2024-12-23 17:40:30The Hawthorne Corporation still appeared glamorous from the outside.
They excelled at manipulating public perception.
In reality, their internal funds were completely drained.
The rising success of J&S Corp naturally caught their attention.
If they could take over J&S effortlessly, it would be the lifeline the Hawthornes desperately needed.
Gideon was a habitual troublemaker with a history of digital scandals.
If his affair with an English official’s wife hadn’t gone public, he wouldn’t have agreed to marry Madeline.
Even so, it was all to secure what little remained of his crumbling fortune.
Per their agreement, J&S was set to fall entirely under the Hawthornes’ control.
“You’re the same—always so charismatic I can’t take my eyes off you, Gideon.” Madeline smiled.
“I’ve prepared a fantastic spot for us.” She playfully pulled Gideon toward the car.
Their destination was Aurora Époque, an opulent venue requiring a $100,000 deposit just to reserve.
Madeline had arranged the most luxurious wine and dishes to welcome him.
The caviar, made from Beluga sturgeon eggs with 22k gold powder, cost $6,000 an ounce.
The wine, a 1945 Romanee-Conti. The day’s indulgence exceeded $1.3 million.
The trip took less than half an hour. Gideon looked captivated by the grandeur of the building.
“Your taste is impeccable. We’re quite alike,” he said.
“Sure, honey. It’s going to be a long day. I’ve booked this place until tonight,” Madeline whispered.
“After wine, we’ll retreat to the resort on that small island for some rest.”
Madeline’s sensual tone hinted at her intentions.
The staff greeted them warmly, escorting them to a classically styled room.
The vineyard manager, a middle-aged man with a warm demeanor, approached their table. His eyes sparkled with recognition as he greeted Madeline and Gideon.
“Miss Brook, it’s an honor to see you again.”
Madeline responded with a gracious smile, enjoying the attention. Gideon gave a curt nod, maintaining his usual calm facade.
But the manager’s eyes scanned the room, his brow furrowing as if searching for someone. He hesitated before asking cautiously.
“Pardon me, isn’t Mr. Hayes attending tonight? I was hoping to thank him personally.”
Madeline’s smile froze, her irritation flashing briefly. She sat up straighter, her tone sharp.
“You mean Samuel Hayes? Thank him for what? He had nothing to be thanked for!”
The manager frowned, but answered.
“Thanks him for his tremendous contributions to our operations.”
Madeline’s tone turned icy, her frustration barely concealed.
“I assure you, he contributed nothing. Haven’t you heard the news? Samuel ruined our entire company!”
“If you want to thank J&S Corp, thank me, thank my father!”
She said sharply, but her heart was filled with worry.
The Hawthornes were always cautious in their business decisions.
If Gideon found out that J&S’s progress was purely because of Samuel’s brilliance and that everything happening now was fabricated, their affairs would be over.
The manager’s frown deepened. His gaze swept over the man behind Madeline, whose face wore a fake smile, and he realized the situation was more complicated than he thought.
He’d been busy all day and hadn’t kept up with the latest news. He didn’t know Samuel Hayes had been accused and arrested.
As for thanking Madeline and Arthur, that was downright ridiculous.
Everyone knew J&S Corp’s achievements were entirely thanks to Samuel Hayes.
Under the Brooks family’s management, J&S had only suffered financial losses, dragging the small city’s economy down with it.
Workers lost their jobs. Entire families became homeless.
The city almost turned into a ghost town.
It wasn’t until Samuel took over that J&S Corp regained its footing, sparking rapid economic growth for the entire city.
Even he could now see that the Brooks family had used Samuel and discarded him when they were done.
If Samuel were truly gone, the same tragedy would happen all over again.
“What are you staring at?” Madeline snapped. “Stop bothering us! Get out!”
The manager sighed and signaled the waiter to keep serving.
“This is ridiculous,” Arthur said angrily. “These low-class people never show any gratitude.”
“Exactly,” Madeline agreed, giving Gideon a sweet smile. “Samuel is just an orphan with no real talent. What has he ever accomplished?”
“How could he even compare to Gideon? Gideon is the young master of The Hawthornes! I bet you were investing by the time you were three!”
Gideon chuckled, clearly pleased with the praise.
“Low-class people aren’t very bright. They’re easy to fool. Samuel probably tricked them all.”
Madeline nodded, her voice dripping with disdain.
“I can’t believe Samuel pretended to be so loyal while sneaking around behind our backs. Disgusting.”
Just then, her phone rang. It was her secretary.
She forced a smile at the others and stepped aside to take the call.
Her tone sharp and impatient.
“You know I’m in the middle of an important meeting! If this isn’t urgent, don’t bother coming in tomorrow!”
Whatever the secretary said nearly made her drop the phone.
Her voice almost shot up as she yelled,
“What?! The Singapore investment firm is cutting ties?”
“California’s firm is pulling out, too?”
“Why?!”
“They said all their deals were because of Samuel Hayes? And now that he’s gone, they’re canceling everything immediately?!”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
619
At first, they thought it was just an echo.A flicker on the surveillance net. A brief distortion near the old Echo Chamber beneath Bastion’s west wing — long abandoned, used only during the early calibration of shard synchronization. The space had since fallen into disuse. No power, no systems, no reason to return.Until now.“Tell me you’re seeing this,” Sarah muttered, leaning over the monitor.The image was faint: a silhouette pacing slowly inside the chamber, pacing in exact steps Sarah had once taken.“Looks like you,” Joey said, frowning.“That’s because it is me,” she whispered.“But that can’t be—”Samuel entered behind them, already reaching for his personal interface. “Pull the prism scanner. I want a temporal signature.”Sarah tapped in the override.A moment later, the analysis came through.Thread anomaly: 94% match.Anchor origin: Flame Net timeline [Locked: UNKNOWN]Subject: SARAH, VARIANT 3B - INVERTED FLAME“Jesus,” Joey breathed. “It’s a version of you. From another
618
Not the kind that followed battle. Not the heavy kind that came after decisions like the one they'd made — to delay sealing the world, to buy time they didn’t understand.This silence had shape.It bent.It listened.It waited.And then, without warning, it spoke.Joey was in the lower observatory, seated by the paneled dome where the artificial stars had begun to glitch. Every few minutes, a light would flicker and repeat itself — blinking patterns out of sync with the constellations.He was alone.Or he thought he was.“Still think we made the right call?” he muttered aloud, fingers tracing the rim of his cooling tea.No answer.He reached for his comm-link, considered calling Lin, then Sarah… but didn’t. The others were all in their corners, dealing with the consequences in their own ways. Samuel had retreated to the eastern wing, no doubt reviewing models and constructing fallback rituals. Sarah had been pacing the upper deck like a hawk for the past hour. Lin was—nowhere. She dri
617
The Bastion’s war table hadn’t been used in months.Dust lined its edges. Old energy signatures flickered faintly along its curved interface, echoing long-erased battle maps. It was built to track enemies—Void incursion zones, Ashborn troop lines, shard anomalies.Tonight, it displayed Earth itself.Not the Earth they remembered.Not the Earth they had fought for.The globe was fraying. Threadlines glowed red across the surface—unraveling. Symbols blinked where entire cities once stood. Others spun erratically, overlapping. Multiple realities clashing for space, like two ghosts trying to possess the same body.Joey stared in silence.Lin sat with a heavy shawl around her shoulders, pale but awake.Sarah stood stiffly across from Samuel, arms folded.Nobody had spoken in five minutes.Until Joey said softly, “We’re already losing it.”Samuel said nothing.Sarah’s voice came next, hard-edged: “Not yet.”Joey turned to her. “What would you call what just happened? We opened a hole in the
616
No one touched the relic at first.It hovered midair in the center of Bastion’s Deep Chamber — spinning, slow, silent, and not entirely present. Shaped like an orb, but its edges shimmered and warped, refusing to settle into a single dimension. Every time someone looked too long, they saw something different: a beating heart, a writhing knot, a tiny flame.Samuel stood closest, arms folded, the memory of Kael’s echo still fresh in his mind.Sarah and Joey flanked him. Lin hadn’t woken yet — her mind was still torn open from the Spiral’s flood.“Where did it come from again?” Joey asked, voice barely above a whisper.“Kael gave it to me,” Sarah said, hand tight around her shard. “Or what’s left of him. He called it a key. Something older than the Net.”Joey eyed the orb. “It doesn’t look like any relic I’ve seen. Doesn’t feel like one, either.”“It’s not a relic,” Samuel muttered.Sarah turned to him. “Then what is it?”“It’s a hole.”They didn’t believe him at first. Not until the orb
615
The corridor was silent, save for the soft pulse of the emergency lights. Sarah moved carefully, her fingers trailing the wall, her shard still flickering from the chaos at the ridge. She wasn’t sure why she’d come down here — the lower levels of the Bastion were sealed, memory-locked since the first Wave.But the shard pulled her. Not through flame. Through grief.Room B-17. Her mother’s old chamber.Except it wasn’t.The moment she stepped inside, the light shifted. Everything became thinner, quieter — like sound had been tucked under glass. Dust didn’t settle here. No time passed.And in the center of the room stood Kael.Her breath caught.He wore the old uniform — burnt red sash, blade across his back. He looked… unchanged. His expression unreadable, his hair slightly windblown as if he’d just returned from patrol.“Kael?” she whispered.He didn’t answer.But he smiled.“I watched you climb the cliff once,” he said. His voice was softer than she remembered. “You were thirteen. Th
614
Flames crawled along the blackened hillsides like serpents starving for breath. The sky above the Eastern Ridge had begun to turn the color of bruised plum, a prelude to something no one wanted to name. Ashborn forces, once so unified, so terrifyingly synchronized, now moved with jagged rhythm, like puppets on strings too tight or too frayed.Samuel stood at the ridge's edge, panting, one hand gripping the hilt of his flame-blade. Around him, the remaining Guardians kept their weapons drawn but hesitated to attack. Not because the Ashborn had stopped advancing, but because they were... speaking.Not shouting. Not chanting.Whispering.He couldn’t understand the words, not fully. The tones were warped, soaked in static, like memories being replayed through a broken machine. But the cadence was unmistakable.Voices from the Void.One Ashborn, eyes glowing with leaking violet light, fell to its knees. Another followed. Then three more. Their mouths moved, and Samuel heard it more clearly
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