Caught In The Act
1110 Words
CHAPTER 4
“Some boys stay dead,” Alder Damaris murmurs.
“Make sure you’re not one of them.”
His voice landed like a cold hand around my throat, and my heart skipped.
I swallow. My knees want to give out, but somehow I manage to stand straighter.
“I’m alive,” I whisper.
Alder’s eyes narrowed just slightly as he turned.
He examined me like a chess piece he doesn’t remember placing on the board.
“Are you?” he asks.
The question shouldn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t have weight.
But it does. Enough to press against my ribs.
He turns away, dismissing me with a flick of his hand.
“Go. Your family is waiting.”
Family. Right.
The Damaris mansion is loud the way expensive places are with voices echoing off marble floors, shoes clicking like tiny declarations of superiority, the air full of money, privilege, and unspoken wars.
A maid opens the double doors to the family brunch room, and the hum of conversation dips for half a second as I step in.
Fourteen pairs of eyes slide over me.
Most don’t bother to hide the disappointment.
Aunt Helena, Alder’s only daughter, raises her glass without looking away.
“Well, look who decided not to remain in the afterlife.”
“Helen,” her husband murmurs in warning.
“What?” she says lightly. “The boy nearly died yesterday. No harm in acknowledging a miracle.”
I force a polite smile and take the only empty seat left, between Helena and Lucian.
Lucian glances at me once, expression unreadable, then goes back to slicing his steak with efficiency that feels… aggressive.
“So,” Aunt Helena continued, voice syrupy. “You gave us all quite the scare yesterday. Your father was beside himself.”
She says “beside himself” as if she finds the idea amusing.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Mm.” She sips her mimosa. “You should be more careful. The last time someone wasn’t…”
Her husband nudges her sharply under the table.
She blinked, straightening fast, as Helena uncomfortably cleared her throat too quickly.
“What happened last time?” I ask.
Lucian’s fork pauses mid-air.
Aunt Helena’s eyes widened.
Then she smiles, too fast.
“Oh, you know.” She waves her hand. “Family scandals, little accidents. Growing up in this family is practically a survival sport.”
Not the answer she was about to give. Not even close, but the entire table moves on like nothing happened.
Her lips tighten the tiniest bit, almost like she regrets the slip.
Or like she fears it.
I keep my gaze down, hands under the table, fingers curling into fists.
After brunch, Lucian stands from the table, already speaking to someone on the phone. “I’ll be in Father’s west office. Tell him I’ll send the proposal in an hour.”
Aunt Helena’s slip is still chewing at my brain, but there’s something about Lucian’s tone, it was sharp and too controlled just like when I was Adrian Cole.
He had a voice that pulled like a magnet.
The hallway leading to the west office is quiet, the carpeting thick enough to swallow footsteps as I follow at a distance.
Stopping just before the door, staying close to the wall.
I heard low, tense voices inside.
Lucian: “We both know Father is stalling because of Kairo I’s return.”
A man I recognize his voice as one of Alder’s senior advisors responds:
“Kairo has no claim. He was never groomed. You, on the other hand”
Lucian cuts him off.
“And yet, Alder delays the announcement. Twenty-five years old of hard work. Vice-President position pending. And still nothing final.”
“If Alder is unsure, we can sway…”
“No,” Lucian says. His words were harsh and clipped.
“Influencing Alder directly is impossible. But the… incident yesterday? Would have been the convenient timing only if we knew his son would be the only one in the car at that moment.”
My heart kicks hard.
Incident?
Lucian lowers his voice further.
“If Kairo destabilizes the line of succession, we fix it before it festers.”
Fix it. Before it festers.
My stomach knots as someone moved toward the door.
Shit.
I slide backward quickly, ducking behind a tall antique cabinet just as the door opens.
Lucian steps out, still speaking quietly into his phone.
“No loose ends, understood?”
He walks past me.
I stay pressed to the cabinet until his footsteps fade.
They’re planning the succession.
And apparently… My father and I are a threat.
To what extent?
Enough that he’s talking about “incidents” and “fixing” things.
Enough that Aunt Helena almost revealed someone wanted me dead.
I don’t know which version of me they mean, Kairo I ?, Kairo II ?
Or the Kairo that died at fifteen…
I slip deeper into the west wing, away from the main halls.
The corridors here look older, dust on the floorboards and dim lighting.
While rounding a corner, my foot knocked something loose, it was an uneven tile, slightly raised.
I crouch, pressing my fingers beneath the edge.
It lifted and behind it?
Was a metal latch.
I pull and a small recessed cabinet pops open inside the wall.
Inside, a black file. No label. No markings.
Just heavy and ominous weight.
I take it out, hands trembling.
The file opens with a soft crack. The first page hits like a punch:
DAMARIS INDUSTRIAL - INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT (CONFIDENTIAL).
Project Asterion Exposure Timeline.
My breath stops. Right there on the page.
I flip faster.
Pages of financial discrepancies.
Unauthorized transfers.
Illicit subcontractors.
Evidence of Damaris-funded sabotage operations and paper companies
all stamped, flagged, and signed off by
Cassian Damaris
Lucian’s Son and three board members.
My hands shake violently as I stare down at evidence and probably one of the many reasons why I was murdered.
A sound breaks through and I hear a thud of footsteps behind me.
Freezing with the file still open in my hands, a hand clamps down on my shoulder. Hard.
I spin around.
Jareth Damaris stands there, expression unreadable. He had a restructuring surgery and turned into a trans-woman.
Man, I met this crazy bastard in my previous life, and she turned out to be one hell of a party rocker
He glanced once at the file.
Then at me.
Jareth leaned in, grip tightening over my shoulder.
“I know what you’re hiding,” he whispers.
Jareth slowly smiled.
“Let go of that file, cousin.”
- Writer
