It seed this was the longest statent Davis had ever made without pause. With it, Ethan felt his mory of Davis's clipped speech refreshed.
But recalling the reason behind it, he swallowed hard.
Davis's gaze burned into him. "Who in this universe could ever make peace with being treated less than human? When his worth is trampled on, denied, and ignored?"
His voice lowered into a dangerous calm. "Tell , Ethan, what peace could there be in that?"
It seems this was the longest statent Davis had ever made without a pause. With it, Ethan felt his mory of Davis's clipped speech refreshed.
Ethan lowered his head further. He dared not et Davis's eyes. He felt it was ridiculous.
For all his skill in investigation and the vast resources at his disposal, he had never been able to uncover his own origin. Not even his mother's na let alone his father's. It was as though he ca from nowhere.
The only record he had was his first na, Ethan, given by the matron at the orphanage.
His surna ca from his adoptive parents, but with Jessica's request that he sever the toxic ties with them, Davis had asked him to take the Allen na instead.
And still, there was nothing or trace of his true biological identity. Was he really born in no ho? Had his father never t his mother?
Sotis it made him laugh bitterly. Other tis, it nearly drove him to tears. More than once he had felt the urge to tear apart the thick mist that shrouded his life in mystery.
Ethan's head swirled with a myriad of thoughts and silent whispers. His shoulders tensed, his heart thumping hard as he struggled to find answers to this question he had always avoided in the ti past until now.
"Ethan, take a look at this."
Davis's voice cut through his haze as he handed over an envelope. Ethan took it with trembling hands, his gaze flicking between Davis and the sealed flap.
Davis gave a curt nod, turning back to his computer. With Sylas's case now in motion, there was still so much to do..
Leaning back, he exhaled slowly and closed his eyes, drafting a ntal schedule.
His trip had paused much of his work, and while he was away Jessica had cleared most of the work backlog.
That left only a few pressing tasks before the official comncent of the research, sothing he had lined up with top researchers he'd managed to secure during his journey.
During that trip, he had made the best use of his ti as contracts were signed, the team was ready, and Davis was certain success was only weeks away.
For now, he needed to:
Compile evidence against Sylas and forward them to the police chief, giving him a heads-up before the ti of arrest.
Resu duties and review changes Jessica made in the company before the accident.
Visit the hospital.
Pay a visit to the Santiagos.
While he thought, Ethan's voice broke through, his voice crackling, his fingers curled into a fist. "Sir… is this true?" His reddened eyes flicked from the docunt in his hand to Davis.
Davis slowly opened his eyes, a deep breath escaping his lips. "I found it in the black market so I bought it over."
"This can't be so fiction right?" his eyes glued to this boss of his whose superior-subordinate relationship over the years had tamorphosed to brotherhood.
Davis shrugged. He had been as shocked as Ethan when it was ntioned and the docuntation brought forward.
It also fueled his rage towards Sylas. Who would have thought that his greed wasn't just one that started on a whim, it wasn't sudden rather it was rooted, twisted, inherited.
"Are you saying Sylas Louis knew I was his nephew, an heir of the Louis family…yet never once acknowledged ?"
"Do you want his acknowledgent?" Davis retorted coldly.
Ridiculous. The thought was laughable. And yet, to know he had a link to the Louis family was sothing Ethan had never imagined…not in ten lifetis.
His eyes dropped back to the pages, struggling to digest the story and understand the facts .
Years ago, Greg Louis, patriarch of the Louis family, had two sons…Patrick and Sylas. But Sylas was born of Greg's mistress, Freda, a maid. That made him illegitimate.
Freda clawed for recognition, but Greg always held her back. With Stella, his legal wife, still alive, she had no place. Even after Stella's death, Greg refused to make her status official.
The resentnt festered. Freda endured sneers and mockery from the family, her son was treated as less than a true heir.
At that point, Freda discovered Greg was never ready to accept her into the threshold of the Louis family.
With Greg falling gravely ill, whispers spread that Freda herself had a hand in it.
Patrick, as the elder, took over as head of the family. But tradition required him to marry before he could fully assu the role.
So Patrick married Stella in haste, and soon after, Sylas was relegated to his assistant. Together they managed the Louis family.
When Stella conceived, Freda and Sylas felt threatened, they saw their future and position in the family slipping.
If the child was male, the rules were clear: thirty-five percent of Greg's shares would pass to him. Consud by fury, Freda resolved to end the bloodline and secure Sylas's place.
On the night Ethan was born, Patrick was at the company's gala. He rushed to the hospital upon hearing Stella was in labor, leaving Sylas to oversee the event.
When the child was delivered, Patrick called Sylas in joy. And Sylas asked the sex of the child. Patrick happily told him "He is a boy."
Sylas face twisted with rage, his hand tightened furiously against the telephone. He called his mother Freda informing him of the developnt.
Patrick ca back to get food for his wife and on his way back to the hospital, his car crashed, an "accident" that killed him instantly.
Stella, having waited for him grew restless and anxious was crushed when Freda herself brought the news. Overco with grief, Stella suffered a cardiac arrest and did not survive.
Sylas and Freda announced to the family that Patrick and Stella's child had also died. In truth, they abandoned the infant at the gates of rciful Hearts Motherless Babies' Ho.
To mask their cri, they adopted a girl, Vera. "The loss of Patrick's family is unbearable," they told the Louis clan. "To console ourselves and fill the vaccum of the loss, we adopted Vera."
"
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~Allen Group~
anwhile, at the Allen Group, Luke arrived earlier than usual. Instead of heading to his office, he went straight to the archives.
By chance, his subordinates had intercepted fragnts of old files and the events of the years past previous night.
To his shock, it wasn't just fragnts but they had been total different and they contradicted everything he had believed for years.
After going through the files, he picked a file from the archive and returned to his office.
He settled down into his seat with trepidation coursing through his heart as he dreads the possibly revelation in the docunt.
Carefully, he began going through it line by line but his chest tightened as each line revealed a darker truth.
The final straw was that the accident was a planned one. At this point, Luke felt he had been a fool for years.
The experint had been tampered with, and more crooked was its failure was ant to discredit the project and hand it to the rival group.
His parents' deaths were not misfortune or planned by the Allen family themselves rather they had been caught in the crossfire of a grand sche against the Allen Group.
Several thoughts crashed into him:
Should I still bla the Allen Group for their death?
Who should pay this price?
Had Davis discovered the truth?
Or had he been blind, like ?
He read through the file one more ti, his eyes scanned docunt and settled on the last page. "Soone paid a huge price to keep the research safe and aware from the rival group. Where it is now cannot be said." He read out aloud.
Then his gaze fell on the na of the orchestrator. His hand clenched hard against the paper until it crumpled. His gaze cold as he stared at the na;
Sylas Louis.
"Heartless," he whispered, eyes cold. "I was wrong all along. It wasn't an accident…it was a well thought out plan. A sche for his own gain."
Now he understood Sylas's hostility when Siri had co to them after the accident.
He drew a long breath, whispering the truth aloud as though he wanted to morize the details.
"My parents died in a plot to ruin the Allen Group. The culprit was Sylas. Desmond and Sylas tead up to embezzle the welfare fund. And the hardest truth of all…the Allen Group itself was innocent."
His lips curled into a cold bitter smirk. "I have been fooled for a long ti but now I think it's ti I visit Sylas Louis properly. This debt I have to settle finally."
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