The morning sun peeked through the cracked blinds of a two-bedroom apartment that smelled like burned coffee and unspoken resentment. Lucas Sebastian stood in the kitchen, still in the same old T-shirt his wife constantly nagged him to throw away.His hands trembled slightly as he poured a fresh cup of coffee, not from the old drip machine, but from the gleaming espresso maker he secretly replaced last week. She hadn’t noticed. She never did. Today was the dayFor five long years, Lucas had played the part of a broke, average man, driving an old Honda Civic, living on takeout noodles, and coming home to a wife who rolled her eyes every time he spoke.But behind the scenes, he controlled empires. He could buy entire cities if he wanted. And for five years, he chose not to. He wanted her love, unfiltered, undriven by money, Instead, he got humiliation.“Are you going to just stand there or are you going to clean this damn place before I get back from work?” Rachel’s voice cut through t

The next morning arrived like a thunderclap, While most of the city stirred awake, a storm was already brewing in the headquarters of Sebastian Holdings.Lucas stood at the center of a private conference room on the 40th floor, sleeves rolled up, dark eyes locked on the projection behind him. The screen displayed names, records, and red flags, an entire internal audit, now laid bare for his personal judgment.Helena sat beside him, flipping through a printed report. “Seventy-four employees connected to Darren’s little side hustle. Some skimming bonuses. Others funneling insider info to rival companies.”Lucas didn’t blink. “And Rachel?”“Used her department budget to buy herself a Cartier bracelet last Christmas.”He gave a small, humorless smile. “Fire them all.”“All seventy-four?”“No exceptions,” he said. “And blacklist them across every subsidiary. Anyone who touched that man or her filth doesn’t deserve a second chance.”Helena nodded. “Consider it done.”Lucas exhaled. This was

Helena Blackwood could barely breathe, Her wrists were bruised from the steel cuffs, her lip split from the last blow, but her eyes still burned with fury, not fear. She’d grown up in boardrooms and battlefields. She wasn’t fragile. But she knew one thing for certain:This wasn’t a ransom, This was a message. Mr. Sable stood across from her, gloved hands folded behind his back, expression unreadable. His two masked associates stood silently nearby. “You’re not here because we want you dead,” he said calmly. “You’re here to force the king to kneel.”Helena spat blood at his feet, Sable didn’t flinch. “Lucas Sebastian has meddled in things far above his paygrade. The Circle tolerated him in exile. But now… he threatens legacy, blood, and order.”Helena lifted her chin. “Then you don’t understand him at all.”Sable’s voice dropped. “On the contrary. We created him.”Lucas’s fists slammed against the steel table, the sound echoing through the cold room, A screen displayed a live drone fee

Location: Black Tower – 5:02 A.M... The silence in the war room was suffocating, The frozen screen still displayed the face of the clone, Lucas Sebastian’s own face, speaking with eerie calm. “Hello, Father. You left us behind. Now we’ve come home.”Helena sat motionless, one hand on her stomach, eyes wide, throat clenched in horror. The baby monitor in her hand crackled with static, dead signal.Rachel stood behind her, equally stunned, clutching the flash drive with white knuckles, Lucas? He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.His entire past the memories he’d buried in locked vaults of his mind were slamming back into him like a freight train, The experiments, The isolation tanks.The voice that whispered commands at night. You are the prototype. You will be the standard. You are not meant to love. You are meant to rule.And now… someone had activated the worst part of that legacy. A living replica.10 Years Ago – Classified Training Compound, “The Black Nucleus”... Lucas was fifteen. Cov

Location: Black Tower – 7:46 A.M... The skyline looked calm, Glass towers glittered beneath the early sun. Traffic moved in rhythm. But inside the Black Tower, chaos was brewing, a perfect storm designed by ghosts in silk gloves.Lucas stepped out of the armored elevator, his son asleep in his arms, Helena beside him. They’d flown back from the Arclight Wastes hours ago, avoiding all public channels, evading all digital traces.But even the air inside the tower felt… wrong, Too still, Too quiet. Then came the first whisper from Monica Vale, head of internal strategy: “Sir… you’re locked out of your own building.”Lucas handed the baby to Helena and rushed to the Vault Core. Screens blinked with corrupted code, Every floor from 12 to 38 was now under external command override.The mainframe had been breached. “I want emergency containment protocols activated!” Lucas snapped.But Monica looked pale. “They were wiped from the system. Someone used your personal access key.”Lucas froze. “