All Chapters of Rise of the forgotten general: Chapter 41
- Chapter 50
70 chapters
The uprising
Mason stood there for a long time after they left, the folder still in his hand. The rain had begun to pour harder, drumming against the glass.When he finally looked down at what Ayla had given him, his pulse quickened. Inside were documents, old photographs, and names, names tied to government contracts, secret programs, and a single symbol drawn in red ink.It was the same insignia Cole once told him to watch for a serpent coiled around a sword.Blake hadn’t just killed Ayla to silence her. He was cleaning a trail.Mason closed the folder and looked out at the rain. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled across the city, echoing like a warning.He took a long breath. “You made a mistake, Blake,” he muttered. “You should’ve finished it when you had the chance.”Then, he turned and walked into the storm.Somewhere else in the city, Cole Brady sat by the window, watching the same rain. His phone buzzed on the table. A message from Mason:“It’s started. Ayla’s gone.”Cole’s jaw tigh
The heiress and the shadows
The following evening, the city glowed beneath streaks of gold and violet. The glass towers downtown mirrored the sinking sun, and the sound of luxury engines hummed in the air. A convoy of black sedans turned into the courtyard of The Alcrest Hotel, the kind of place where influence walked in tailored suits and left behind secrets worth millions.Among the guests stepping out that night was Stacy Swiss.She was young, barely twenty four but the air around her made people take notice. She carried herself with a kind of elegance that wasn’t just born from wealth, but from precision. Everything about her was deliberate: the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she hid her thoughts behind a soft, unreadable smile.Her family, the Swiss Holdings, controlled parts of the city’s financial arteries, construction, logistics, high value tech imports. Blake Morgan had long been one of their “favored partners.” What no one knew, not even most of her father’s board, was that Stacy wasn’t jus
Echoes of loyalty
The next morning, sunlight spilled gently through the blinds of Fiona’s small apartment. The golden rays painted the room in a calm hue, though her mind was anything but calm. She had barely slept, her thoughts kept circling back to the unease she’d felt over the past few days.Something was wrong.She could sense it in the way Cole had been quieter than usual. Not cold, but distant, like a man walking through shadows only he could see. He hadn’t said where he was going last night, and she didn’t ask. But she’d felt it. That heaviness in the air before he left, the same one she remembered from years ago, when he was still happy.Fiona sat on the edge of her bed, hands loosely clasped together. She stared at the faint steam rising from her coffee cup.She hated that she could still read him that well.When Cole finally walked through the door later that morning, the tension in her chest tightened. He looked composed, almost too composed. His coat was still damp at the edges, and his ey
The weight of knowing
The next morning came slow. Gray light spilled weakly through the curtains, painting faint stripes across Fiona’s living room. The quiet felt heavier than usual, the kind that hums under your skin when the world feels off balance. Cole hadn’t called. Not a single message, not even the usual “I’m fine.” Fiona sat at the small table by the window, her coffee cold, untouched. Every minute that passed without word from him carved another hollow into her chest. She tried to tell herself he’d handled worse before, that he was careful, trained, capable. But all that logic crumbled against one simple truth: this wasn’t the same Cole anymore. He was different now. Quieter. Sharper. More haunted. The knock at the door startled her. She half expected it to be him, but when she opened it, Mason stood there instead. His jacket was zipped up to the collar, eyes tired but alert. “Morning,” he said, his voice low. She frowned. “You shouldn’t be here. If Cole finds out” “He’ll underst
A place that shouldn’t exist
The room still smelled faintly of burned paper and antiseptic. Fiona’s footsteps echoed softly against the tiled floor as she crossed into Ayla’s old office. The lights flickered when she turned them on, revealing the chaos that had been left behind: overturned files, shattered glass vials, and the faint outline of where Ayla’s body had been removed.Fiona stood still for a long moment, the silence thick and unnerving.This was where it happened. Where Ayla, someone who had once laughed over late night coffee and called her kiddo, had been silenced.She exhaled shakily, then forced herself to move.Ayla had always been methodical. Even in chaos, she hid things well. Fiona ran her hand along the desk’s underside, searching for a false latch. Her fingers brushed against something metallic. She pressed it gently, and a small drawer slid open completely concealed from view.Inside was a flash drive.Her breath caught.She plugged it into the clinic’s old terminal. The monitor flickered to
Lines in the storm
Rain hissed softly against the window. The room was dim except for the dull glow from Cole’s laptop screen. Fiona sat across from him, her hands folded tightly, watching as lines of encrypted code ran past his eyes. He hadn’t spoken in nearly ten minutes, but his expression said enough, whatever was inside that flash drive, it wasn’t what either of them had expected.Finally, Cole stopped typing. His jaw tightened.“This isn’t just about Blake,” he said quietly. “It’s a full web. Swiss Foundation, Trojan, several private defense firms, all tied together through ghost accounts. Ayla must’ve been tracking it for months.”Fiona leaned forward. “Then Ayla died because she got too close?”Cole nodded slowly. “Yes. But what’s worse is that she wasn’t the first.”He clicked open a document tagged ‘Subject B’, the one bearing his name. Fiona shifted uncomfortably as medical jargon and classified data scrolled by. Neural mapping, field conditioning, psychological suppression things that read m
The call that changed everything
The city stretched ahead of them in streaks of blurred neon as the rain fell harder, the sound of the tires cutting through shallow puddles. The tension in the car was already thick, Cole’s mind sharp and calculating, Fiona’s quiet determination filling the silence like a pulse neither could ignore.They were halfway to Blake’s compound when Fiona’s phone rang.The tone was different.Urgent. Familiar.She looked at the screen and froze. Mom.Her heart stuttered. She hesitated for a moment, then picked up.“Mom?” she said, her voice wary.All she heard at first was panic, a mix of ragged breathing and muffled sobs. Then came her mother’s voice, trembling but forceful, the kind that made Fiona sit straighter without realizing it.“Fiona, thank God you picked up! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”“Mom, what’s wrong?”“It’s the company, sweetheart. Everything’s falling apart. The Chinese… they’ve made their move.”Fiona blinked, her pulse racing. “What? What Chinese?”Her mother
Blake’s doubt
The Swiss mansion stood silent under the mountain fog, its glass walls reflecting the pale morning light. From a distance, it looked peaceful, almost serene but inside, unease brewed like a storm waiting to break.Blake sat in the study, his eyes fixed on the massive clock on the wall. The seconds ticked by in steady rhythm, louder than usual in the stillness. Cole was supposed to be here an hour ago.He checked his watch again.Nothing.The sound of the fireplace crackling behind him didn’t soothe him anymore. He had paced the same stretch of floor for nearly twenty minutes, waiting for the familiar sound of Cole’s car pulling up outside. But there was only silence, no headlights cutting through the fog, no message, no signal.Something was off.Blake exhaled sharply and turned toward the large mahogany desk. A digital map lay open on the screen, showing a pulsing red dot marking Cole’s last known location, just outside the city perimeter. Then, the signal had gone cold.“Where the h
Strings beneath the surface
The following night was quiet at the Swiss estate, but the silence was deceptive. Inside the grand marble halls, Blake was pacing, his thoughts heavy, his jaw tight. He’d been on call with Trojan for nearly half an hour, and every second of that conversation had tightened the noose around his temper.Trojan’s voice came through the encrypted line low, smooth, but edged with that dangerous calm Blake had learned to fear.“You mean to tell me you lost him?”Blake’s shoulders stiffened. “Cole deviated from the mission. He went dark after receiving a personal call from his wife. Fiona’s family business seems to be under siege by a Chinese organization, Shinobi.”There was a pause. Then Trojan chuckled lightly, though there was no humor in it.“Ah… the Shinobi. I know them. Ruthless, but predictable. They only move when someone pays them to.”Blake’s eyes narrowed. “You think this was planned?”“Everything in this world is planned, Blake,” Trojan said, his tone almost philosophical. “Coinc
Dine with the devil
The night air around the Swiss estate was heavy with silence when Cole’s phone rang. He had been pacing by the balcony, unable to calm the storm inside him since Fiona left. The city lights shimmered in the distance, but his focus was elsewhere, on the quiet buzz of his phone and the voice that followed.“Fiona?” he said, his tone calm but edged with tension.“Cole… we’re heading to meet him,” Fiona’s voice came through, soft and strained. He could hear the hum of the car engine, her mother whispering something in the background. “We finally secured a meeting with Uzumaki.”Cole froze. The name itself felt like a blade drawn from its sheath. “You what?” he said sharply. “Fiona, listen to me, don’t go. You hear me? You can’t walk into that meeting.”“It’s already arranged,” she said quickly. “He agreed to meet us at his penthouse tonight. It’s the only chance we have to get my grandmother back.”“Fiona,” Cole interrupted, his tone dropping lower. “I know the type of man Uzumaki is. He