Family Of Murder
1963 Words
Adrian inside Kairo’s body
“Funny,” a voice drawls behind me. “I thought we killed you.”
My heart spikes hard enough to crack ribs. I whirl around too fast for the smaller body and stumbled back into the sink.
A boy about my age or older leaned against the doorway, a half-eaten apple in his hand. Golden-brown skin, lazy eyes, curls falling over his forehead. He chewed slowly, like he has all the time in the world to watch me panic.
Alexander Damaris.
Kairo’s nephew.
One of the Damaris grandchildren.
Sharp tongue. Sharper ego.
I remember him from my first life; cruel, a market manipulator who ruined three rivals before I even realized he’d done it.
But now he’s fifteen or so again.
And apparently invading bedrooms without knocking.
He raises the apple like a toast. “Relax. I’m talking about the game we played last night. You died first.” He grins. “Twice.”
My lungs finally let air escape.
The tightness in my chest loosens but not all the way. Not when he is standing between me and the exit, casually assessing me like a prey that wandered into the wrong cage.
I wipe my palms on my pajama pants and force my voice steady. “You startled me.”
“Good.” He takes another bite, crunch echoing off the marble. “Keeps you humble.”
He pushes off the door frame and strolls further inside, eyes sweeping the room like he owns it. “You’re up early. You usually sleep like the dead.”
The word hit me like a punch and I involuntarily flinched before I could hide it.
His brows lift a fraction. “The hell’s wrong with you today? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I am the ghost.
But Alexander can’t know that.
I look away, pretending to straighten my hands on the sink, the towels, just anything to avoid his gaze. “Bad dream.”
“Right.” He wipes apple juice on the bedsheet without a second thought. “Anyway. Aunt Selene wants you downstairs. Some breakfast family nonsense.”
Breakfast.
The Damaris household.
My pulse kicks again, this time from something sharper than fear.
In my first life, I only ever saw the family as an outsider; Adrian Cole, the loyal dog cleaning their messes. I dealt with their scandals, covered their crimes, built my life around their rising and falling stock prices.
I knew the family.
But I was never in it.
Now I am.
Inside the one boy they lost too early.
Inside a role that was supposed to be gone forever.
Alexander tosses the apple core into a bin, missing it entirely. It rolled across the floor,but he didn’t pick it up. “Come on before they start whining.”
He walks out of my room towards the hall, while I stay frozen.
The mirror behind me, a constant reminder of this strange face.
Fifteen.
and
Breathing.
Kairo Damaris II.
And stepping out of this room means stepping into a past I never lived but a future I know too well.
“Hey.” Alexander r snaps his fingers. “Zombie boy. Move.”
I drag in a much needed breath and
followed him.
The Damaris estate hallway stretches wide and endless, polished floors gleaming under morning sun. Too untouched by the corruption that will rot this family from the inside twenty years from now.
A distant memory of blood and concrete flickers behind my eyelids.
The warehouse.
I blink it away.
Alexander walks ahead, hands shoved in his pockets, humming something off-key. Every few steps he glances back like he’s checking I haven’t dissolved into thin air.
We pass portraits; Alder Damaris in his younger years, Kairo I and Selene holding baby Kairo II, Damaris-owned skyscrapers in various stages of construction.
I slow at a particular frame.
Kairo I, this Kairo II at age ten, smiling with missing front teeth, sitting on his father’s shoulders. Selene laughing beside them, hair blowing wild in the breeze.
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
I only ever saw Selene in her broken years; so quiet, early grey hairs, living inside a grief she never left.
Kairo I drowned himself in empire-building because thinking about loss was too painful.
But this?
This is what they were before tragedy hollowed them out.
Alexander notices me staring. “Weirdo. You’ve walked past that thing a hundred times.”
We descend the grand staircase of gleaming bannisters, glass chandelier glittering like a frozen storm overhead. Voices drift up from the first floor, so sharp, clipped, and irritated.
The family is awake.
Great.
Alexander leans toward me mid-step. “Just a heads-up. Everyone’s in a mood.”
“When are they not?” I mutter.
He barks a laugh. “Fair.”
We reach the bottom floor. I can already feel the tension pressing like invisible hands against my ribs.
The Damaris household in my first life was a battlefield disguised as a mansion with ambition polished into chandelier shine, cruelty wrapped in designer clothes.
Now I get to see what they were like earlier. Raw. Younger. Sharper.
Alex pushes open the double doors to the dining room.
The noise hits first.
Elmira Damaris : Kairo I’s younger sister sipped her morning tea like the porcelain offended her.
Her husband, Anton’s eyes glued to the financial section of the newspaper, ignoring everyone.
Their daughter, Naomi; seventeen, perfectly bored, scrolling through her tablet.
Alex drops into the seat next to her and steals a grape from her plate. She slaps his wrist without looking up.
Then
Kairo I Damaris. My Father.
Sounds weird to even think of him like that, looked younger, taller than I remember and no silver in his hair yet and beside him was, Selene.
Beautiful. Graceful.
Her smile soft, her presence warm and motherly.
Until she turns toward me. The warmth freezes and every eyes lands on me leading to all conversation stopping midway.
I force my feet to move. One step. Another. My heartbeat thundering in my ears.
Kairo I lifts his chin slightly. “You’re late.”
Selene lowers her cup. Her fingers tremble almost imperceptibly. “Did you sleep poorly, sweetheart? You look pale.”
The word sweetheart cracks something inside my chest. I watched this woman break in my first life, her grief turning her into a shadow. Seeing her alive and whole feels like looking at a ghost in reverse.
I swallow. “I… had a strange dream.”
She softens instantly.
Elmira clicks her tongue. “Dreams. At his age all he does is sleep and complain.”
Naomi rolls her eyes. “Can we not do this at breakfast?”
Anton mutters without looking up, “If the boy wants attention, he should earn it.”
The words hit me harder than expected.
They all talk about me like I’m air.
Or worse like I’m already gone.
It’s jarring but familiar.
This is exactly how the family spoke of Kairo Damaris II in the stories.
He was loved by his parents, but the extended family?
They always treated him like a decorative obligation.
I slip into my seat quietly.
Alex leans toward me, whispering behind one hand: “Told you they were in a mood.”
Selene reaches to pour me juice, but Kairo I touches her wrist gently, stopping her. He pours it instead, sets the glass in front of me with a gentle smile.
It knocks the breath out of me. I don’t know how to exist in front of this version of him. Not when I knew the broken man he became, Not when I know the empire he built and the dynasty he would allow to kill me.
A fork clatters sharply.
Elmira narrows her eyes at me. “Well? Are you going to greet us properly or keep staring like a stunned kitten?”
Heat rushed up my neck as Kairo II’s instinct would be to shrink, apologize, fold into himself like a kicked dog but Adrian’s instinct is to bare teeth.
Both instincts collided all at once.
So I settle for something in between. “Good morning.”
“That’s it?” Naomi scoffs. “No wonder you keep getting ignored.”
My grip on the table tightens. Alex snorts softly, like he’s enjoying the spectacle.
Kairo I exhales slowly. “Enough. All of you.”
The table goes silent but only because he commanded it, not because they mean it.
Selene reaches for my hand. Her fingers were so warm. “Kai, love… how do you feel?”
How do I feel?
Dead. Alive. Wrong and Borrowed.
Like my soul was shoved into someone else’s timeline.
“Different,” I say quietly.
She frowns in concern.
Kairo I studied me, eyes sharp, assessing, calculating. He sees more than the others. He always did. In my first life he saw through every executive, every scheme, every false smile.
If anyone could sniff out a soul that doesn’t belong
it would be him.
He opens his mouth and the dining room doors slam open.
Everyone straightens instinctively.
A man steps inside.
Tall. Broad shoulders.
Presence like a storm.
Cold eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses.
Power rolling off him in waves that silence even Naomi’s perpetual boredom.
Alder Damaris.
The patriarch.
The architect of the empire.
The man who made the Damaris name synonymous with power and fear.
He walks in with the weight of a king surveying his kingdom.
His gaze sweeps the room and then lands on me.
Every hair on my body stands on end.
He stops behind Kairo’s chair, folds his hands behind his back, and says in a voice cold enough to carve ice:
“Stand up, boy.”
Alder said it like a verdict, and my legs obeyed before I could stop myself..
The room goes still as my cousins freeze mid-blink, adults hold their posture like statues carved for a funeral procession.
Alder Damaris V studied me with a calmness that strips the air of its warmth.
His gaze crawls over my face inch by inch, slow enough that I feel naked beneath it.
When he steps forward, the silence tightened like a noose.
His eyes narrowing at the slightest fraction.
“There it is,” he murmurs.
A murmur meant for me alone.
A murmur not meant to be understood as cold needles race down my spine.
Alder tilts my chin up with one finger.
“You look.… different …. today.”
His spat.
“Your eyes,” he continues, “doesn’t match your age.”
My gut constricted so hard, I felt nausea at the base of my throat.
He leans closer, inspecting me like a puzzle piece he didn’t approve the carving of.
Then quietly, He questioned:
“Tell me, Kairo…”
A pause that feels like a blade resting on my pulse.
“…what did you see the night you died?”
Time stopped. At least for me as the room collapsed into a ringing void.
No one gasped or reacted.
Because no one else understands what he just said.
But he watched me so close, as if waiting for a crack in my expression.
His hand tightens just slightly on my jaw.
Enough pressure to warn me I cannot lie.
“Don’t disappoint me,” Alder whispers.
“Not again.”
Alder releases me and steps back, but his stare doesn’t soften.
If anything, it sharpens like he’s looking at a ghost wearing his grandchild's skin.
He turns, speaking loudly enough for the room.
“Kairo begins his duties at tomorrow.
No mistakes.”
Then he pauses in the doorway.
And without looking back:
“Some boys stay dead.
Make sure you’re not one of them.”
- Writer
