THE BASTARD THEY FEARED

Chapter 10: ACCESS

Kael’s POV

The words didn’t settle.

ACCESS GRANTED: Heir Confirmed. They just kept echoing in my head like the system had decided for me without asking.

Lucien stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his coat, as calm as if the explosion behind him were background noise. His men flooded in behind him, spreading out fast, controlling angles, and cutting exits professionally and cleanly.

Like they had done this a hundred times.

Raven pulled the trigger first. A shot cracked through the warehouse. One of Lucien’s men dropped. Immediately, return fire ripped through the air.

“DOWN!” Marcus shouted. We hit the ground as bullets shredded the metal shelves behind us. Sparks exploded. Dust filled the air again. I crawled backward, heart hammering, eyes locked on the screen. The map was still glowing. Still alive, still building itself.

Lucien didn’t move. That was the worst part. He just watched me. Like everything happening around him was already decided. “Don’t let him near that system,” Raven shouted, firing again.

Marcus ducked behind a crate. “He already is near it.”

Lucien finally stepped forward, slow and unhurried.

A bullet whizzed past his shoulder. He didn’t react. Didn’t even blink. “You’re doing it wrong,” he said calmly, almost conversational. Then he raised two fingers, and his men stopped firing instantly. The silence that followed was heavier than the gunfire.

Raven froze mid-reload. “What the hell?” I whispered.

Lucien tilted his head slightly.

“Kael,” he said, like he was correcting something simple. “You’re looking at it like it’s a weapon.” My eyes flicked between him and the screen. “What else is it supposed to be?”

Lucien smiled faintly. “A crown.” Something in my chest tightened. He took another step inside. “No one ever told you the truth because the truth was never meant to be understood before inheritance.”

Marcus muttered, “He’s activating it.” Raven shot him a sharp look. “Activating what?” Marcus didn’t answer. That silence again. That same damn silence that kept following every real answer in my life.

Lucien continued. “That list you’re seeing isn’t just names. It’s control architecture. Blackthorn City runs on it.” I stared at him. “That’s not possible.” “It is,” he said simply. “Because your father built the city to be controlled.” The word "father" hit different now. Less abstract. More real, more dangerous.

Lucien’s eyes locked onto mine. “And he built you into the access point.” A chill crawled up my spine.

Raven stepped forward slightly, still aiming at Lucien. “You’re lying,” she said.

Lucien glanced at her for the first time since entering. “I don’t lie about systems. Only people do.” Another explosion hit the far side of the warehouse; a chunk of the ceiling collapsed.

Marcus shouted, “We need to move NOW.” But I wasn’t moving, because something was happening on the screen. New lines were appearing, not random, not chaotic, but structured.

Like something was waking up. A prompt blinked in the center.

User Identification Required: Final Link Confirmation.

Raven’s voice sharpened. “Kael, don’t interact with it.” “I’m not doing anything,” I snapped, but the system didn’t care. It responded anyway.

BIOMETRIC LINK DETECTED: And then my phone vibrated, not in my pocket, but on the floor. I looked down. It wasn’t my phone. It was something I’d never seen before. A thin black device, almost invisible until it lit up.

Marcus went pale instantly. “No,” he whispered.

Raven frowned. “What is that?”

Marcus didn’t answer her. He was looking at me. Like I was standing too close to something radioactive.

Lucien’s voice dropped slightly. “There it is.” The device on the floor unlocked itself, and a voice came through it, not Lucien’s, not Marcus’s. A recording, cold and controlled.

Familiar in a way I didn’t understand yet.

“Kael.” My body locked up. That voice. It wasn’t dead; it wasn’t distant. It was calculated.

Alessandro Varez. The recording continued. “If you’re hearing this, then you’ve reached the threshold.” Raven stepped closer to me, eyes narrowed. “That’s not possible. He’s dead.” The voice ignored her existence.

“Lucien will try to take the system from you. Marcus will try to protect it. Raven will try to decide if you deserve it.” My head snapped toward Raven instantly. Her expression tightened because he just named her, without hesitation. Like he had been watching this entire moment before it happened. The voice continued. “But none of them matter.” A pause, then softer. Almost personal. “You matter only if you choose correctly.” The screen flickered violently. The map collapsed, then rebuilt itself faster,

more detailed, and more alive, and suddenly I realized something horrible. It wasn’t just showing the city; it was showing movement, people, current positions, and live tracking.

Lucien stepped forward slightly. “You see it now,” he said quietly. “This is why I need you alive.”

Raven snapped, “Stay back.” But Lucien wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was watching me, waiting. Like he already knew what I was about to become. The recording continued. “There is one final layer to inheritance.” The screen zoomed out, far beyond the city. Beyond anything I understood, a second set of coordinates appeared, locked, deep underground.

ACCESS LEVEL: Father. My throat went dry. “What is that?” I whispered.

Marcus answered, voice tight. “The core.”

Raven frowned. “There’s no core.”

Marcus looked at her. “There is if you built a city that needed one.” The warehouse lights flickered again. And then the doors behind Lucien slowly began to close. Not break, not collapse, close. Like the building itself was responding.

Lucien turned slightly, noticing it. And for the first time tonight, something like irritation crossed his face. “That wasn’t supposed to activate yet,” he muttered. That did it. That was the first crack in his calm.

Raven seized it instantly; she fired again.

Lucien moved fast, too fast, stepping aside as bullets tore through where he had been standing. His men reacted immediately. Chaos exploded again, but I wasn’t watching them anymore. The screen had changed again. A single message appeared in the center.

HEIR PROTOCOL ACTIVE: Then another line.

FINAL INHERITANCE WINDOW OPEN: A countdown appeared.

00:00:30

Marcus shouted, “He triggered a lockdown!”

Raven grabbed my arm. “We need to leave NOW.” But my feet didn’t move. Because something else had appeared beneath the countdown. A choice, two options.

CONFIRM HEIRSHIP

DENY ACCESS

Lucien shouted over the gunfire, “Kael, don’t touch it!”

Raven said the same thing at the exact same time. Marcus too. Three warnings, one decision, and the warehouse was literally sealing itself shut around us. The countdown dropped.

00:00:18

My hand hovered near the screen without me realizing it. Raven tightened her grip on me.

“Kael,” she said, lower now. “Whatever you think this is, it’s not survival. It’s ownership.”

Lucien fired a shot into the ceiling, forcing debris to fall between us. “Choose,” he said sharply. “Or it chooses for you.” The countdown dropped again.

00:00:07

My heartbeat drowned everything else: rain outside, gunfire inside, breathing, voices, everything blurred, and I realized something simple: there was no version of this where I went back to being nothing.

00:00:03

Raven whispered, almost urgently now. “Don’t become him.”

Lucien’s voice cut through everything. “Become what you already are.”

00:00:01

My finger moved, and the screen flashed white. The warehouse doors sealed shut completely. Every gun stopped.

Even the rain felt distant now. Silence hit like a collapse. Then the system spoke one final time. “Welcome, Master of Blackhorn.”

And in that exact second, every screen in the city, every phone signal, every camera feed that Raven’s system was showing. All of them switched to my face.