All Chapters of The Lost Heir: The Rise Of Ethan Walker : Chapter 171
- Chapter 180
205 chapters
The architect of rumors
The interior of Jane’s compact car felt like a pressure cooker. Her knuckles were white against the steering wheel as she navigated the morning traffic, her eyes darting between the road and the rearview mirror as if Ethan himself might just appear out of the asphalt to silence her."Mob. It has to be the mob," she muttered to herself, her voice raspy from a night of restless sleep and residual anger. "That bastard, he is no ordinary guy, he… he can’t be. There is no way that a nobody like that… a normal human being would be able to drive like that.”“Not to mention that he was driving through a hail of gunfire unless he had spent his entire life running from the law."She checked her speedometer, pushing it ten miles over the limit. She had to get to the facility before Ethan did. If he walked through those doors with that smug, untouchable expression, her window of opportunity would slam shut.‘Focus, Jane,’ she told herself, her conversation with herself in her head racing. ‘Yo
Scheming Queen
'John, you have to listen to me.’‘I know you are mad at me because of what he told you yesterday, but I swear on everything I hold dear, I saw him on the Black Water Bridge last night.’‘You are a news buff, you must have seen the news right?’‘It was a war zone out there.’ ‘There were RPGs, John! RPGs! What kind of person gets attacked by people with RPGs?’‘It definitely was not a random gang bullying a civilian story that some news outlets are starting to make it sound like.’‘What random gang would have access to RPGs?’‘I saw the men chasing him, three of them, just like the ones you said came here to pay to tell them if he works here. Three, one driving, one shooting from the passenger side, and the other one at the top of the car.’‘I am no expert on detective work, but I am not stupid either.’‘You saw the way he kept on twisting everything I said yesterday, trying to play the whole thing off as some prank that happened right? But we both know that nobody planned to prank hi
Redrawn plan
'John, I’m scared.’‘I saw something last night that I wasn't supposed to see.’ ‘I saw… I saw Ethan… and he… he was involved in something terrible.’‘I know I have my issues against him, but I didn't want to believe he was dangerous, but after what happened at the bridge, I think we’re all in danger just being in the same building as him.’ ‘You remember how I told you that he had handled those guards. That wasn't self-defense; that was… professional training.'‘And the men that you saw came around to look for him?’‘He denied it, and even managed to somehow pin whatever was going on on me, but you and I both know that something was not straight with that story.’‘Over seven hundred thousand dollars, John. Those men were willing to pay you over seven hundred thousand dollars to just get you to tell them if he was actually a worker at the facility.’‘Does that sound like a normal thing to do?’‘You know what, let’s even consider his claims about me being behind those men.’‘You have k
A drowning rat
Jane made her way back to a good vantage point in the building where she could overlook a good number of departments at once, as she considered her options.She paced the marble alcove, her eyes darting like a caged animal’s as she scanned the floor. ‘John really isn’t here huh. Well, if this works well, if I seed the field properly, he’ll wake up to a harvest of hate anyway.’ She began to audit the faces passing by, her mind whirring with a cold, frantic energy.‘Hmm… there’s Sarah from Logistics,’ she thought, watching the woman lean over a cubicle wall. ‘The woman is a human megaphone. If I give her a crumb of this story by nine, the entire loading dock will be choking on it by nine-fifteen. But god, she’s such an idiot.’ ‘People hear her, sure, but do they believe her? Half the time they think she’s just making noise to hear her own voice.’‘I think I will just push her aside for now, keep her aside as a backup, nothing more.’‘She is just too much volume, and not enough weigh
To hell with the plane
"A drowning rat?" she hissed, stepping around the pillar.The two speakers jumped, the guard almost dropping his radio. "Jane! How long have you been… Wait… We… We didn't… we were just…" They stammered, obviously caught off guard by Jane's sudden entrance. "You were just what? Celebrating?" Jane stepped into their personal space, her eyes wide and unblinking. The stare she held was soul-cutting, befitting of her personality."You think because some bar-room reject managed to string a few sentences together that my 'teeth are gone'? You think I’m weak?""Jane, calm down," the guard stammered, backing away. He was obviously terrified and it was evident in his behavior. "It’s 8:00 AM, we were just talking." That must've been the wrong word to say because nothing prepared him for Jane's next reaction. Even in his evident attempt to back away, Jane still pressured on."You don't get to talk!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. Her voice cut through the entire room instantly silencing eve
I want him exposed
The elevator doors hadn't even fully retracted before Jane burst through them like a splintering hull. Her hair was beginning to fray at the edges of her scalp, and her eyes were wide, darting with a frantic, predatory energy that made the air in the hallway feel thin."Where is he?" she shrieked, slamming her palm into a passing cart of documents, sending files skittering across the floor.A young logistics coordinator stepped forward, his hands raised. "Jane? What are you ....""Don't 'Jane' me, you little worm!" she barked, stepping into his space and shoving him hard against the wall. His glasses rattled on the bridge of his nose. "Ethan. Where is his station? Where is he hiding?""I... I don't know, he's usually in the south wing at this time of morning…""Useless!" Jane spat, turning her back on him and marching toward the center of the Operations and Control floor.As she moved, she became a localized hurricane, causing unnecessary destruction all over the place. She swiped
Silence of thought
Jane began to pace, her hands moving as she wove a little too detailed a lie into the part she had witnessed, just to solidify it in her attempt to paint Ethan as a villain. "The news didn’t carry the full story of what had happened, but… it was a drug deal. It had to be.”“It is not news to anyone here that I have my issues with Ethan, yeah? So I’ve been watching him. And last night, I had been following him since he left the facility because I knew something was off.”“I followed him for a while till I saw them. Ethan and some shady looking men.”“They had met in the shadows near the docks, Ethan and those men. At first I was even worried for him, because… well, I didn’t see him as someone that will be involved with people like that.”“But as I watched, I noticed that he was unfazed. He looked like he had been doing it for a long time too, like he was not in the least bit scared of the kind of people around him.”“I was worried more for myself at that point, but I decided to stay.”
A cole problem
The study in the Cole mansion was a vault of mahogany, overflowing with cold, cruel ambition. Alexander Cole sat at the head of a massive conference table, with a high-end speakerphone at the center emitting the crackling, English mixed Russian of a man known only as Volkov. Anton stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, his silhouette sharp against the afternoon sun, while Adrian sat opposite Alexander, with a tablet in front of him scrolling through logistics manifests. "The Baltic route is congested, Volkov," Alexander said, his voice smooth and devoid of any warmth. "My brothers and I aren't interested in 'congestion’ right now. We are interested in the flow.” “If the agricultural equipment, and the specialized hardware we had tucked inside doesn't reach the St. Petersburg docks by Tuesday, the delay f*e will be the least of your concerns.” “Do I make myself clear?" "Perfectly, Alexander," the voice crackled back, thick with a heavy accent. "But the customs officials are s
Washed away in blood
The lead Horseman didn't flinch as Alexander spoke, even though Alexander was obviously displeased with them. Another mercenary would have shrunk away, but not these three. Partly because they knew too much about the Cole Empire to be disposed of, but because they knew that not even their employees would be insane enough to do anything to them. They were too useful to the entire Russian Mafia federation to be killed off by just one family with no repercussions, even if that family in question quite literally owned them. He stood his ground, despite the visible hitch in his breathing from a cracked rib. "You… I wish I could say you lied to us, but I am guessing you were in the dark as well.” Alexander looked at him, waiting for him to make his point. “You know, at first, I thought that you had overpaid for a hit on a man you described as nothing but an office clerk," the mercenary growled, his voice a low rasp. "But now I see how wrong I was.” “Your offer for this job was no
panic & control
"I appreciate that, really. But to answer your question," Axel gestured with a sarcastic wave of her hand toward the monitors, "... yes, I did finish it. Every single document. But, through some miraculous act of God… or perhaps just a very selective ghost in the machine… the documents somehow vanished. Poof.”“Cleaned right out of the central server."Chloe’s eyes went wide. "Vanished? But that’s impossible! The backup protocols alone…""Apparently, those are 'miraculously' failing too," Axel interrupted, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "I’ve had to redo almost two months' worth of work in the last forty-eight hours just to stay afloat. It seems my hard drive developed a very specific case of amnesia."The color drained from Chloe’s face instantly. "Two months?”The panic levels in Chloe skyrocketed immediately she heard that.“Axel, if your files are disappearing, then... then what about mine? Oh my god, I have the entire City state center proposal on the shared drive! If the se