Chapter 158 Chapter 158
Dominic’s POV
For three days, I’ve been following a ghost. Every record says Elia Hale died fifteen years ago the official line, the autopsy, the sealed file signed by Stanley himself. But ghosts don’t leave new fingerprints.
And hers just showed up in Lisbon.
The security footage was grainy, taken from a marina checkpoint: a woman stepping off a ferry, hooded, carrying a duffel. Average height. Pale hair. But the way she moved shoulders tense, right hand brushing her pocket like she was hiding a scar made my chest tighten.
Elia used to do that when she was nervous. So I booked a flight, used one of my old aliases, and came here.
Now, leaning against a cracked stone wall across from a rundown hostel, I watch her through a narrow gap between curtains. She’s inside room 207. Light on. Shadow moving. Same build. Same habits.
She even tilts her head the same way Elia used to when she read. But it’s impossible. It has to be. I told myself that when the footage first appeared.
When the dock clerk swore he’d seen her. When the trail led me here. I told myself I was chasing the wrong ghost. But my instincts won’t let me stop.
The woman leaves just before midnight. She walks fast, avoiding the streetlights, cutting through narrow alleys that reek of salt and diesel. I follow at a distance, keeping to the shadows.
When she reaches the waterfront, she stops at a public terminal one of those old biometric ID scanners for border crossings. She hesitates, looks around, then presses her thumb to the pad. The screen flickers.And for one heartbeat, I see her face. It’s her. Almost.
The jawline’s sharper. The nose straighter. The faint scar above her eyebrow is gone. It’s like someone sculpted her out of memory and precision tools. My breath catches. The scanner beeps red, denied. She curses softly, grabs her bag, and disappears into a side street.
I step forward, heart hammering, and touch the pad she just used. The display blinks up her registration ID.
Back in my hotel, I run the sequence through an encrypted database, one I shouldn’t still have access to. It takes hours, my laptop humming in the dark, Lisbon lights flickering through half-drawn curtains.
At 4:17 a.m., the screen pings.
Match: 99.87% – Subject: Elia (Deceased)
For a long moment, I just stare at it.
Then I laugh low, breathless, unbelieving.
I print the report, my hands shaking slightly. Every number screams truth, mitochondrial markers, genetic identifiers, even the rare variant in her bloodline that only Elia and her mother shared.
There’s no room for doubt. And yet… the woman in that footage isn’t her. Not fully. Someone changed her. Reconstructed her. Which means someone with access to both Elia’s remains and cutting-edge medical resources rewrote her identity. Stanley.
The name surfaces like a toxin I can’t spit out. He had the money, the motive, the reach.
If Elia had survived that night, if she’d known something that could destroy him he wouldn’t have killed her. He’d have erased her instead. Hidden her in plain sight.
Given her a new face, a new name, a new country. I scroll through the registry’s audit trail. The last data modification was made eight years ago by an authorized health tech network linked to Z-Core Medical Research Division.
Some years ago, he was building Z-Core’s identity restoration project…“ReLife.” A private initiative for witness protection and trauma rehabilitation. Now I know the real reason it existed. It wasn’t protection. It was containment.
By sunrise, I’m standing at the waterfront where she vanished hours ago. The sea mist clings to the air, cool and sharp. A vendor sets up his stall nearby, oblivious. A ferry bell rings in the distance. And I’m left with the impossible truth:
Elia didn’t die. She was reborn. But if Stanley went to such lengths to keep her alive, why hide her from everyone? Why let me rot under suspicion all those years? The answer tastes bitter. Because her silence was worth more than her life. And mine was the price he paid to buy it.
I pocket the report, knowing it’s a death sentence if the wrong person sees it. Liana deserves to know but how do I tell her this? She already saw the cracks in Stanley’s armor. Now I can tear it open But I also know what that means.
If Elia’s alive under another name, it’s not freedom, its control. She’s still part of Stanley’s empire, a ghost programmed to forget who she was.
And the second I bring her back into the light, Stanley will erase her again. Or worse he’ll come for Liana, too. Because she’s the only one who can connect them.
A car passes behind me, slowing. The hairs on my neck rise. Black sedan. Tinted windows.
I turn slightly, pretending to check my phone. The car idles for three seconds then pulls away. But I saw it. They already know I’m here.
I exhale slowly, forcing myself to move. There’s no time for hesitation. Elia..Ella Rhodes..has gone underground again. But this time, I have proof she exists.
And if Stanley thinks I’m going to stop chasing her, he’s forgotten who taught me how to hunt.
By evening, I’ve encrypted everything: the DNA data, the footage, the trail that ties her to Z-Core’s ReLife program. Then I send one message to Liana through a secure line:
Found her, she’s real but she’s not the same. Trust no one, not even me.
I hesitate before pressing send, feeling the weight of every choice that brought us here.
The truth is finally surfacing, but it’s poisoned, every revelation dragging us deeper into the same dark water Elia disappeared into.
I close the laptop, look out the window toward the Atlantic, and whisper the only thing that still feels true.
“I’m coming for you, Elia.”