THE LAST CON

CHAPTER THREE- The Second Page

Evelyn's POV

Neither of us moved.

The archive was so quiet I could hear the steady ticking of Damien Blackwood's watch, a small, precise sound that was almost irritating.

He stood six feet away, completely at ease, as though we weren't inside a restricted archive, as though I wasn't holding classified information in one hand and a weapon in the other.

He wasn't afraid or angry. He was simply waiting.

Men like Damien believed patience was a weapon.

The dangerous ones knew exactly when to use it.

Project Lazarus rested against my palm. It looked like a simple file, nothing more than an ordinary collection of documents.

Yet somehow it felt heavier than anything I'd ever stolen.

"You've got thirty seconds."

One corner of his mouth lifted.

"You always begin conversations by threatening people?"

"I usually don't find strangers waiting for me inside locked rooms."

"Fair point."

His calmness bothered me, not because it was fake, but because it wasn't.

I studied him the way I studied every person before deciding whether they were worth trusting.

Everyone had something, a weakness, a habit, or a lie they repeated too often. Sooner or later, everyone revealed something without realizing it.

Damien Blackwood gave away almost nothing.

I took in every detail: a tailored black suit, no visible weapon, no earpiece, and not the slightest hint of panic.

His shoes were dry despite the rain outside.

The coffee beside his chair was still warm.

He hadn't been there long, perhaps ten minutes or even less.

Just enough time to know I would arrive.

"You were expecting me."

"I was looking for you."

"They're not the same thing."

He gave a slight shake of his head. "No."

His eyes remained fixed on mine.

"Looking for you became necessary."

The word necessary settled between us. He hadn't said profitable or convenient. He had deliberately chosen necessary, and I hated words like that because they usually meant someone had already decided my life belonged to their plan.

"I don't know you."

"You know enough."

"I know your company owns this building."

"And?"

"And I know you're a billionaire who should be calling security instead of having a conversation with the woman who broke into his archive."

A faint smile appeared.

"But you're still here."

My jaw tightened.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

"You've been studying me."

"No," he said calmly. "I've been studying what happened to you.”

His gaze dropped briefly to the file.

"I've been studying what happened to you."

That answer was too careful because careful people were often the most dangerous.

"Who framed me?"

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he tilted his head slightly.

"That's the question you've been asking all night."

"Because someone murdered Adrian Wolfe using my identity."

"Yes."

"So why isn't it the right question?"

"Because you're looking at the crime."

He stepped closer.

"I'm looking at the reason."

Silence filled the archive.

I hated that he made sense.

Mostly because I had already reached the same conclusion.

Someone hadn't just wanted Adrian Wolfe dead.

They wanted me blamed.

They wanted me exposed.

They wanted me standing exactly where I was now.

"You know something."

"I know several things."

"Such as?"

"That someone spent months learning you."

His eyes sharpened.

"Your habits. Your movements. Your weaknesses."

A cold feeling settled beneath my ribs.

“They copied your face.” After a brief pause, he added, “But that wasn't the impressive part.”

I stared at him.

"What was?"

"They copied you."

The words landed harder than they should have.

Because I had noticed the same thing.

The woman in the surveillance footage hadn't just looked like me.

She moved like me.

She reacted like me.

She had stolen pieces of myself I never knew I revealed.

"How do you know my name?"

He tilted his head slightly. "Your real one?”

My fingers tightened around the file.

"There are dozens of identities attached to you."

His voice remained calm.

"Evelyn Sloane is simply the identity you answer to—for now".

The room felt colder.

"For now?"

A faint smile touched his lips.

"For now."

I watched him carefully.

"You've done your homework."

"I've been doing it for six years.”

That made me pause. Six years. It was long before Adrian Wolfe, before tonight, and before I became the most wanted woman in the country.

"What were you looking for?"

"You."

The answer came too quickly.

I didn't like that.

"Why?"

"Because someone erased your past."

A beat of silence passed before he continued, "And I wanted to know why.”

My fingers tightened around the file.

"Who hired me?"

"I don't know."

I searched his face.

Nothing changed.

"Who killed Adrian Wolfe?"

"I don't know."

"Convenient."

"It's the truth."

"Then what do you know?"

Damien looked at the file before meeting my eyes again.

"I know whoever created this situation needed two things," Damien said, raising one finger. "One dead minister and one woman willing to chase the truth no matter where it led." His eyes locked onto mine. "You.”

I didn't answer because he was right.

Curiosity had ruined every normal life I could have had.

It had also kept me alive.

Damien nodded toward the file.

"Everything you've been searching for begins on the next page."

I didn't move.

"That's where you tell me the truth?"

He smirks. "No. That's where the evidence starts.”

His expression remained unreadable.

"That's where the evidence starts."

That was the first thing he'd said all night that I believed not because I trusted him, but because evidence didn't care who delivered it.

Slowly, I opened the file.

The paper beneath my fingers felt ordinary, almost disappointing.

I turned the page.

The first thing I saw was a photograph.

An old hospital photograph.

A woman sat against white sheets, exhausted but smiling faintly as she held a newborn baby against her chest.

The photograph had faded with time.

Yet the important details remained clear: the hospital bracelet around the infant's wrist, the date, the medical stamp, and the words written beneath the photograph.

I leaned closer.

My breath caught.

Because the record didn't say what I expected.

It didn't say deceased.

It didn't say missing.

It didn't say abandoned.

It read, Female infant—born alive. I read the words again. They weren't a mistake or a rumour; they were an undeniable fact.

My fingers tightened around the page.

"Who is this?"

Damien didn't answer immediately.

His eyes remained on the photograph.

"The beginning of the lie."

I looked at him.

"What does that mean?"

"It means someone decided your story needed a different beginning.”

My heartbeat slowed.

I looked back at the photograph.

The woman holding the baby was a stranger.

I didn't know her.

I had never seen her face before, yet somehow she felt like a missing piece of my life.

I turned the page.

Another photograph waited beneath it. It captured a different woman in another hospital room with a different story to tell. This time, I didn't need Damien to explain.

I knew the name written beneath the image.

My fingers went cold.

Because it was the name of the woman who raised me.

My fingers stopped moving.

For the first time in twenty-six years, I questioned the one truth I had never thought to doubt. Was the woman who raised me, the woman I called my mother, the person who gave me life or the person who stole it?