Chapter 43: WHERE AM I?

JAKE

Jake stared at his phone screen for the fifth time in the last hour.

No reply.

The text he sent Anise the night before still hung in the thread like an open wound.

He had expected something by now. A curt reply. A delay. Anything. But there was silence. A kind of silence that scratched at his instincts—the detective part of him. The part that knew when something was off.

He called once. Twice. Three times.

Each time it rang out.

His thumb hovered over Dexton’s contact, indecisive. Their relationship wasn’t exactly warm. Jake knew the only thing more awkward than a detective dating your sister was finding out about it from the detective himself. And Jake hadn't wanted to complicate things further—not until he and Anise had figured out what they were. But now…now he didn’t care about complications. He cared that she wasn’t picking up. That something didn’t feel right.

He opened the text window again, hesitated, and typed:

“Are you okay?”

Sent.

He dropped the phone on his desk and leaned back in the chair, frustration gnawing at his chest. He couldn’t shake it—this feeling that something was happening, something he couldn’t see. Something she didn’t tell him.

And that made him wonder if she ever would.

Underground

The cement floor was cold beneath her. Time had melted into a blur of aching limbs and muffled echoes. Anise stirred slightly, groggy from the sedation. Her wrists itched where the plastic zip ties dug into her skin, and the coarse fabric bag over her head reeked of oil and damp wood.

She tried to shift again, letting out a low, hoarse breath. Her mouth was dry. Her thoughts were scattered.

Where am I?

She hadn’t stopped asking since they grabbed her.

Since they threw her in the back of that van. Since she saw Kevin's figure, a blur of desperation and guilt, running as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

She couldn’t remember how long ago that was.

Minutes? Hours?

She drifted for a while, just floating between fragments of memory. Her mother’s voice. Dexton laughing. Elijah Dowen’s mother holding her hand. Jake's smile.

Jake.

He was the dream.

He had been in her mind just before she woke—a dream so vivid it had jolted her into consciousness. He hadn’t said anything in it. He just looked at her with that expression that always made her believe she could survive anything. His silence in the dream screamed louder than words.

And for the first time in hours, she felt the flicker of something she thought she had lost—control.

She began twisting her wrists, slow and deliberate, testing the ties. Her shoulders ached from being in the same position too long, but she had no time for that. She remembered what her mother used to say: “You don’t need to win the whole fight—just the round you’re in.”

Well, this was her round.

A few minutes later, the bag was yanked off her head with violent force. The light above pierced her eyes. She blinked against it, heart hammering.

And then she saw him.

Again.

Then silence.

Wesley Grant stood before her in a tailored black suit, like sin itself, slick and polished. His dark eyes gleamed with contempt as he folded his arms and tilted his head.

“You again,” he said.

Anise’s throat dried. Her mind raced. Her limbs burned from restraint.

The same man she confronted at the bar—the one who looked at her like she was just another foolish girl chasing ghosts. Now he was here, towering over her with a sardonic smile tugging at his mouth.

“I thought I scared you off the first time.”

Anise stared at him, refusing to look away. “You’re not that scary,” she croaked.

“I thought our little chat at the bar was enough to convince you to walk away,” he continued, circling her like a vulture. “But here you are. Still digging.”

She said nothing. Rage boiled behind her silence.

“You’re braver than your mother,” he said coldly. “But not smarter.”

That broke her silence. “Don’t you dare speak about her.”

Wesley laughed—a dry, awful thing. “You think I don’t know who you are? What are you trying to do? You think this crusade of yours matters? You are just a girl chasing ghosts.”

Anise swallowed the lump in her throat. “And you’re a man running out of time.”

Grant stepped closer, crouched to her level. “You don’t know what you're messing with, Anise Morgan. You’re in the center of a war that’s been playing out for decades. Your mother stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Dowen did too. And now you. You should’ve just stayed in bed with your detective lover and left this to the men who run things.”

The mention of Jake was a blade to her ribs. She didn’t flinch.

“I’m not leaving,” she said. “And I’m not scared.”

“Oh, you will be,” he replied, straightening. “You’re bait now. That little boyfriend of yours, your hacker pal—they’ll come for you. And when they do, I’ll finally end this.”

“I know exactly what I’m into. You killed my mother.”

The words cut the air like broken glass.

Grant tilted his head. “Is that what you think?”

“I know it.”

He crouched down to her level again, close enough for her to smell the cologne masked by gun oil and sweat. “You know what your mother did? She dug too deep. She got too close. And people like that? They disappear. Just like you almost did.”

“Why not finish it then?” she snapped.

He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Because you’re more useful to me alive—for now.”

Then he stood and turned his back. Two men in black jackets stood by the door, arms folded. She was in an underground bunker—concrete walls, steel door, no windows. A facility made to vanish.

He walked to the door.

“Why?” she called after him. “Why her? Why my mother?”

He paused at the door. “Because she thought the truth could save people. But the truth only burns.”

Then he was gone.

She sat up straighter. Memorized every inch. Every man’s face. Every exit. Every sound.

Because when she got out of here—and she would—she would burn every piece of Wesley Grant’s empire to the ground.

And Anise, left in the dark again, clenched her fists with one thought—

Kevin better come. And he had better come soon.