Chapter 5 Beneath The Surface

I stared at Andre.

"Are you saying... you're going to kill him?"

He didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

I could see it in his eyes-the shift. The monster moving beneath the surface of the man.

Cold. Calculated. Final.

"You don't have to do this," I said, voice low.

He moved toward me, slow and steady, like a tide I couldn't outrun. "You think I'm doing this for you?"

I flinched. "No."

"You think I'd risk war with the Saranovs just to protect a pretty liar playing dress-up in my dead wife's clothes?"

I wanted to hit him.

But he was right.

I wasn't Elena. I wasn't important.

I was leverage.

And now I was compromised.

"Nikolai's been circling me for years," Andre murmured. "This was always coming. You just gave him the excuse."

My breath hitched. "Then let me fix it."

His brow arched. "You?"

"Send me to him."

He studied me like I was made of glass and fire.

"Why would I trust you not to flip sides?"

"Because I'm still here, aren't I?"

The silence between us was electric. Fractured.

Then, with maddening calm, Andre walked to his desk and opened a drawer.

He pulled out a phone-burner-style, matte black.

He handed it to me.

"Call him. Set the meeting."

"What do I say?"

"Say you want to confess."

My hand closed around the phone. Cold sweat coated my skin.

"And if he kills me?"

Andre leaned in, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Then I'll burn every last Saranov asset to the ground. Starting with his family."

Nikolai agreed to meet.

Private. Discreet. A rooftop garden café closed for renovation, overlooking the edge of the city.

I wore black. No makeup. No mask.

He was already there when I arrived.

A single espresso at his table. Two men at the edge of the roof pretending not to be guards.

"Maureen," he said with a knowing smile.

I sat across from him.

"You know," I said softly.

"I knew the second you looked at me."

"Then why haven't you told the world?"

He stirred his espresso.

"Because I'm curious."

I waited.

"I want to know what kind of woman volunteers to become a ghost. To be possessed. To wear another woman's skin for a man like De Luca."

"I didn't volunteer."

"No?"

He tilted his head.

"You didn't fight very hard either."

I said nothing.

"Tell me something, Maureen. Do you know how Elena died?"

My stomach twisted. "What?"

"She didn't disappear. She didn't run. She was silenced. I don't have proof. Not yet. But I will."

His eyes locked on mine.

"And if you stay in that penthouse too long, you will be too."

My voice shook. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I like broken things," he said.

"Because I want you to bring Andre down from the inside."

My heart hammered in my chest.

"You want me to spy on him?"

"Isn't that what you're already doing?"

"No."

He leaned forward. "Are you sure?"

I stood.

"I'm not your weapon, Nikolai."

"No," he agreed. "You're Andre's."

I left without finishing the coffee.

My head spun with his words.

He killed her.

Was it true?

Had Andre silenced Elena?

Had I been sleeping beneath the same roof as a murderer?

Andre was waiting when I returned.

"You met him," he said.

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"To recruit me."

He smiled like he already knew.

"And what did you say?"

I met his eyes.

"That I belong to you."

A pause.

Something shifted in his stare.

Then he moved, crossing the room in three long strides before pressing me up against the wall.

"You really shouldn't say things like that," he growled, voice dark and molten.

"Why?"

"Because I might start believing you."

His mouth crashed against mine.

Rough. Hungry. Possessive.

Not like a man protecting an asset.

Like a man staking a claim.

And when his hand gripped my hip and yanked me closer, I knew I was already lost.

To his lies.

To his violence.

To his world.

Later, as I lay in his bed-his fingers tangled in my hair, my body still echoing with his touch-I whispered the question I hadn't dared ask before.

"Did you kill her?"

His breath hitched. Just slightly.

Then he whispered, "No."

But his eyes didn't match his voice.

And neither did the silence that followed.

I stared at the ceiling in Andre's penthouse bedroom, my pulse still racing from the night before.

He said he hadn't killed Elena.

But lies sounded better when whispered against bare skin and sealed with kisses that left you breathless.

The weight of his arms around me had felt like a cage and a safety net all at once.

And the sickest part?

I didn't want to move.

The morning light was cruel.

It painted the truth across the sheets, across my skin, across the bruises he left on my hips-proof of ownership, not affection.

Andre was already gone by the time I opened my eyes, his side of the bed cold, his absence louder than his presence had ever been.

I sat up slowly, reaching for the silk robe at the edge of the bed, and tried to shake the dream that had clung to me all night.

Elena.

Standing over me.

Whispering a warning I couldn't remember.

The penthouse was quiet-too quiet.

I padded into the kitchen to find Selene waiting, arms crossed, tablet in hand, expression deadly.

"What?" I asked.

She didn't bother with pleasantries.

"You're trending."

My blood ran cold.

Selene tapped a video and shoved it toward me.

Security footage.

Me. At the rooftop café. With Nikolai.

My body stiffened.

"Someone leaked it?"

Selene didn't answer. She didn't have to.

Her silence said everything.

"He had me followed."

"Of course he did. You're Andre's weakness now."

"I'm not his weakness."

She laughed, sharp and cruel. "You're not his wife, but you sleep in her bed. You wear her jewelry. You parade at his side. That makes you a weakness."

I stared at the footage again.

Me and Nikolai. Talking. Leaning in.

It didn't look like a threat.

It looked like betrayal.

"What does Andre know?"

Selene's lips thinned. "He knows enough. He's just waiting to see what you do next."

I found him in the study.

Behind a massive desk, phone to his ear, suit tailored to perfection, the skyline behind him glowing like fire.

I didn't knock.

He looked up once-briefly-then ended his call.

"So," he said, voice cold, "care to explain?"

"I told you everything," I said, stepping inside.

"And yet, you met him in secret."

"I didn't know someone would be watching."

He rose slowly. Like a storm.

"Everyone is always watching, Maureen. Especially him. Especially me."

My stomach twisted. "You think I'm working with him?"

He rounded the desk. Closed the distance between us in three predatory steps.

"I think you're too smart to be this careless."

"And I think you're too paranoid to see I've done everything you've asked."

He gripped my chin between his fingers, tipping my face to his.

"Not everything."

A flash of heat. Fury. Something deeper.

"You said you believed me when I told you I didn't kill her," he murmured.

"I did."

"Then prove it."

"How?"

His mouth brushed my cheek-close, dangerous.

"Find out what Nikolai knows. And bring it to me."

The next day, I returned to the rooftop café.

Nikolai was waiting.

"Back so soon?" he asked, pouring tea as if we were old friends.

I sat without answering.

"You're playing a dangerous game, little dove," he said, voice low.

I hated the nickname. Elena's nickname.

"I'm not playing anything. I just want the truth."

"You want to know if Andre killed her."

I nodded.

"And you think I have proof?"

"You said you were close."

He leaned back in his chair.

"There was a safe. In her flat. She used to hide her recordings there. Diaries. A burner drive."

"And?"

"Gone. Wiped clean two days after her death. Guess who owns the building?"

My heart pounded.

"Then it's gone."

"Maybe not."

He slid a photograph across the table.

A USB drive. Black. Unmarked.

"I have a copy."

"What's on it?"

His eyes glittered. "Something that would destroy Andre. But I don't give that kind of thing away for free."

"What do you want?"

He leaned forward. "Access. To the De Luca servers. I need files on a real estate transaction happening in the Emirates. Something he's keeping off the books."

"I can't-"

"Then you'll never know what really happened to your sister."

I didn't sleep that night.

Andre came home late, smelling of bourbon and blood.

He didn't speak.

Just stripped off his jacket, poured a drink, and stared out the window like a war was already unfolding in his mind.

I watched him from the doorway.

"You don't trust me anymore," I said quietly.

He didn't turn.

"I don't trust anyone."

"Then why keep me here?"

He looked over his shoulder.

"Because you make the lies believable."

The next morning, I found the server room.

Buried beneath the estate. Guarded. Locked.

I hesitated for almost an hour outside the double steel doors.

Was this it?

Was this the moment I sold my soul to learn what Elena died for?

But then I remembered Nikolai's voice.

You'll end up just like her.

And that decided it.

I slipped past the security checkpoint using the duplicate key Selene had unknowingly left in her office.

I reached the terminal. Plugged in the drive Nikolai gave me.

Downloaded the files.

And walked out shaking.

When I returned to my suite, Andre was waiting.

Sitting in the dark.

Holding the drive.

"Looking for this?" he asked softly.

My heart stopped.

"How-"

"Selene checks every key card log. You think I wouldn't know you broke into my servers?"

He stood slowly, stalking toward me.

"After everything I've done for you-you steal from me?"

"I had to know-"

"Know what?"

"If you murdered my sister!"

The silence was like a knife.

Then Andre grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into his study.

Threw the drive onto the desk.

He plugged it in.

And opened the file.

We both watched the footage in silence.

Elena. Screaming. Crying.

Begging someone-off camera-to let her go.

She said names. Locations. Secrets.

She mentioned Andre's father. Money laundering. Weapons shipments. Blackmail.

And then-

A shot.

The screen went dark.

I gasped.

Tears blurred my vision.

"She knew too much," Andre said, voice low.

"You said you didn't kill her."

"I didn't."

"Then who did?"

He looked at me.

Dead in the eye.

"My father."