Chapter Three — Wolves at the Door

The journal trembled in Elodie’s hands.

She didn’t realize she’d stopped breathing until her lungs burned for air. The paper beneath her fingertips was delicate, almost translucent, like skin stretched too thin over secrets that had never been meant to surface.

> I told him I’d already been eaten alive once…

Her mother’s voice, inked in steady strokes, echoed in her mind like a ghost refusing rest.

Elodie flipped to the next page. Then the next. The words unraveled slowly—rage pressed between lines of regret, love twisted in the barbed wire of betrayal. Names. Places. Transactions. Patterns.

The deeper she read, the clearer the shape of the past became.

And the more it looked like Damon’s.

“You weren’t just involved,” she whispered to the empty room. “You were in it.”

She didn’t turn when she felt him enter. The air shifted—colder, sharper—like it always did when Damon Blackmore stepped too close.

“You found it,” he said.

No denial. No surprise.

Only inevitability.

She closed the journal, not facing him. “Did you leave it for me to find?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

His silence said everything.

She turned, voice low. “Because you wanted me to see what you did. What you didn’t stop. What you inherited.”

Damon’s jaw flexed. “Because you needed the truth. And because I need something too.”

She laughed, dry and bitter. “You don’t need anything, Damon. You take.”

He stepped forward. “I need you to survive this.”

Elodie stared at him, unsure if it was warning or plea.

Then the phone in her pocket buzzed.

A message. Unknown number.

> Tick, tick, Mrs. Blackmore. You opened the wrong door.

Her blood ran ice-cold.

Damon’s eyes locked on hers. “What did it say?”

She didn’t answer. Just turned the screen to show him.

His face changed.

Not fear. Something worse.

Recognition.

“Who is it?” she demanded.

He didn’t speak.

He couldn’t.

She shoved past him, the journal clutched to her chest. “You said you didn’t bury her. But someone did. And now they know I’m looking.”

“Elodie—”

“I’m not your pawn, Damon. Not anymore.”

The elevator doors opened. She stepped inside.

He didn’t follow.

Didn’t try.

And that told her everything.

---

The next morning, she went back to the only place left that still felt like her own: the little garden apartment in West End she hadn’t touched since the wedding.

Dust covered the windows. Air stale. A forgotten life paused mid-sentence.

She locked the door behind her and sat on the floor.

Only then did she cry.

Not for herself. Not for Damon.

For the mother who’d warned her in silence, and the girl too blind to hear it.

Hours passed. She didn’t move.

Not until the knock came.

Sharp. Measured.

Three precise taps.

She froze.

Another knock. Slower this time. More deliberate.

She rose quietly, moved toward the door, heart in her throat.

Peered through the peephole.

Nothing.

She waited.

Waited.

Then—

A white envelope slid under the door.

No return address. No markings.

She hesitated.

Then picked it up, peeled it open.

Inside: a photo.

Grainy. Old.

Her mother. And a man.

Not Damon.

But someone she’d seen before. In Blackmore Holdings. In the boardroom.

Caleb Harland.

And on the back, one sentence written in block letters:

> YOUR MOTHER DIED FOR A SECRET HE KEPT.

Elodie stared at the words until they blurred.

Then her phone buzzed again.

Same unknown number.

This time, a video link.

She tapped it.

The screen lit up with grainy footage.

A woman—brunette, mid-thirties—tied to a chair. Bruised. Blood at her temple.

Her voice cracked through static:

> “If you’re watching this… Elodie, run. Don’t trust—”

The screen cut to black.

---

Elodie stood in the center of the room, heart pounding like war drums.

She didn’t know who to trust.

But she knew where to start looking.

And it wasn’t at Damon.

It was at Caleb Harland.

Elodie discovers that her mother may have been silenced for a secret Caleb Harland kept. A threatening video message arrives, deepening the mystery and escalating danger.

Elodie didn’t sleep that night.

She sat on the floor until dawn crept between the blinds in thin, gray ribbons. The photo lay beside her, the journal open at her mother’s last entry. The weight of it all pressed down—words, threats, ghosts.

She wanted to scream.

Instead, she picked up her phone and played the video again.

Not because she didn’t believe it.

Because she needed to memorize every frame.

The woman wasn’t her mother—but the way she said her name, the urgency laced with heartbreak, sent Elodie’s pulse racing. Someone had filmed her. Someone wanted Elodie to see it. But why send it now?

And why Caleb Harland?

She remembered him vaguely—his sharp suits, his colder smiles. One of Damon’s senior partners. Polished. Political. The kind of man who never raised his voice but made everyone around him feel smaller.

Her mother had known him.

That much was clear.

But how deep did that knowledge go?

She stood and pulled on the same jeans from yesterday, tied her curls into a knot. She didn’t care how she looked. She just needed answers.

And there was only one place to start.

---

Blackmore Holdings Tower

10:47 AM

Elodie walked through the lobby like she hadn’t just received a threat. Like her heart wasn’t a grenade ticking in her chest.

The receptionist blinked when she saw her. “Mrs. Blackmore—”

“I’m here to see Mr. Harland. Is he in?”

The girl faltered. “He’s not… he didn’t mention an appointment.”

Elodie’s smile was tight. “Then it’s good I’m not asking permission.”

She strode past security and hit the executive elevator. Her keycard still worked. Apparently, Damon hadn’t cut her off—yet.

The top floor was silent. Too silent.

She moved down the hall toward Caleb Harland’s office, heels clicking with purpose.

His assistant’s desk was empty.

The door slightly ajar.

Her gut twisted.

“Elodie?”

She turned.

Damon stood at the other end of the hallway, suit immaculate, face unreadable.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

She squared her shoulders. “That’s funny. I was about to say the same thing to Caleb.”

His jaw tensed. “He’s not in.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Elodie—”

She turned on him. “Don’t. Don’t try to stop me, Damon. Not unless you want to tell me what the hell happened between him and my mother. Or who that woman in the video is. Or why someone thinks I need to run for my life.”

Silence.

Then a voice behind her.

“You’re asking the wrong man.”

Elodie spun.

Caleb Harland stood in his doorway.

Unruffled. Calm. And smiling.

Like he’d been waiting for her.

“Come in, Elodie,” he said smoothly. “We have so much to talk about.”

Damon took a step forward, but she raised a hand.

“No. I want to hear it from him.”

She walked past Damon and into the office.

The door shut behind her with a quiet click.

---

The space was dark-paneled, cool, and eerily quiet. Caleb motioned toward a leather chair across from his desk. She didn’t sit.

He did.

“My condolences,” he said lightly, “on your recent discoveries.”

“You knew my mother.”

His eyes flickered. “I knew of her. She was… an ambitious woman. Too ambitious.”

Elodie gritted her teeth. “That’s not what the photo said.”

He smiled. “Ah. So you got that.”

“And the video. Who is she?”

Caleb steepled his fingers. “Someone who got too close to something dangerous. Like your mother. Like you.”

Elodie crossed her arms. “Then tell me. What was so dangerous that my mother had to die for it?”

He leaned back, voice dropping.

“There are things even Damon doesn’t know. Things buried so deep in this company’s foundation that anyone who tries to dig them up…” He trailed off. “Well. You’ve seen what happens.”

She swallowed. “So she was silenced.”

Caleb’s smile vanished.

“She was warned. She didn’t listen.”

Elodie stepped forward. “And me? Am I being warned too?”

“No, Elodie.” He stood now. Taller than she remembered. Colder. “You’re being offered a choice.”

A manila envelope slid across the desk toward her.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A way out.”

She opened it.

Inside: a passport. A bank card. A one-way ticket to Prague.

Her name on all of it.

She stared at him.

“You want me to run?”

“I want you alive,” he said simply. “There are wolves circling. You opened a door you can’t close. This isn’t about your marriage anymore. It’s about survival.”

Her hand clenched around the envelope.

“And if I say no?”

He tilted his head.

Then, gently, reached into his drawer.

Pulled out something small.

A pendant.

Silver. Faded. Familiar.

Her mother’s.

She nearly choked. “Where did you get that?”

“She gave it to me. The night before she died.”

His voice was quiet now.

“She was going to testify. About what the company did. About what I did. She thought if she left it with me, I might protect you.”

Elodie couldn’t breathe.

“She begged,” he continued. “Begged me not to let the truth destroy you.”

Tears burned her eyes.

He held out the pendant. She didn’t take it.

“I don’t want your protection,” she whispered. “I want justice.”

Caleb’s gaze turned hard.

“Justice,” he said, “will get you killed.”

---

Later that night

Location: Unknown

A man in shadows watched the video of Elodie confronting Caleb. Surveillance footage. No audio. Just her expression. Her fury.

He smirked.

“Just like her mother,” he murmured.

Then turned to the figure beside him.

“Send the next message.”

The other man nodded.

On a burner phone, he typed:

> YOUR MOTHER NEVER MADE IT TO THE COURTROOM.

NEITHER WILL YOU.

Then attached a photo.

Elodie.

Taken today.

Through the glass of Caleb’s office window.

The wolves aren’t at the door anymore.

They’re inside the house.

Then attached a photo.

Elodie.

Taken today.

Through the glass of Caleb’s office window.

Elodie didn’t see the flash.

Didn’t know the photo had been taken until the next message came through.

Her phone buzzed as she walked out of the building, the chill of Caleb’s warning still crawling down her spine.

> YOUR MOTHER NEVER MADE IT TO THE COURTROOM.

NEITHER WILL YOU.

And below it—

A photo.

Her.

Taken from above.

Through the window of Caleb’s office.

She stopped dead in the street. The people around her blurred. The noise, the light, the weight of the day—it all receded under the cold snap of realization.

They weren’t watching from the shadows anymore.

They were inside.

Inside Blackmore.

Inside her life.

Inside her head.

She turned in a slow circle, scanning the glass high-rises, the rooftops, the faces. Anyone. Everyone.

Nothing.

Then—

Another buzz.

> RUN, ELODIE.

NEXT TIME, IT WON’T BE A WARNING.

She backed away from the sidewalk, ducked into the first alley she could find, heart thundering.

She should’ve felt fear.

But all she felt was clarity.

This wasn’t just about the past anymore.

It was about survival.

She yanked the pendant from her pocket, clenched it in her fist so tightly the chain cut her palm.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Let’s hunt.”