Chapter 34
Damon
The words on the note burned into my brain. Check the grave again.
For a moment, everything around me stilled, Marcus’s voice, the hum of radios, even the sirens outside. Just those four words, sharp and deliberate. Nathan never wasted ink. If he wrote it, it meant something and if he meant that grave. My pulse kicked hard against my ribs. No. That grave was supposed to stay buried, along with every secret inside it.
“Boss?” Marcus’s voice broke through, cautious. “You good?”
I didn’t answer right away. My jaw was locked, the paper crumpling under my grip. “Get the car,” I said finally, low and flat.
He blinked. “Now? Damon, you need to...”
“Get. The. Car.”
He nodded once and jogged out the door. I turned toward the staircase.
Alicia was there, barefoot, wrapped in a blanket. Her eyes still wide from the chaos earlier. “You’re leaving?” she asked softly.
“Just a lead I need to follow up.”
“Now? Damon, you’re still bleeding...”
“I’ll be fine.” I reached her, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I need you to stay here. Marcus will post guards outside the house. Don’t open the door for anyone unless it’s me.”
She frowned. “This is about him, isn’t it? Nathan.”
I hesitated. “He left a message.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Then don’t give him what he wants.”
I almost smiled. “I never do.”
Her hand caught mine as I turned to go. “Just come back.”
“I will,” I said. But the promise tasted like a lie.
The night swallowed the city behind me as we drove. The roads thinned into forest paths, headlights slicing through fog. Every mile brought me closer to the place I’d sworn I’d never return to.
Marcus drove in silence, his jaw set, knuckles white on the wheel. He’d been there that night. He knew what waited at the end of this road.
Finally, he spoke. “You think he means that grave?”
“I know he does,” I said quietly. “He wouldn’t risk this much to taunt me.”
“You sure you want to dig it up again? Some things are better left buried.”
“That’s the problem,” I muttered. “They never stay buried.”
The forest loomed ahead, black and endless. We parked at the edge of the old clearing, the training grounds where we’d burned everything that once tied us to that night.
The grave lay beneath the oak tree, half-hidden by shadows. My chest tightened at the sight of it. The soil looked different. Disturbed.
Marcus shone his flashlight. “This was filled in deeper last time. Someone’s been here.”
I crouched, running my hand through the loose dirt. Fresh. Recently turned. “Shovel,” I said.
He fetched one from the trunk, and we dug...each strike heavy and rhythmic, the smell of wet soil thick in the air. Every sound brought back flashes: blood on my hands, the rain, the silence afterward.
Ten minutes in, metal hit wood. The coffin.
I exhaled, knelt, and brushed away the dirt. The latch creaked as I forced it open.
Empty, just darkness yawning back at me.
Marcus leaned closer, flashlight trembling slightly. “That’s… impossible.”
“He was dead,” I said. “I saw him.”
“Looks like he didn’t stay that way.”
I stared at the emptiness until my stomach knotted. Then something caught the light... a small object resting in the corner of the coffin. Marcus reached in and lifted it out.
A flash drive. Silver. With a single red slash across it, Nathan’s mark.
“He left it for you,” Marcus said grimly.
I turned it over in my hand, cold and heavier than it should’ve been. A message, or bait. Either way, Nathan wanted me to find it.
Then, a sound. A branch snapping somewhere beyond the trees. Another. Closer.
I froze, signaling Marcus to kill the light. The world plunged into black. The forest went still except for the whisper of wind and my own heartbeat hammering in my ears.
Then a voice slid through the dark. “Couldn’t resist digging up the past, could you, brother?”
Every instinct went razor-sharp. That voice wasn’t a memory. It was here. Real.
Marcus swung his gun toward the sound, but I raised a hand. “Don’t,” I mouthed. “He wants crossfire.”
A low chuckle drifted from the trees. “Still predictable.”
“Nathan,” I said, eyes straining against the dark. “You should’ve stayed dead.”
“Should’ve,” he echoed. “But then, so should you.”
I gritted my teeth. “You’re running out of hiding places.”
“Oh, I’m not hiding.” His tone was calm, amused. “I’m giving you a gift.”
“Another one of your mind games?”
He laughed softly. “Call it… a second chance. That drive in your hand, it’s what you were too cowardly to face three years ago.”
“What’s on it?”
“Answers,” he said. “About her. About you.”
A cold ripple went through me. “Her” could only mean one person. But Alicia was upstairs, safe. Unless...
I forced the thought down. “You come after her again...”
“I won’t have to,” he interrupted. “The truth has its own way of destroying people, Damon. You, especially.”
I heard the rustle of movement, the soft crunch of leaves. Marcus lifted his gun, but by the time I turned, the forest was empty again.
Nathan was gone. Just like before. Only this time, he’d left something worse than a wound.
We drove back in silence, the flash drive glinting faintly in my palm. Marcus finally broke the quiet. “You gonna open it?”
“Not yet.”
“You think it’s a trap?”
“It’s Nathan. Everything’s a trap.”
When we reached the mansion, I stepped out, my body aching from the tension. The guards were already posted outside. The lights inside glowed faintly through the windows. Alicia was safe. For now.
I went straight to my office, shut the door, and slid the flash drive into the encrypted port on my laptop. Marcus hovered near the doorway, hand on his gun.
The screen flickered once. Then a folder appeared.
“PROJECT ECHO.”
I opened it. Dozens of video files. Dates spanning back three years. One caught my eye, the night of the grave. I clicked play.
Static. Then, a dim image flickered into focus; a dark room, a single chair, restraints and a face. Mine.
My stomach dropped. Me. Sitting in that chair. Blood on my shirt. My own voice, hoarse, saying words I didn’t remember.
“It was never supposed to be her.”
The video cut abruptly and another file began playing on its own, security footage. A hallway. Nathan, alive, walking past a mirror, looking straight into the camera.
Then his voice, recorded, cold and deliberate:
“If you’re seeing this, Damon, congratulations. You’ve finally found the truth you buried with me. But you should know...she’s not who you think she is.”
The screen went black.
I just sat there, staring at the reflection of my own face in the dark glass. My heart hammered once, twice, then slowed.
Marcus’ voice came from behind me, quiet. “Boss… what does that mean?”
I closed the laptop slowly. “It means,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “the wrong person died that night.”