Page 57 of His To Erase

My jaw flexes, but I say nothing.

“And then someone else came. I don’t remember who. Just… that there were people with him. I remember being thrown in the back of a car.” She blinks. “I think I kicked someone.”

My pulse spikes, as I grit my teeth. “When?”

She shrugs. “I woke up somewhere else with new clothes and no idea where I was. I could tell I’d been drugged, so I panicked and ran. I found a bus stop, bought a ticket to Colorado with the cash in my pocket and never looked back.”

I swallow the taste of rust in my mouth but stay standing. She’s waiting for me to comfort her, share something back, maybe even meet her there, but I don’t.

Because I fucking can’t. If I open my mouth, I’ll tell her too much.

So I stay quiet.

Every word she says is a breadcrumb, and I don’t have the luxury of letting my feelings interfere—not if I want to get to the end of this. The movie continues to play, and I sit down beside her.

Her head tilts toward the screen, eyes half-lidded as the music swells—like something tragic just broke all over again. Then, slowly—without a word, without even looking at me—she leans sideways until her shoulder brushes mine.

At first, I think it’s nothing, until she exhales. Her head drops gently against my arm, her body relaxing in increments, like it finally found a place safe enough to unravel.

She’s asleep.

I don’t fucking move. I can’t even breathe. She just… folds into me like it’s instinct. And it wrecks me in a way nothing ever has, because I didn’t earn this, I don’t deserve the trust that came with it.

Still—I sit there, for almost an hour, watching her chest rise and fall in steady rhythm. Her mouth is parted just enough to steal my attention, and her hairs a mess across her cheek. And all I can think is—how the fuck am I ever supposed to let this go now?

I move slowly, careful not to jolt her as I shift my arm under her legs and scoop her into my chest. She’s weightless in a way that guts me—like she’s been carrying so much for so long that even sleep can’t anchor her.

Her head lolls against my shoulder, and for one fucked-up second, I let myself imagine this is normal. That she’s mine in some quiet, unbroken way. I make it to the bedroom without a sound, easing her down onto the mattress and she stirs as the blanket slips over her legs.

“M’sorry,” she mumbles, voice caught somewhere between sleep and storm.

I go still.

“What?”

Her lips part again, barely moving. “I didn’t mean to ruin everything,” she whispers. “I just wanted out.”

Ruin everything…?

The words slice through me, and my pulse staggers. Something cracks deep in my chest.

Holy fuck.

What if I got it wrong? What if this whole time—this obsession, this twisted game—I’ve been chasing a ghost?

I back out of the room like I’m standing on a minefield, softly clicking as the door shuts.

Then I’m heading straight to my office. My hands shake as I rip open the locked drawer and pull out the file I swore I understood.

The one I’ve dissected, cross-referenced, and memorized.

Now I flip it open and start from the beginning.

If what I’m thinking is true—if those dates are really missing—then everything I built this mission on is about to fucking implode.

I lean back in the chair, cracking my knuckles, as I stare down at the open file like it’s mocking me. I’ve read it a hundred times and it still doesn’t tell me what the hell happened to her or who she was before she stopped being her.

I pull my phone out of my pocket, and scroll to the only name I trust and he picks up on the third ring.

“Tell me this is about a body,” he says by way of hello. “Because I’m elbows deep in a Sudoku puzzle and I’m starting to think the nine is lying to me.”

“I need you to run something.”

“You always need me to run something. I’m not your secretary. I want dental. PTO. Maybe a puppy.”

“Travis.”

“God, you’re sexy when you’re serious. Who is it?”

I don’t answer right away and the silence stretches.

“I need everything, we missed something.” I say. “Background. Employment. Education. Last name. Location history. All of it.”

There's another pause, then his tone shifts. “Oooh. You’ve got your patented I might murder someone but also might cuddle voice on. I like it.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying not to snap. “There’s something off. The records we pulled are too clean and too short.”

“That sounds like half your exes.”

“Travis.”

“Alright, alright. Jesus. What are you not telling me?”

I don’t answer. I’ve been watching all the wrong things. She hides it well, but not from me. I’ve seen enough people break to know what it looks like when someone’s already halfway shattered before you ever touch them.

I lean back, jaw tight. “I don’t think she knows who she is.”

Travis lets out a low whistle. “You always find the fun ones.”

“She remembers things that don’t make any sense.”

Travis exhales again, and this time it’s different. No jokes left. No sarcasm. “Okay. Shit.”

I lean forward, elbows braced on the desk, staring at her file like it’s a loaded weapon. It’s a smokescreen. Every time I dig, I find just enough to make me think I’ve reached the end. But I haven’t. Not even close.

“Something happened before she got here. Something that made her disappear inside her own skin. I’m willing to bet he was involved.”

A pause.

“You think she’s one of his?”

I close my eyes and the silence that follows answers for me.

“Jesus, Steven.”

I don’t respond to that, and he pauses. “You need me to start from the beginning?”

“No,” I say quietly. “I need you to start before the beginning.”

He whistles again. “You’re looking for a ghost.” Another beat of silence, then, “You’re in deep.”

“Just find me the truth.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he says. “But if I end up dead, you’re giving the eulogy.”

Click.

I stare at the file for another full minute before slowly closing it. Whatever he finds better not confirm what I already suspect. Because if she was never part of this—if she’s innocent…then I’ve made a colossal fucking mistake.

I lean back in the chair, running both hands down my face, and I feel the pressure building in my skull like a countdown. The rage. The guilt. The fucking doubt. An hour later my phone’s buzzing and I answer on the first ring.

“You’re not gonna like this,” Travis says—no sarcasm this time.

I sit forward. “What’d you find?”

“It’s not what I found—it’s what’s missing. And before you say it, I know. I can’t believe I didn’t catch this sooner.”

I say nothing, my pulse steady as my brain starts to calculate, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I ran her ID, birth certificate, and social. All of it checks out on the surface. But the timestamps are off. Backdated. Clean.”

“You think it’s fake?”

“It’s sloppy work, actually. Someone rushed it. It looks like they needed her to exist on paper more than they needed her to disappear. You following?”

Barely. But the sick twist in my gut says yes.

“She ever mention where she grew up?”

I pause, jaw tight. “Just said she moved here from... somewhere.”

“I cross-checked the birth certificate against hospital records in the state listed. No match. Whole thing’s smoke. But…”

I sit up straighter. “But what?”

“I did find something older. School enrollment, elementary level. Facial recognition gives me an 89% match—same eyes, same jawline, even back then. It's her.”

“And then?”

“And then nothing. Like the entire family vanished off the grid. But here’s the thing—they didn’t disappear.”

“Meaning?”

“After they moved, the whole family started using a new last name. No court filing, no traceable paper trail. Just—new IDs. New address. New state.”

I lean back slowly, watching the shadows shift across the wall.

“Her parents changed their identities?”

“Looks that way. And quietly too. No criminal flags, no obvious heat.”

“And Ani?”

“Regular life. She had a job, an apartment, normal stuff. But then she quits her job out of nowhere. No digital trail. Just drops off for almost two years.”

A cold breath drags down my spine.

“After that, she shows up in Colorado. Same face. Different last name with just enough paperwork to rent an apartment and get hired slinging drinks.”

I stare at the file again like it might suddenly confess something.

“You think she remembers any of it?”

“I think she remembers enough to be dangerous. But not enough to connect the dots.”

There’s a beat of silence on the line. Then Travis exhales, “You starting to think she’s not the collateral?”

I look toward the hallway at the soft glow under the door, the quiet reminder that she’s still here, curled up in my bed.

“Fuck.”

I drag a hand over my mouth as the truth settles like a blade between my ribs.

I’ve been treating her like she’s just a piece on the board, but if Travis is right—if the missing years, the name change, the ghost trail all add up—then Ani didn’t get caught in someone else’s crossfire.

Which means I’ve been digging in the wrong place, watching the wrong angles, and she’s been bleeding for it the entire time.

Goddamn it.

I’ll have to pull back. Rework every angle. Rethink every move I’ve made since the moment I laid eyes on her. But more than that—I need to know who else knows.

There’s more at play than I accounted for. Too many shadows. Too many missing pieces I didn’t bother to chase—because I thought she was part of them.

“FUCK.”

I slam my palm against the desk, wood rattling beneath the weight of it, and drag a hand down my face, jaw tight enough to crack.

I’ve been so goddamn focused on revenge I didn’t see what was right in front of me.