Doctor Kai stared at Derek, the question that had been burning in his mind finally slipping past his defenses.“How did you know that it was poison?”Before he could stop himself, a hand flew to his mouth. He had said it aloud. His eyes widened slightly at his own slip.Derek turned toward him. For a moment, neither man spoke, the air between them thick with sudden tension. Then Derek offered a calm, unbothered look.“Some of us actually paid attention during medical school,” Derek said.Doctor Kai’s expression hardened.“We didn't go there just to carry popular names,” Derek continued, completely unfazed. “We didn't go there just to attach big titles to ourselves without gaining real experience.”Silence swallowed the room. Ben’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline, while Rebecca looked back and forth between the two men.Doctor Kai’s face tightened. The words had struck directly at his pride. He was an experienced physician, a respected doctor whom people traveled long distances to se

Derek was already walking down the hallway when Mr. Zakaria’s voice rang out behind him.“Ben.”Ben turned toward his grandfather, his brow furrowing.“Drive Young Doctor Zachariah.”Ben’s expression instantly dropped into disbelief. “Grandfather?”“I said drive him.”Ben glanced toward the doorway where Derek was already several paces ahead. “Grandfather, why me?”Mr. Zakaria’s voice hardened. “I insist.”Ben clenched his jaw, swallowing a wave of frustration. He had expected his grandfather to task one of the estate's professional drivers, yet he had specifically singled him out.Hearing the exchange from the hall, Derek raised his eyebrows slightly and exhaled a quiet breath. This family.Before Derek could take another step, Ben hurried after him. “Young Doctor Zachariah.”Derek stopped, turning to face him.“My grandfather ordered me to drive you,” Ben said, adding quickly, “Since it is getting late, I will drive you to wherever you are heading and come back afterward.”Derek sta

Derek stepped away from the Zakaria estate without looking back, the massive iron gates slowly closing behind him to seal off the family he had met only hours ago. He had no reason to stay. He had come because Master Zachariah had sent him to save a life, and he had done exactly that. Mr. Zakaria was alive, the poison had been pulled from his system, and the family had nothing more to ask of him.Slipping a hand into his pocket, his fingers brushed against the polished surface of the access card Mr. Zakaria had given him. He looked at it briefly, noting that it was far from ordinary. Even without knowing every intricate privilege attached to it, Derek could tell it carried a level of authority most people spent a lifetime trying to reach. He tucked it back away as a taxi pulled up to the curb.Opening the rear door, he slid inside.“Where to?” the driver asked.“Morrison estate.”With a nod, the driver pulled away from the curb. Derek leaned his head back against the seat, watching th

Derek and Harold had barely taken a few steps when the sudden, loud ring of Harold's phone broke the silence of the corridor, stopping them both in their tracks.Harold pulled the device from his pocket, his brow furrowing as he stared at the unfamiliar string of digits on the screen. "Who is calling at this hour?""Answer it," Derek instructed, his eyes fixing on the screen.Accepting the call, Harold lifted the phone to his ear. Before he could even utter a greeting, a harsh, deep voice rasped through the speaker."The bastard who came to your estate talking about the surviving Morrison is dead."The line instantly went dead with a sharp tone.Harold stood frozen, the color draining from his face as his jaw went slack. Watching his sudden stillness closely, Derek stepped closer. "What happened?"Before Harold could form an answer, the phone in his hand vibrated violently.Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.A volley of incoming messages lit up the display. Harold looked down, his thumb flying

Derek remained silent for a long moment after Harold finished speaking, the name Elias Morgan echoing in the quiet chambers of his mind. The man had worked for his father years ago, a familiar face from a time before the massacre, before everything Derek knew about his family had been reduced to blood, fire, and suffocating silence. Now he was dead, silenced because he knew something dangerous.Slowly turning toward the direction of the ancestral vault, Derek felt the weight of unanswered questions pressing down on him. Who was the surviving Morrison? Why had Elias come forward now? Who had been watching his family from the shadows all these years? And most importantly, what really happened on the night the Morrison estate burned?His thoughts shifted abruptly. Uncle Joseph.If anyone could offer him a thread of truth, it would be Joseph. He had been one of his father's closest friends, a regular fixture at the estate whom his father trusted implicitly. Even after the massacre, when a