Chapter 2 - The Value of Dust
Damian did not move an inch as the woman closed the distance between them.
Up close, she looked far too fragile to be braving a house built on blood money and ruthless ambition.
Her knuckles were faintly stained with black ink, and a smudge of old library dust marked the sleeve of her cardigan.
Yet her gray eyes held a steady, unnerving clarity that Damian had not seen in another human being since before his father’s murder.
Alara stopped three paces away, respecting personal space purely out of professional courtesy rather than survival instinct.
She informed him, in a calm and measured tone, that the humidity in the library’s east wing was currently hovering around seventy-two percent.
She added that if he did not authorize the repair of the secondary climate control unit immediately, half of his family’s nineteenth-century maritime ledgers would be consumed by black mold before November.
Damian stared down at her, wondering if the employment agency had forgotten to warn her about who signed the checks.
He pointed out that most people in this house feared for their lives, while she appeared to be deeply offended by mildew.
Alara offered a faint, dry smile that barely touched the corners of her mouth.
She countered that ghosts and curses did not send debt collectors to a person’s doorstep, nor did they threaten to repossess an elderly aunt’s medical equipment.
She had accepted a three-month contract to catalog and restore the Cross family archives because the fee offered was four times the standard market rate.
Damian studied her face, searching for the telltale twitch of deceit or the calculated innocence of an undercover federal informant.
He had survived three assassination attempts and countless boardroom betrayals by assuming everyone had an angle.
He asked her if she had heard the stories the house staff whispered in the corridors.
Alara did not blink.
She admitted that she had heard at least seven different variations of the curse before she even reached the second security gate that morning.
She noted that human beings possessed a tragic habit of inventing supernatural monsters to avoid looking at the very real, very human ugliness of corporate greed and poor security protocols.
A strange, unfamiliar flicker of amusement passed through Damian’s chest, though his stone-cold exterior remained completely intact.
He told her that the truly valuable records were not kept in the main library where the sunlight could reach them.
They were sealed behind a reinforced steel door in the deepest section of the cellar, a damp stone vault that had not been opened since the night his father’s body was brought home.
He warned her that the air down there tasted like old iron and unfinished business.
May you like
Alara picked up her cardboard box from the floor, securing it against her hip with an easy familiarity.
She looked Damian dead in the eye and told him to give her the key, because unfinished business was her specialty.
