Devious Lies

The past is a master of disguise. But some secrets are written in ink that never truly dries. In the sterile, lightless depths of the St. Jude's Archive, Eli Mercer has built a fortress of paper and dust. He is a master restorer, a man who knows how to fix anything except his own shattered history. He lives by a single, desperate rule: keep the surface smooth and the rot buried deep. For Eli, silence isn't just a habit; it's a survival mechanism. But the silence is shattered when Noah Calder walks in. Noah is everything Eli is not: loud, tattooed, and unapologetically real. He carries a bundle of secrets wrapped in indigo silk and a past that smells of clove and salt air. As Eli is drawn into Noah's world of jagged edges and hidden truths, he begins to realize that the archives he guards are not just filled with history they are filled with leverage. When a series of hidden Polaroids surfaces, Eli finds himself caught in a lethal web of "devious lies" involving his own family, a tragic death on a moonlit pier, and a truth so dangerous it was meant to stay forgotten forever. To save the only person who has ever truly seen him, Eli must do the one thing he fears most: he must break. He must step out of the shadows and face the architecture of his own life no matter how many lies he has to tear down to find the truth. A visceral, emotional thriller about the cost of keeping secrets and the violent beauty of finally being found.