I watched the CCTV footage for what must have been the hundredth ti, my eyes tracking every flicker of movent on the screen. Each replay thickened the tension, as if the shadows themselves were conspiring against . And there it was undeniable proof. Lilly wasn’t just another viper slithering around our world,she had truly set her sights on Carla.
The clip burned itself into my mind Carla cornered, her voice steady despite the danger. "What do you gain from killing ?" she asked, her words like tempered steel cutting through the suffocating silence.
Lilly’s reply ca with a sly smile, the kind only born of malice. "I gain nothing from your grandfather. But there’s soone willing to pay handsoly for your death."
I froze the footage. Her words echoed inside like a shot ricocheting off walls. If old man Dean hadn’t sanctioned this, then who had the resources, the gall, and the motive to hunt Carla under my protection?
I leaned back, dragging a hand across my face before letting my gaze drift across the room. The shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, rows upon rows of leather-bound files and brittle pages, more archive than library. Each spine carried a secret, neatly catalogued, indexed like a history of sins. My finger traced the L section until it landed on the na that had already poisoned my thoughts.
Lilly.
The dossier was cold in my hand, heavier than paper should ever feel. I had only flipped the first page when the door creaked open.
Dean stepped in. His weathered eyes flicked from the file in my hand to my face, reading with a calmness that felt rehearsed. Without a word, he lowered himself into the chair opposite, the weight of years bending his shoulders.
"You knew Lilly and Carla were sisters," I said. The words ca out low, taut, each one sharpened by restrained fury. "And you never thought to tell ?"
For a long mont, he said nothing. The silence was thick enough to smother the room. Finally, Dean exhaled and spoke, his voice gravelly, each syllable final.
"Leave tomorrow. Go back to the State. Forget this world and stick to the one your father gave you."
My brow arched, and heat surged beneath my skin. "Excuse ?" I leaned forward, voice edged with steel. "This concerns my wife, old man."
His jaw clenched. He looked away, as though the truth was too ugly to et my eyes. "Did you expect to reveal that Lilly is Carla’s cousin? That her hatred runs so deep she’d rather see Carla buried than breathing?"
The word hit like a gunshot. Cousins? My disbelief cracked through the room. "Dalton had only one child."
Dean shut his eyes briefly, as if bracing against a ghost of the past. When he opened them, guilt lingered there, raw and unmasked.
"Dalton and I... we were friends once. Brothers, even. We married best friends, won bound to us by loyalty and history. But everything changed when the truth ca out. Our wives... they weren’t just won with secrets. They were daughters of rival mafia clans. Bloodlines steeped in vendetta."
His voice faltered. Yet the confession spilled, steady as a blade slicing open an old wound. He spoke of fractured alliances, of nights when bullets replaced words, of vendettas passed down like heirlooms. Each detail painted a clearer picture; this wasn’t just hatred. It was generational. A legacy of war that had found its way into Carla’s veins, a tragic inheritance she never asked for but could never escape
"My father’s death," I cut in, my voice sharp enough to split a stone. "You told it was my uncles."
Dean’s face collapsed under the weight of mory. His hand trembled slightly as he rubbed his temple, like the truth itself burned his skull.
"They were complicit," he admitted, each word dragging regret behind it. "But Dalton’s son pulled the trigger. And I..." his voice cracked, "...I looked away. A pact was made. Survival over truth."
My chest tightened, the ground tilting beneath . Heat surged in my veins until my hands clenched into fists.
"And the experints on Carla?" My voice dropped, low and venomous. "You knew."
The silence that followed was deafening. It pressed against my ears harder than a gunshot, harder than the footage I’d just replayed. He didn’t answer because he didn’t have to. His silence was guilt carved into flesh.
"You’d rather I run?" I let out a bitter laugh, hollow and jagged. "You who dragged into training, broke until I bled, built into a weapon just so I could survive? And now you want to forget?"
Dean’s eyes glistened, not with tears, but with sothing worse a pleading. A quiet desperation to be understood. But I was past rcy.
"You let my father die. You let Dalton’s sins stand. You’ve lived a coward’s life, old man."
The words cut him, though he didn’t flinch. His reply ca soft, almost a whisper, a truth he’d tried to bury under decades of silence.
"Her father won’t bow to threats. If he could use his own child as bait..." His gaze finally locked with mine, steel against steel. "...do you think he’d hesitate to claim another life?"
The room seed smaller then, suffocating, the air thick with unspoken wars. I stared at him, the man who had shaped , lied to , betrayed and realized that every secret he kept wasn’t just about survival. It was about preparing for the inevitable war I was already standing in.
"My father never stopped fighting," I shot back, voice steady with conviction. "Neither will I. If I find out you had a hand in this, you’ll lose more than my respect, you’ll make your enemy."
The words cut the air between us, final and sharp. I didn’t wait for a response.
As I left him drowning in silence, the weight of our fractured bloodline hung heavy over . This was just the beginning.
"Young master," the doctor bowed as I entered the room where Carla lay. The sterile air reeked of antiseptic, yet tension thickened it still.
"How is she?" My question trembled beneath the mask of composure I forced on my face.
"I was inford about her condition. Since she has amnesia, her mories can return at any mont or bit by bit. But those are rely my hypotheses. I’d advise a brain scan, that’s the only way we can know what’s happening in there." he said with a bow before excluding himself
Her stillness in the bed struck harder than Dean’s confessions. In that mont, one truth seared into : I’d tear apart every secret, burn down every alliance, before I let anyone take her away from .
Her skin was warm beneath my hand as I lowered the fabric. The scar stretched pale and ugly across her back, and my chest tightened. I had always suspected. Now I had to be sure.
The surgical blade trembled in my grip. If I was wrong... No. I couldn’t afford doubt. With a sharp slice, the wound reopened, and blood welled hot and fast, soaking the sheets. The sll of iron filled the room. My fingers pressed into the cut, slick and trembling, until they touched sothing cold and foreign.
A grain-sized tracker. I held it up between my bloodstained fingers, rage twisting in my gut. What kind of father carved a leash into his own child?
"Nix," a voice broke through the haze. Tom stood frozen at the door, the box in hand. His eyes flicked to the tracker, then to my bloodied hands. "You..."
"She’s been tagged like an animal," I snapped, laying the device on a handkerchief. "Her father’s eyes were on her the whole ti."
Tom’s jaw tightened, but his voice was calm. "Destroying it will only tip him off. And with Lilly gone, he’ll move faster. We need Carla’s mories back before he makes his next move."
I rose, eting his steady gaze. "The old man’s favor is gone. We’re on our own."
"Then we move in silence," Tom said simply. "It’s better that way."
His composure steadied . But before I could reply, he reached into his coat pocket and handed a blue envelope stamped with a crest I hadn’t seen in years.
"One of the maids said it was for Nathan," he explained.
Nathan. My na from the academy days. Only a handful of n still alive would know it. My pulse quickened. I dismissed Tom and turned back to Carla, working quickly to clean and bind the wound I’d carved into her. She stirred faintly but did not wake.
When she was safe, I slit the envelope open. Inside, a single slip of paper.
10 am. The mall.
The ssage was sparse, but heavy, like a gun pressed to my temple. My hand tightened around it. Whoever sent it wasn’t just calling out they were pulling back into a world I had once tried to bury
I looked one last ti at Carla. Her breath was shallow, her skin pale, but she was alive. And I would keep her that way.
I slipped the note into my pocket and stepped into the corridor. The silence of the house pressed in on , thick with secrets and unspoken threats. Every second between now and ten a.m. could decide whether I brought answers back to her or never returned at all.
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