The room felt smaller in every passing second.
Zariah stepped back until her spine pressed against the cold brick wall of the loft. The glow of the laptop screen cast flickering shadows on Dorian's face, sharp angels, unreadable eyes. The same face from the photograph, the same man her mother might have feared.
"Say something" Dorian urged, voice low, almost pleading.
Zariah's throat was dry, she swallowed hard. "You said you didn't know but how is that possible, Dorian? You were part of the same agency. You worked with her. Yoy--"
"I was assigned to protect her. That's all I ever tried to do." His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white. "I didn't know who was behind it. I didn't know there was this."
He gestured to the screen, those damning files, the trial of blood and money.
Zariah wanted to believe him. God, she did but her mother's words echoed louder: Zariah must never trust him.
"Then who" she whispered.
Dorian's gaze hardened. "That's what we need to find out and if my name was in her notes, if someone set me up, I'm going to burn them down.
The fire in his voice both comforted a d terrified her.
They spent the next few hours combing through the files. Each document was a thread in a tangled web: fake companies, foreign banks, coded transactions and a partern hidden between numbers. Payments tied to shell corporations. All of it leading back to one name that kept surfacing again and again.
Blackridge Holdings.
Zariah stared at it, heart racing. "That was one the check my mom got for that last assignment. I remember. She thought the name was strange.
Dorian's jaw tightened. "Blackridge has connections everywhere. Including the people I work for or I thought I worked for."
The weight of it all crushed down on them. Every step her mother had taken, every step they had taken us monitored, controlled and twisted.
As dusk fell, Dorian stood at the window, watching the street below. Zariah remained by the laptop, reading through the final file on the drive.
A name jumped out.
Nova Quinn.
Her breath caught.
"She's listed here. Payments made. Why would she --?"
Before she could finish the thought, Dorian's phone vibrated against the desk. A single text. No sender.
"Leave it alone or she dies next"
Who was "she?"
Nova ? Or her?
The game was changing and the players were closing in.