2025-08-11 01:59:26The press conference was scheduled for noon.
By 11:58 a.m., every major news outlet in the city had swarmed the Wynthorpe International headquarters. Cameras flashed. Security buzzed. Onlookers crowded outside the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of the heir the world had written off.
Inside the boardroom, Alaric Wynthorpe sat in his oxygen chair, flanked by aides and medics. His eyes, though weary, burned with purpose. The silence was thick, he hadn’t addressed the media in over two years.
But this moment wasn’t about him, It was about the man standing just outside the stage curtain, hands clenched at his sides. Grayson Wynthorpe.
He wore a tailored black suit borrowed from Alaric’s private wardrobe, his hair slicked back, a single scar across his jaw from a fight Lucien started years ago. The suit felt like armor. The scar, a crown.
“You don’t have to do this,” Emmett said beside him.
“I do,” Grayson replied. “They’ve controlled the story long enough. Time to write my own.”
Across town, the Everhart mansion was in chaos, Lucien hurled a crystal tumbler across the room, smashing it into the fireplace. “He’s actually going public?!”
Clive stood, calm as ever, sipping brandy. “They’re playing a dangerous game,” Lucien spat. “This could sway investors, media, even the board”
“It won’t,” Clive interrupted. “Because I’ve already moved our next piece.”
Lucien narrowed his eyes. “What piece?”
Clive smiled faintly. “You’ll see.”
Back at Wynthorpe HQ, the doors opened, The press surged forward as Alaric was wheeled onto the platform. He raised a hand, frail, yet commanding. The room fell silent.
“Thirty years ago,” Alaric began, “my world shattered. My wife was murdered. My son was stolen. For decades, I searched. I grieved. I built an empire, but lost the only thing that mattered.”
He paused.
“And then… he returned.”
A collective murmur rose from the crowd as Grayson stepped onto the platform.
Click, Flash, Click, Flash. Alaric stood slowly, leaning on his cane, and placed a hand on Grayson’s shoulder. “This… is Grayson Wynthorpe. My son. My heir.”
Reporters burst into motion. “Grayson, how did you survive?”
“Do you have proof?”
“What about the criminal allegations surfacing online?”
Grayson stepped up to the mic, His voice was steady. “I was raised in the shadows of people who thought silence was a leash. I scrubbed their floors. I slept in a closet. I was beaten, shamed, and broken… but I survived.”
More flashes. More gasps, He continued. “I didn’t ask for a crown. But if I have to wear it to reclaim what’s mine… then so be it. And to those spreading lies about me, fabricated crimes, edited footage, I say this…”
He leaned in, cold fire in his voice. “Try harder.”
The news hit like a bomb, Within an hour, every channel, app, and platform was filled with headlines:
“WYNTHORPE HEIR SPEAKS- ‘TRY HARDER’ VIDEO GOES VIRAL”
“FROM HOUSEKEEPER TO HEIR: THE GRAYSON REVEAL”
Some celebrated., Some questioned, All watched, And in the shadows… some prepared to strike, Later that evening, in a darkened garage beneath the city, a man reviewed surveillance images.
Photos of Grayson. Emmett. Alaric. The safehouse, Another man stepped into the light. “Orders?”
The first man, wearing gloves and a bulletproof vest, smiled coldly. “Kidnap the heir. Discredit the legacy. And if that fails, end it.”
Meanwhile, in Alaric’s penthouse, Grayson stood alone on the balcony, The city lights below looked like a sea of fireflies. For once, he wasn’t beneath them.
Alaric stepped out beside him, slower now, chest rising with effort. “You did well,” the old man said. “Better than I ever could have.”
Grayson didn’t respond immediately. Then: “What happens now?”
Alaric gazed into the night. “Now, the wolves come.”
Sure enough, the next morning, a bombshell report dropped.
“DNA TEST RESULTS FAKE? Insider Claims Wynthorpe Announcement Was a Setup!”
The article accused Alaric of faking results to leave his empire to a stranger, The source? Lucien Everhart.
Complete with forged documents, paid analysts, and a doctored witness statement from a “former Wynthorpe lab technician.”
Grayson slammed the tablet onto the table. “Is this all they’ve got? Lies?”
Emmett frowned. “Sometimes lies scream louder than truth.”
Alaric entered the room, coughing into a cloth. When he removed it, blood dotted the fabric. “They’re going for character assassination now,” he said. “The next step is worse.”
“What?”
“Physical.”
Grayson stiffened. “You mean”
“They’ll try to remove you. Permanently. Before the board can formally confirm you as heir.”
That night, Grayson couldn’t sleep, He wandered the halls of the penthouse, thoughts spinning like knives. What if they succeeded? What if he disappeared again, this time, without a trace?
He opened the study door and froze, A man stood by the desk, slipping something into a drawer. “Hey!” Grayson barked.
The man turned and bolted, Grayson chased him down the hallway, through the stairwell, until they burst into the underground garage, But it was a trap, Two more men appeared from behind the cars, tasers in hand. Zap.
Grayson hit the ground, Darkness swallowed him whole.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE HUNTED BLOODLINE
They moved before sunrise... Grayson led the group through the twisting backroads of the Santa Sierra highlands, his mother cloaked in a hooded shawl, Emmett covering the rear, every step echoing with urgency. The chapel was gone, their sanctuary reduced to ash and silence.Grayson didn’t speak, His mind was running cold and fast, tracking wind shifts, footfalls, even the unnatural stillness of the trees. Something hunted them, Not soldiers, Not drones, Something worse.They reached an abandoned mining tunnel by mid-morning. It stretched for miles beneath the mountain, carved during a war generations ago. Grayson lit the lantern. “We rest here,” he said.His mother sat slowly, clutching her rosary. “They won’t stop, will they?”Grayson crouched beside her. “Not until I end this.”Emmett passed him a flask. “So how do you plan to do that? You’re good, but Clive has a private army, half the global media, and a genetically enhanced killer you couldn’t even stop with a blade to the ribs.”
CHAPTER TEN: THE MOTHER MAP
The photo lay on the desk between them, A grainy image of a woman with sad eyes and windblown hair, standing in front of what looked like a remote chapel, stone walls, no signage, surrounded by pine trees.Grayson stared at it for a long time, barely breathing. “This isn’t possible,” he muttered. “She died.”Emmett leaned in, frowning. “That’s what you were told. And that’s exactly what Clive wanted you to believe.”“But this… this can’t be recent.” Grayson turned the photo over. A handwritten date scrawled on the back: "August 3rd. Santa Sierra."“That’s yesterday,” Emmett said.Grayson stood so fast his chair tipped over. “We’re leaving.”Six hours later, they were on a Wynthorpe-owned private jet soaring across the Atlantic. Destination: Santa Sierra, a remote village nestled in the Andean mountains, forgotten by time and government.Grayson sat still, back straight, the photo in his hands like a sacred object, Emmett watched him from across the cabin. “You believe it’s her,” he sa
CHAPTER NINE: THE ONE WHO NEVER SLEEPS
The plane ride back to Graybridge was quiet. Too quiet, Grayson sat alone in the rear of the jet, staring at the deep cut across his shoulder, stitched up and wrapped, but still burning. Not from pain… from memory.Wren Dax, Silent, Precise, Focused, She could have killed him. She didn’t, She was testing him. But why?Across from him, Emmett finally broke the silence. “You haven’t said a word since takeoff.”Grayson didn’t look away from the window. “There’s another one like me out there.”“Alpha-One.”Grayson’s jaw tightened. “Stronger. Smarter. Unstable.”“And Clive’s next weapon,” Emmett added grimly. “He’s going to unleash him.”Grayson nodded. “And when he does, I need to be ready.”Back in Graybridge, Clive Everhart moved through his underground vault, a compound buried deep beneath the city, untouched by law or loyalty, Steel doors opened to a dark chamber.Behind triple-reinforced glass, Alpha-One stood, shirtless, hooked to IV drips and sensors. His body was covered in scars.
CHAPTER EIGHT: TARGET IN TRANSIT
The private jet roared through the clouds, slicing a path from Graybridge to Singapore under the cloak of darkness. Onboard, Grayson sat in the leather seat, eyes locked on a screen displaying dossier images of Margot Vale, the woman who had helped alter his life before he could speak his first word.“Former Ravel Corporation bioengineer,” Emmett read aloud. “Disappeared two years after the project ended. Last public appearance was a biotech conference in Geneva. Since then? Ghost.”Grayson leaned forward. “She has answers. Maybe the only person alive who knows what they did to me—what else they left inside me.”“Assuming she’s still alive,” Emmett added.“Then we’ll dig her up.”Unknown to them, Protocol Umbra had already activated, Back in Graybridge, Clive Everhart stood in his private war room, watching a digital map highlight the jet’s trajectory. “Phase One in motion,” his aide said. “The moment they touch down, she’ll be waiting.”“She?” Lucien asked, stepping into the room.Cl
CHAPTER SEVEN: SHADOWS OF THE PAST
Grayson Wynthorpe sat alone in his father’s old office, bathed in the dim light of a desk lamp. The echoes of the boardroom still rang in his ears, the shocked faces, the murmurs, the vote. Eight to three.He had won, But the victory tasted like iron. On the desk before him lay a thin, unmarked manila folder. Alaric had left it for him with a single instruction: “When the crown is yours, open it. You’ll understand why they tried to keep you hidden.”His fingers hovered over the tab, He hesitated, Then he opened it, Inside were surveillance photos, grainy black-and-white stills from thirty years ago. One showed a woman, his mother, no doubt, sneaking out the back of a building with a baby in her arms.Another showed a van, its license plate scratched out, parked outside an orphanage. The next image struck like a blade: a photo of Clive Everhart, standing beside a much younger version of Alaric, shaking hands.A scribbled note under the photo: “The contract was signed. The child was gon
CHAPTER SIX: BOARDROOM BLOOD
The storm came on the morning of the vote, Not just the one in the sky, but the kind that brews behind closed doors, between fortunes and fangs.Inside the towering glass walls of Wynthorpe International HQ, the top floor had been transformed into a fortress. Security swarmed every hallway. Snipers watched from rooftops. The entire city buzzed, knowing today wasn’t just business. It was war.The board of directors, eleven men and women, each worth more than small nations, were gathering for the Legacy Succession Vote, the meeting that would determine who inherited the empire upon Alaric’s death.And Grayson Wynthorpe was walking into it scarred, wounded, but no longer hiding, Downstairs, Grayson adjusted his cufflinks with shaking fingers. He wore a charcoal suit, freshly tailored, every inch of him polished for war.But beneath it all, his ribs still ached from the taser hits, and his lip carried a fresh cut from the warehouse escape. “Still time to back out,” Emmett said beside him.
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