Chapter One
Elle
Some eyes are unmistakable. Not because they're a unique color or shape, but because of the way they look into you, as if cutting straight through your soul. They haunt you like lingering images you can’t wash from your mind, and not in a good way.
I was only a teenager when I first saw the pair of eyes that would taunt and torment me for years.
Even now, at twenty-six, I can still see them—striking, pale ice-gray eyes that look so emotionless and cold it’s hard to believe they belonged to a person.
They more resembled something otherworldly. A ghost.
And ever since I saw those eyes staring back at me all those years ago, I’ve been driven—haunted—by the need to find the man they belong to.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a little over a decade has passed since I watched my mother being gunned down in a back alley of Las Vegas.
Other times, it feels like centuries have gone by, leaving me detached from the trauma I experienced — or at least attempting to be.
But those eyes have never felt far away.
They’ve lingered as if they’re still watching me.
Or maybe it’s because my mind committed them to memory the way a predator memorizes the scent of its prey.
On the night that my mother was shot, she and I had been walking back from the theatre after having just seen a fantastic show.
I can still remember how excited I was talking about the performance while my mother was eagerly listening and smiling along.
Then, without warning, a man appeared at the end of the dark alley before us.
In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been walking in that alley alone.
We should have taken a cab or waited for my dad to get off shift at the police station to give us a ride home.
But we were still high from the show, blind to how dark and foreboding the streets were.
We were just looking forward to getting home, making popcorn, and maybe reenacting the best moments.
We never got to do that, because my mother never made it home alive.
Parts of that night are still a blur, likely because of the trauma I endured.
The therapist I saw for a while said that it’s a common thing for your brain to remember only parts of a traumatic experience and to block out others.
I stopped seeing that therapist after a few months because it wasn’t helping.
I know what I needed, and still need, to move past my trauma and heal, and it isn’t therapy sessions billed at two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
What I need is to find my mother’s killer.
The gunshot is burned into my memory. One second, my mom was smiling. Next, her shirt bloomed red, and she collapsed. The man who shot her turned the gun on me next. I remember the barrel, and the terror locking my body in place. And then—another gunshot.
I flinched, expecting to feel pain, to see blood. But I wasn't the one who was shot. The gunman dropped to the concrete, his weapon clattering beside him.
Behind him stood another figure. His gun lowered. His eyes—stone cold—locked on me for one second before he turned and disappeared into the shadows.
Even though it was years ago, the memory is fresh like it happened yesterday.
I remember chasing him, feet pounding, rage and shock propelling me forward.
But when I reached the end of the alley, there was nothing.
No exit. No man. Just emptiness. As if he’d evaporated into the air itself. Just like a Ghost.
My therapist said it was my imagination. That I created an “antihero” to cope. That I needed to believe someone saved me. But the memories are too vivid. Too sharp.
And now, years later, whispers swirl about an assassin the underworld calls the Ghost. A shadow who kills in silence. A name spoken in hushed voices.
I can’t ignore that.
And if I’m right… then finding him might be the only way I’ll ever uncover the truth about my mother’s death.