Chapter Six
Echoes of the Dead.
I barely slept.
The image haunted me: Gray Chapman was alive, and Damian stood behind him like a shadow from another life.
Had the photograph been doctored? Is there a decoy?
Or worse... Has Damian lied?
The next morning, I walked into TitanLux with my heart pounding like a war drum. The lobby was quiet. Too quiet.
I bypassed Miranda's office and went directly to Damian's suite.
Empty.The scent of his cologne lingered in the air, containing cypress, sandalwood, and something unplaceable, like danger dressed in silk.
I sat at his desk, trembling as I reached for the encrypted drive I would hidden in a drawer two nights before. I plugged it in.
> No signal. The file was scrubbed.
Then another message appeared on the black screen.
> "You have touched a ghost. Now he will find you, too."
I yanked the drive out.
Miranda called me 30 minutes later. "You will meet a man named Colter Cross. Damian planned it before he left. "Do not ask why."
"Who is he?"
"Security strategist." Old world. He keeps his bullets in a glass case but never forgets where he buried the last body.
My pulse quickened.
"Why am I meeting him?"
"You will find out."
Colter Cross was unlike any other man I had met. Sixty, steel-gray hair, a scar cutting through his jaw, as if someone had tried and failed to silence him.
We met at an abandoned café in Montmartre.
"You are the girl in Westwood's circle now," he said, not looking up from his espresso.
"I am his assistant."
"Cute. Have you ever fired a weapon?
"What?""I thought so." He leaned forward. "Listen closely, Miss Blake. There are three unspoken truths about Damian Westwood. One: he has only been in love once. Two: That love ended in bloodshed. Three: the man who bled for him did not die.
I whispered, "Gray Chapman."
Colter's gaze sharpened. "He is watching. "And not just Damian."
My blood turned icy.
"Why is he watching me?"
Colter slid a photograph across the table. It was another grainy image, but this time I was standing outside TitanLux, with a black car in the background.
A figure in the window. Unmistakable.
Gray.He was watching me.
"Why?" I whispered again.
Colter rose to leave. "Because ghosts do not haunt places." They haunt people. And it appears you have become one of his.
---Damian called me that night using a secure line.
"Blake," he said, his voice cold and clipped, "did you enter my office without clearance?"
I swallowed. "Yes."
Silence. Then, "You found Gray's file."
"I did not open it. I could not. Someone sent me a picture. Of you. With him. "In Paris."
Another lapse in silence. This time, the duration is longer.
"Where are you now?" he inquired finally.
"In my apartment."
"Pack a bag. I am sending a car. "You are not safe."
"Why? "What is going on?"
"I will explain everything when you get here."
"Damian, is he alive?" I asked. "Is Gray alive?"
A prolonged pause.
Then, softly, "Yes."
The line went dead.