Chapter 13 CALLAN
CALLAN
“You came,”
“I said I would.”
I took a sip of the coffee in my hand. Lukewarm, the steam long dead.
My jaw worked as I set the cup back down, my fingers betraying me with a slight, irritated twitch.
I picked up my phone next, scrolling through it, searching for details I wasn’t even sure of. Then a low sound of frustration escaped my lips as I placed the phone back down, hand raising to my head, finger pressing against my temple.
It had been four days. Four days of tearing my house apart. Four days of interrogations that went nowhere. Four days of doors slammed shut, fingers pulling at hair, ties, and patience ground down to the bones. Still, nothing.
The ledger was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t misplaced. It didn’t go on a walk with a plan to return. It was…gone.
Every lead looked promising until it collapsed into another dead end. Every soldier had something to say, until their mouths would swear ignorance with the same rehearsed fear.
Whoever took it wasn’t an outsider. No, they knew this house, this empire. Every crevice, every rule, every secret door. Someone close enough to understand the weight of that ledger, and bold enough to use it.
A gentle knock came on my office door that was left slightly opened, and my gaze swept across the room to it. But the person couldn’t even wait to be invited in first as a barely perceptible creak echoed when the door was pushed open completely and a soldier stepped in.
Alexei Takharnov.
“Marshal.” His voice was deep and steady, hand raised until his fingers aligned themselves right over his temple.
“Got anything?” I asked, lifting my body off the desk and relaxing into the leather chair.
“No, Marshal.”
Of course. Same reply.
“What’s the way forward?” He folded his arms behind his back, posture snapped into discipline. “We are running out of time.”
I exhaled a deep breath. “I know.”
My fingers drummed steadily on the desk that was littered with manifests, photocopies, numbers circled and crossed out in reds. I’d memorised them all. It didn’t help. Without the original ledger, the gaps stayed gaps, silent and taunting.
“They’ve noticed that we’re hesitating,” he said. “We can’t let them think something is wrong.”
“Are you suggesting we ship without confirmation?” I asked, exhaustion woven into every word.
“No, Marshal.” His tone was firm, but what seemed like unease crept into his eyes. He knew better than to argue. He knew the ledger was anything but just a paper. It was leverage. A proof. That ledger was my empire’s throat, and right now, someone had put a knife to it.
“We keep the manifest,” I instructed, forcing command into my voice while everything beneath it splintered. “Buy us time. Invent a reason convincing enough why that ship must stay where it is.”
“Okay, Marshal.” He nodded.
“We keep searching for the ledger.” I rose from the chair, grabbing my coat and draping it over my arm. My hand went for the coffee only to retract on second thought. Too cold.
“I’ll follow the Torvane lead again,” he offered. “We must have missed something.”
“No,” I declined, throwing the coat over my body. “I’ll handle that. You return to the dock and give the men something to nibble on till we find a way out.”
“Okay, Marshal.”
With a low bow, he whisked around, the door shutting behind him as he left.
I grabbed my phone from the table and left the office, crossing the hall to my suite. I went straight to the drawer beside my bed, pulled it open and retrieved the brown journal hidden inside it.
Flipping to the page marked with ink, I scanned the entry. The last time I’d written was last night. I hadn’t documented anything today.
I sank onto the side of the bed, placing the journal on my lap. I uncapped the pen and began to write.
I had felt the weight of Zaghan’s presence for days now, hovering at the edges of my mind, scratching, grunting, pressing. He was ready to slip out. But I wasn’t ready to let go.
I planned to hold him off until I couldn’t anymore. I hoped to have more days left to fight. Because I wasn’t ready to disappear without giving Elizabeth closure.
If only I could just come out to her with the truth, begged for her to understand me.
If I could just tell her what it was, that sometimes I disappeared and let my twin brother take over my body, maybe she wouldn’t think I was crazy and leave me.
Maybe she would be so sweet and understand that I had no choice.
I wanted to be transparent with her. I needed her to accept me without all my secrets. But I was scared. I wasn’t ready to face a reality where she stopped being mine.
I couldn’t tell her yet. So I wanted to hold Zaghan off a little longer.
I wasn’t ready to disappear on my girl. Until then, until he would finally rip through my skull and take over, I needed a record.
Everything that had happened since the last time he was in control. Every step I had taken. Every mistake.
This was how it always worked. How slipping between bodies had been made seamless.
No one needed to know that two souls occupied this body.
No one could suspect that I was fractured, that sometimes, pieces of my memory went missing.
So I wrote it all down. Every step I took since the ledger went missing.
Every decision I had made, everything I learned and unlearned.
Every secret I had cracked. When my brother would finally take over, he would know what I had done, where I had stopped, what plans I made and what I was hoping to achieve.
Same courtesy applied when roles were reversed. Although I’d love to not have to open the journal every time he was last in control to find a detailed explanation on how his midnight hunting went. How he butchered an innocent person, how their scream of terror tore through the quiet night.
The ledger clearly wouldn’t be found today. If he eventually took over, he needed to know he had a lot of work to do. I did hope that he would succeed where I had failed. That he would find a lead that didn’t dissolve into nothing.
I snapped the journal shut, slid it back into the drawer and stood, exiting the room.
My other phone vibrated the moment I stepped into the corridor
I ignored it.
Another step. Another vibration, longer this time. I stepped into the elevator, dug my hand into my left pocket, fishing out the phone. I lifted it to check the screen.
Her name glowed across it.
For a moment I just stared at it, irritation flaring sharp and hot. Not at her. No, never her. It was at the timing, at the world, at everything trying to pull me in the opposite directions. Away from her.
My fingers slid across the screen, and I took the phone to my ear.
“You’re late,” she said. She didn’t sound angry. At least I didn’t think she was. Maybe tired?
I closed my eyes briefly, cracking them open when the elevator dinged and the doors split apart.
“I know.” I stepped out, barely acknowledging the soldier stationed right outside it.
“You were supposed to be here.”
“I meant to.”
There was a pause.
“You have been meaning to for four days, Callan,” she accused. She was angry. She called me by my name. She always ceased to call me Snow White when she was mad at me.
“I’m sorry.” I felt a twisting in my chest. “Something came up.”
I heard her exhale a tired sigh. “Something always comes up,” she mumbled. “I reminded you yesterday. And the day before. It’s just a movie date. Just two hours of your time. It’s not a big deal.”
“I didn’t forget, Elizabeth. I promise.”
When I stepped out, the car was already parked in the front, door held open for me. I slid in immediately.
“Then why does it feel like you did?” Her voice grew quieter, saddened. And for some reason, that hit closer than it should have.
I leaned my head against the chair as the engine of the car purred to life. The pressure behind my eyes pulsed, slow and insistent. Familiar, like fingers testing the edges of a crack. Zaghan.
“They’re showing it again by 3:30,” she murmured. “Do you think you can make it this time?”
I lifted my hand, checking my watch. It was 2 pm. If I left now, I would be able to make it. But I had somewhere else to be. I needed to find the ledger. Even if I’d fail again, I needed to keep trying.
“I’m on my way,” I said without meaning to.
“Sure?”
No.
“Yes.” Again, I lied. The car was heading in the opposite direction, every hum of the engine a second further away from her, and yet, I lied.
“Okay.” Her tone was lighter now, like the irritation was fading away. “Don’t disappoint me again, Snow White.”
“I…won’t.”
The line went dead after that.
I stared at the screen of my phone for a second longer, listening to the fading echo of her voice, the weight of what I had just promised settling on my chest like a stone.
I had been promising and failing for the past four days.
I’d tell her I would be there, but then I wouldn’t make it.
This was what she didn’t want. Someone who kept disappearing.
Someone who couldn’t even bother to show up.
I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to be the one who stayed.
The one who’d always show up even in the dead of the night.
A heavy sigh escaped my lips, my eyes snapping shut. I needed to show up. I must be there for my Elizabeth. I mustn’t disappoint her again. I mustn’t give her reasons to stop being mine.
The thought of her not being my girlfriend anymore sent a wave of anxiety twisting around my spine.
No! My eyes snapped open.
“Turn the car around,” I commanded, my tone urgent. “We’ll go to Braemont first.”
???
My Elizabeth was waiting outside the theatre when the car pulled up at the front.
Her arms were folded, wrapped in arm warmers the colour of earth.
I had seen her in black and dark blue. And I had noticed the pattern long before I admitted I was paying attention.
She always wore them. Even with her school uniform.