DEVOUR ME, MR. KANE

Chapter Eight

Her mother was alive.

Or had been.

Seven years ago, standing outside a burning building, smiling at someone off camera like she had somewhere important to be. Elara sat with that photograph on her screen and felt something crack open in her chest that she didn't have a name for yet.

She was nine when her father sat at the kitchen table and told her.

Gone. Just gone. Like her mother was a light someone had switched off and there was no point discussing the switch.

She had cried for three days. Then she had stopped because her father needed her to stop and her brother was only two and somebody had to hold things together. She had been holding things together ever since.

Seventeen years of holding things together and her mother had apparently been alive for ten of them.

She put the phone face down on the bed.

Picked it up again.

Put it down.

"Elara."

She hadn't heard Damien come back in. He was standing in the doorway with his jacket off now, sleeves rolled, looking at her the way he sometimes did when he thought she wasn't paying attention. Like she was a problem he hadn't finished solving.

"Sit down," she said.

He sat. No argument. That alone told her something.

"You knew about my mother."

"Yes."

Just that. No cushioning. No sorry for your loss. Just yes, clean and direct, because that was how he delivered things he knew would hurt.

She appreciated it and hated it at the same time.

"How long?"

"Eight months." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes on hers. "Her name appeared in the property records when I was tracing the acquisition. I ran a background check. Found the death certificate first. Then found the discrepancies."

"What discrepancies?"

"The certificate was filed six weeks after she supposedly died. Most are filed within days." A pause. "The doctor who signed it retired immediately afterward. Moved abroad. Hasn't practised since."

Elara's mouth went dry.

"She faked her death."

"Someone faked it for her." He held her gaze. "Whether she knew about it or not is something I haven't been able to establish."

She stood up. Sat back down. Stood up again because sitting felt like accepting something and she wasn't ready to accept anything yet.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I needed you focused on Harlow. Not on this."

"This is my mother."

"I know."

"She could be alive right now. She could be somewhere right now and you sat on that for eight months and you pulled me into your building and your contracts and your war and you said nothing."

"Yes." Quiet. Steady. "That was a calculated decision and I won't pretend otherwise."

She laughed. Short and not funny at all.

"A calculated decision." She shook her head. "You are unreal."

"I know that too."

He said it simply. No defensiveness. No justification. Just acknowledgment, like a man who had made peace with being a particular kind of person and wasn't going to apologize for it today.

She hated that she understood him.

She hated that understanding him didn't make her angrier.

"Where is she?" Elara asked.

"I don't know."

"Best guess."

"Whoever moved her did it carefully. No financial trail. No address history. No social media, obviously." He paused. "But the photograph was sent to you by our unknown contact. Which means whoever is warning you knows where she is."

Elara looked at her phone.

Same unknown number that had sent every warning. Walk away while you can. Nina didn't fall. She jumped. And now her mother. Standing outside a building three weeks before a fire that killed a woman who looked like Elara.

She typed one message.

**Who are you?**

Sent it.

Watched the screen.

Three dots appeared immediately.

Her heart lurched.

Then the dots disappeared.

Nothing.

She threw the phone onto the bed.

"I'm going to that lunch with Harlow," she said.

"I know."

"And you're going to tell me everything you know about my mother before I walk into that room. Every single thing. No calculations. No decisions about what I can handle." She looked at him directly. "Deal?"

He studied her for a moment.

Something moved across his face. There and gone.

"Deal," he said.

She nodded. Turned toward the window. The city was fully awake outside, loud and indifferent and golden in the morning light. She pressed her palm flat against the glass and felt it cold under her hand.

Her mother had been alive.

Possibly still was.

And somewhere in the middle of Damien's seven year war, she had disappeared so completely that even he couldn't find her.

Her phone buzzed.

She grabbed it.

The unknown number again. Not words this time. Just a location pin.

Dropped sixty seconds ago.

She looked at the coordinates.

Then at Damien.

"This address." She turned the screen toward him. "What is it?"

He looked at the pin. His face changed. Fast and unmistakable, the only time she had ever seen genuine alarm move through him before he could stop it.

"How did you get that?" His voice dropped.

"Same number. Just now." She watched him. "Damien. What is that address?"

He stood up.

Grabbed his jacket.

"It's where I grew up," he said. "Nobody knows that address. Nobody alive." He was already moving toward the door. "Get your shoes."

"Why? What's there?"

He stopped.

Turned.

"Someone left something there for you to find." His eyes were different now. Stripped of the usual control. Raw underneath. "Something they didn't want me to know about first."