Chapter 40: ENOUGH TO START A WAR

“I was set up.”

“Oh God,” she said, taking a step back. “Do not—do not make this one of those stories, okay? Because I don’t have time for it. I lost my mother. I’ve spent months trying to find who took her from me. And everything—everything—points to you.”

Elgin’s fists clenched at his sides. “You don’t know what your mother got herself into.”

“Don’t you dare blame her,” Anise hissed.

“I’m not blaming her. I’m saying it wasn’t just me who lived dangerously. She had secrets, Anise. Secrets you don’t know about.”

There was a silence that followed—dense, tight, and unbreathable.

“What secrets?” she asked, her voice sharp.

Elgin hesitated.

Anise stepped forward. “You owe me. You owe her.”

“She kept tabs on someone,” he said, handing her a folded paper. “Wesley Grant.”

Anise froze. “What?”

“She told me she was onto something big—something connected to him. Said if anything happened to her, I should take this and disappear.”

“So you ran.”

“I didn’t kill her,” he said again. “But I found her that night. She was already gone.”

Anise’s breath caught. “Then why didn’t you go to the police?”

“They’d have pinned it on me.” His voice cracked. “You think they’d believe a washed-up ex-con over a respected prosecutor? I panicked. I wiped what I touched and ran.”

The ache in her chest bloomed like fire. “You left me. You left us.”

“I thought I was protecting you.”

Anise shook her head. “No. You were protecting yourself.”

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. He didn’t deserve to see her cry. Not yet.

“Elgin,” she said, using his name like a shield, “there’s more to this, isn’t there?”

He was silent.

She stood there a while, eyes trained on him like he was a puzzle she couldn’t finish, no matter how long she stared.

Then she reached into her coat pocket and unfolded a creased piece of paper—lines of scribbled notes written on sleepless nights, full of anger, confusion, and aching hope. She stared down at it for a second before lifting her gaze again.

“I came here with questions,” she said. “Questions I promised myself I’d ask if I ever saw you again.”

Elgin straightened a little. “Then ask.”

Anise’s fingers trembled as she held the paper. She didn’t need to read it anymore—she knew them all by heart.

“What were you protecting us from?” she began, her voice steely. “Or who? Was it Wesley Grant?”

Elgin didn’t flinch at the name. But something shifted behind his eyes.

“Wesley Grant,” he echoed. “I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she snapped. “Why did you leave her vulnerable? Why did you leave me with nothing but silence?”

“Because I knew if I moved too soon, he’d come for both of you,” Elgin said. “Your mother was smart, but she was stubborn. She thought if she followed the money long enough, it would lead to the truth. But that man doesn’t leave paper trails—he leaves graves.”

Anise’s fists balled at her sides. “So you ran.”

“I waited,” he corrected. “I waited for leverage. For something I could use to bury him. But by the time I got back… she was gone.”

Her voice broke. “And you didn’t even come to the funeral.”

“I watched from a distance,” he murmured. “There were men there—his men. I couldn’t risk it. Not with you standing by her casket.”

Tears threatened her again, but she pushed past them.

“You should’ve risked it.”

He looked like she’d slapped him. “I know.”

She stepped forward now, that piece of paper still clenched in her hand like a weapon forged from grief.

“Was she working alone?” she asked. “Or was someone in her office helping her?”

“She didn’t trust anyone. Said there were leaks even in her unit. She only trusted one person outside of me—”

He hesitated.

Anise narrowed her eyes. “Who?”

“Elijah Dowen.”

“Dowen?” she whispered. “The journalist?”

Elgin nodded. “Yeah. He was helping her compile everything. She was going to blow the whole thing open. The corruption. The trafficking. The laundering. All of it tied back to Grant.”

A long silence stretched between them, thick with names unspoken and warnings unheeded.

Finally, Anise folded the paper again, slower this time.

“Did you ever want to come back?” she asked, softer now. “Even after everything?”

“Every damn day,” Elgin said. “But you don’t get to walk out on your family and expect a second chance. I wasn’t coming back unless I could bring something with—something that made all the pain worth it.”

Anise nodded slowly.

“Then it’s time,” she said, walking toward the door. “You’re going to help me finish what she started. And this time, we end it.”

“I’m leaving,” she said without looking back.

Marianne tried to stop her, hand raised, mouth already forming words of reason, but Anise didn’t care for reason anymore. Not tonight. The echo of Elgin’s truths still rang too loud in her ears.

She walked out of that dim interrogation room with a single focus: Elijah Dowen.

The journalist.

The man who helped her piece together corruption so dark, it had to be buried under bodies and silence.

And maybe now, her mother’s too.

The rain had started to fall again, soft, indecisive, almost like the city knew it needed to cry but hadn’t fully committed to the emotion. Anise didn’t bother to pull her hoodie over her head. She let the cold sting her face. Let it wake her up.

Elgin’s words wouldn’t stop echoing.

“She was going to blow the whole thing open. The corruption. The trafficking. The laundering. All of it tied back to Grant.”

Grant. That name was starting to feel like a curse.

Wesley Grant was everywhere and nowhere. Always a whisper. Always a shadow. Her mother’s death, her father’s disappearance, the flash drive, the threats—all of it circled back to him.

But now she had a name that might still matter.

Elijah Dowen.

—

The house was on the east side—an old duplex tucked behind an unkempt hedge, paint peeling off the siding like secrets flaking away. She’d found the address tucked in the folds of the manila envelope her father handed her.

The doorbell didn’t work. Of course. So she knocked firmly, three times.

At first, no one answered.

Then, the sound of shuffling. A cough. A murmur of voices beyond the threshold. The door creaked open just a sliver, and through the crack, Anise saw a wary pair of eyes—faded gray, surrounded by lines that spoke of loss.

“Yes?”

The voice was thin, strained.

“I’m looking for Elijah Dowen,” Anise said, trying to keep her tone steady, respectful.

A pause.

Then the door opened fully.

An older woman stood there, wrapped in a shawl too thin for the chill, her hands trembling at her sides. Beside her was a nurse in scrubs, a woman who looked like she had seen her fair share of broken families and overdue apologies.

“Who are you?” the old woman asked.

“My name is Anise Morgan. Elijah—he worked with my mother. Camilla Apple Morgan.”

The name changed something. Not much, but enough. The woman’s lips trembled. Her eyes moistened, but the tears didn’t fall.

“Camilla,” she whispered. “He used to talk about her. Said she had fire in her blood.”

She hesitated, glanced at the nurse, then back at Anise.

“You’d better come in.”

The house smelled like Vicks VapoRub and lemon tea. Everything looked lived-in but untouched, like time had paused here the day something shattered.

“He’s not here,” the woman said after settling into an armchair, a crocheted blanket draped across her knees.

“I can wait,” Anise replied gently.

“No… I mean, he’s gone.”

Anise’s breath hitched.

“Gone?”

“Elijah was murdered. Three weeks ago.”

The words landed like a car crash. Fast. Loud. Irreversible.

“I—what?” Anise blinked. “How?”

“They said it was a robbery. But they only took his laptop. Not the cash in his drawer. Not the phone in his pocket. Just the files. And no one’s been arrested.”

A sharp silence swallowed the room.

Anise lowered herself into a chair across from her, her hands tightening into fists on her lap.

“He was close to something,” the old woman said. “Whatever he and your mother were working on—it scared people.”

“Did he leave anything?” Anise asked, her voice almost a whisper. “Notes, files, anything I can see?”

The woman looked toward the nurse, who hesitated before rising and walking down the hallway.

A moment later, she returned with a small, battered folder.

“He kept this locked in a drawer,” the nurse said. “I found it after he died. Didn’t know what to do with it.”

Anise took it with reverence, like it might shatter in her hands.

Inside were names.

Dates.

Bank codes.

Photos of men in suits shaking hands in the dark, grainy stills of docks at night, storage containers marked with shipping codes that matched some from her mother’s notes.

But more importantly—

Wesley Grant’s name was on everything.

Grant Industries. Grant Pharmaceuticals. Even a dummy charity for trafficking survivors, fronted by the man himself.

It was all here.

Her mother’s war.

Elijah’s death.

Her haunted nights.

It was all connected.

Anise closed the folder slowly, eyes burning.

She stood. “Thank you.”

The woman reached out and gripped her hand, frail fingers tightening.

“Finish it,” she said. “Whatever your mother started, finish it. Elijah died for this. Don’t let that be for nothing.”

“I won’t,” Anise promised.

She meant it.

—

Outside, the rain had stopped.

But the storm was just beginning.

Anise stood under the thin streetlight, folder pressed to her chest, her thoughts spinning too fast to catch. Everything was louder now. More dangerous. More real.

And if Elijah Dowen had been killed for knowing too much…

…then what about Jake?

Did he know?

Had he been playing both sides all this time?

She didn’t have answers yet.

But she had enough to finally start the war.