings. Old men in old suits. A city that doesn't exist anymore. She keeps her eyes down and her badge pinned straight — AMARA, it says, in small silver letters.Not her name. She doesn't know her real one, not really. Just the one Victor gave her ten years ago, the way you'd hand someone a coat that doesn't quite fit.The penthouse do

Elena stands outside the penthouse door the next morning, cart in hand, and tells herself this is just a job. Nothing more.She has done this a hundred times before. Walk in, clean, walk out, report back to Victor. That is all this is.Her hand shakes a little on the door handle anyway.Inside, the penthouse is quiet. Sunlight cuts long gold lines across the floor. She half expects Dante to be waiting for her, arms crossed, that unreadable look on his face.He isn't. The place feels almost empty, and something in her chest loosens and tightens at the same time. She doesn't know which reaction she wants more.She starts in the kitchen, wiping down counters that are already spotless, just to have something to do with her hands. That is when she smells it.His cologne. Faint, lingering on the air near the hallway. Cedar. Something dark underneath it, like smoke.She freezes, cloth still in her hand.She knows that smell.Not from last night. From somewhere older. Somewhere she cannot rea

ChapElena runs the last two blocks to the penthouse building. The note is crumpled in her fist. Her breath comes in ragged bursts that have nothing to do with the running.The doorman barely gets her name out before she is already past him, into the elevator, jamming the button for the fortieth floor over and over like that will make it move faster.By the time the doors open, her hands shake so hard she can barely get the door code right.The penthouse is dim, lit only by a lamp in the study. She doesn't call out for him. She doesn't trust her voice yet.She just walks, fast, past the black-and-white photographs she never let herself look at before. Now she understands why.Because one of them, she realizes with a jolt, has a woman in the corner of the frame. Laughing. Curls escaping her pins. And it is her. It is her.She doesn't make it to the study.Halfway down the hall, the weight of it all crashes over her at once. Ten years. A stolen name.A dead father who isn't dead because

Marco spreads the files across the desk like a man laying out a losing hand of cards. Bank statements. Shipping manifests.Photographs of men who don't exist on paper anywhere else. The papers cover every inch of the dark wood surface, and the more Elena looks at them, the heavier her chest feels."This is three weeks of digging," Marco says. His voice is flat with exhaustion. "It's not enough yet."Dante flips through the pages, his jaw tight enough to ache. "Enough for what?""Enough to take him down clean. Right now all we've got is money moving in circles and men who'll deny everything the second a lawyer walks in the room."Marco taps one photograph with his finger. "We need someone willing to testify. On the record. Someone Victor trusts."Elena stands at the window, her back to them, staring out at the city lights. She turns around slowly. Something clicks into place behind her eyes."I know someone," she says.Both men look at her."Sofia," she continues. "She's worked inside

The courthouse steps are packed with cameras by seven in the morning. Three hours before anything even starts.The sky is gray, heavy with clouds that promise rain but haven't delivered yet. Reporters jostle for position, their voices rising in a constant hum of questions nobody is answering.Elena stands behind the tinted glass of the car, watching the crowd through the window. Her hands are twisted together in her lap.Her knuckles are white. She hasn't slept well in three days, and it shows in the dark circles under her eyes."You don't have to look at them," Dante says beside her. His hand covers both of hers, steady and warm.His thumb traces slow circles over her skin. "You can close your eyes. We still have time.""I know." She doesn't stop looking. Her voice is quiet, almost distant. "I just keep thinking—ten years ago, if someone had told me I'd be walking into a courtroom to testify against my own uncle, I would have called them insane.""You're not the same person you were