Chapter 10 Ghosts Beneath the Dust #2
Workers.
Supervisors.
Management.
Now he suddenly looked incapable of offering the same thing.
The contradiction irritated him.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Painful.
Elias rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.
A nervous gesture Viktor had noticed before.
Usually when conversations became personal.
Usually when emotions got involved.
The realization made his chest tighten further.
The younger man looked trapped.
Cornered.
As though every available choice would end badly.
Viktor hated that expression.
Because he knew it.
He had worn it himself.
Too many times.
"I didn't know."
The statement appeared out of nowhere.
Viktor frowned.
"Didn't know what?"
Elias closed his eyes briefly.
The movement looked exhausted.
Defeated.
"I didn't know about Luka."
The name sounded strange coming from him.
Too familiar.
Too personal.
Viktor immediately noticed.
A small warning bell rang somewhere in the back of his mind.
"You wouldn't."
Another pause.
Another hesitation.
The younger man seemed to be fighting himself.
The struggle was visible.
Every emotion crossed his face openly.
Guilt.
Fear.
Regret.
Something close to grief.
Viktor suddenly remembered every conversation they'd had over the past several weeks.
Every question.
Every investigation.
Every report Elias had been searching for.
The realization returned.
The kid had been looking for something.
Maybe he'd already found it.
"What did you discover?"
The question landed heavily between them.
Elias stared at the ground.
His voice sounded quiet when he finally answered.
"Enough."
Not enough.
Not even close.
Viktor's patience began slipping.
"Enough what?"
The younger man looked up.
The guilt in his eyes hit like a punch.
"Enough to know it shouldn't have happened."
The answer should have felt validating.
Instead, it made everything worse.
Because Elias wasn't speaking like an investigator anymore.
He was speaking like someone carrying responsibility.
The distinction mattered.
A lot.
The knot in Viktor's chest tightened further.
Suddenly every detail from the past few weeks started rearranging itself.
The special access.
The unrestricted movement around camp.
The way management tolerated behavior they normally wouldn't.
The way Carl Henderson treated him.
The way supervisors watched him.
The pieces existed.
Viktor just hadn't connected them.
Until now.
A cold feeling settled over him.
"Elias."
The younger man's expression shifted immediately.
Fear.
Actual fear.
The reaction told Viktor he was finally asking the right questions.
"Who are you?"
Silence.
The wind continued moving through the grass.
Far below, machinery echoed faintly across the construction site.
The world kept turning.
Neither man seemed capable of moving.
"Viktor—"
"No."
The word came harder than intended.
Sharper.
His pulse had begun pounding.
A terrible suspicion was taking shape.
One he desperately wanted to be wrong.
"Answer me."
Elias looked devastated.
The sight should have softened Viktor.
Instead it made him angrier.
Because suddenly he understood.
Or thought he did.
The younger man's voice barely rose above a whisper.
"My name is Elias Hart."
The statement felt absurd.
They both already knew that.
Viktor's jaw tightened.
"I know your name."
Another pause.
Another hesitation.
Then the final piece fell into place.
The younger man's shoulders slumped.
Like a man accepting an unavoidable sentence.
"My father owns the company."
The world stopped.
For one suspended moment, Viktor couldn't process the words.
Couldn't make sense of them.
The wind vanished.
The sounds below disappeared.
Everything narrowed.
"My father is Richard Hart."
The sentence landed like a physical blow.
Viktor stared.
Waiting for the correction.
The explanation.
The joke.
None came.
Only silence.
And the expression on Elias's face.
That expression told him everything.
The younger man wasn't lying.
Wasn't exaggerating.
Wasn't mistaken.
Richard Hart.
The name echoed inside Viktor's head.
Over and over.
Richard Hart.
The man who ignored safety complaints.
The man whose company buried reports.
The man connected to Luka's death.
The man Viktor had hated for years without ever meeting.
Richard Hart.
Elias's father.
A dozen memories slammed together.
Their first meeting.
The special treatment.
The investigations.
The questions.
The access.
Everything.
Every piece suddenly fit.
The realization hit harder than anger.
Harder than grief.
Betrayal.
Pure and immediate.
The younger man stepped forward.
"Viktor, please—"
"No."
This time the word sounded rough.
Broken.
Viktor took a step backward.
Then another.
He couldn't breathe properly.
Couldn't think properly.
Every instinct screamed the same thing.
Distance.
Get distance.
Elias looked horrified.
"I wanted to tell you."
"When?"
The question exploded out of him.
"When?"
The younger man had no answer.
Because there wasn't one.
Not a good one.
Not one that mattered anymore.
Weeks.
Weeks of conversations.
Trust.
Confessions.
And all this time—
All this time.
Viktor laughed.
A terrible sound.
One completely devoid of humor.
"Jesus Christ."
"Elias."
The younger man looked like he might cry.
Viktor couldn't bear looking at him.
Not right now.
Maybe not ever.
The grief he'd shared.
The memories of Luka.
The night beneath the stars.
The storm.
The kiss.
Every moment suddenly felt poisoned.
Not because Elias meant to hurt him.
Because he hadn't trusted him enough to tell the truth.
The irony felt almost unbearable.
The man demanding honesty from everyone around him had hidden the biggest truth of all.
"Elias."
The younger man's voice cracked.
"Please let me explain."
Viktor stared at him.
Really stared.
Trying desperately to reconcile the man standing before him with everything he'd believed.
Everything he'd felt.
Everything he'd wanted.
Shock slowly gave way to something darker.
Something colder.
Betrayal.
The expression on Elias's face shattered whatever remained of Viktor's composure.
Without another word, he turned.
And walked away.
Behind him, he heard Elias call his name.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Viktor never stopped.
Never looked back.
Viktor walking toward the distant construction camp, leaving Elias standing alone in the field while the truth hangs between them like a wound neither knows how to heal.
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