Gary took a shaky breath. "You tried to tell me. You tried to make me understand that Brenda was manipulating me, that you would never hurt our family. And I wouldn't listen. I was so angry, so lost in this new identity, this new past, that I couldn't see the father who was right in front of me. The one who raised me. Who taught me how to throw a baseball. Who sat up with me all night when I had pneumonia. Who... who was always there."Gary finally looked up, and Philip saw the sheen of unshed tears in his son's eyes. It undid him."I let the ghost of a mother I never knew blind me to the living father I had," Gary continued, his voice breaking. "I pushed you away when you were trying to pull me out of the fire. I accused you of things that must have cut you deeper than I can imagine. And for that... I am so sorry, Dad. Truly, deeply sorry."The silence in the room was profound. Philip rose from the chair, his own eyes glistening. The stern banker's facade had completely crumbled, lea

Robert’s smile was a thin, cold thing. The hardest part was over. The seed of resentment was planted; now, he just needed to water it with a promise. Even though it had to take over a week before he could finally get to break into Wilfreda’s shield of defense against his manipulation, it was worth the wait. Now, all he had to do was to make her buy the lies he was about to tell her, and to swallow them hook, line and sinker.After all, whatever he was hoping to achieve was not because he cared about Wilfreda or her mother, but because it was the perfect plan to achieving his plans in finally laying his hands on the three pieces of the O’ Connor relics even before his brother Richard could get to them.As far as Robert was concerned at that point, it wasn’t a shared mission of him and Richard anymore but of the one who was ready to take the bull by the horn. He had trusted Richard to do something about their situation with Steven back then but Richard did not do anything about it, and

(Few moments earlier)It began with a shout, the sound of a scuffle outside her door. A gunshot rang out, shockingly loud in the concrete space. Then another. Boots pounded on the grated metal walkway. Her door was flung open not by her usual taciturn guard, but by a different man—one of Robert’s, his face a mask of panicked urgency.“The perimeter’s breached! Move!” he barked, not at her, but to someone down the hall.In the confusion, he seemed to forget about her for a critical second, turning to return fire down the corridor. This was her moment. The one Robert had drilled into her. "You see an opening, you take it. You run like hell, and you don't look back."With a surge of adrenaline that felt both terrifying and performative, Wilfreda lunged. She shoved the distracted guard from behind, sending him stumbling into the doorframe. She didn't wait to see if he fell. She sprinted, barefoot, into the cold, dark labyrinth of the warehouse.More gunfire echoed, flashes of light illumi

Susan sat in the chair she’d come to think of as hers, her body angled toward the bed where Steven lay perfectly still, a network of tubes and wires connecting him to the machines that breathed for him, fed him, and testified that he still clung to this side of the veil.The rise and fall of his chest was a mechanical sigh, out of sync with the persistent, green blip on the monitor. That blip was her anchor. As long as it traced its relentless line, hope—however frail—had a heartbeat.She’d been talking to him in a low murmur for the past hour, a one-sided conversation filled with updates he couldn’t hear. She told him about Gary’s strength, about Philip’s steadfast heart. She told him about Chance’s war, about Wilfreda’s rescue. She did not tell him about Robert’s machinations or the Aurelian ring. Some burdens, even in a coma, were too heavy to share.Though far away from the rest of the O’ Connors, Susan was well aware of almost everything that was happening with them. She had men

The news had come as a shock of pure relief, a bright spark in the constant, low-grade anxiety that had become Chloe’s normal. When Chance’s call came—terse, focused, but with a thread of something like hope—telling her Wilfreda was back, safe, at the penthouse, Chloe hadn’t hesitated. She’d cancelled her afternoon meetings and driven straight over.She hadn’t even bothered to ask after Helsin as all her thoughts were only consumed with the safety of Wilfreda.Her disappearance had come as a blow to her. And now that she had been found, she just couldn’t wait to see her and give her a warm embrace.By the time she arrived at the penthouse, it was in its usual state of controlled tension—something she had finally come to be in terms with.In the main living area, Chance stood with Leo and two other members of his security team, their heads bent over a tablet displaying a satellite map. Chance’s posture was rigid, his finger stabbing at the screen. “…grid search from the epicenter out