2025-09-24 16:57:29The late afternoon sun slanted across the large window of Ruth’s chamber. Thin ivory curtains stirred softly in the breeze. Finn sat in the plush chair beside the bed, straightening the tie Ruth had just given him. Across from him, Ruth stood in front of the mirror; her blue gown clung to her with effortless elegance, and that mischievous smile of hers never left her face.
“That tie suits you perfectly,” Ruth said, glancing over before sweeping a light stroke of lipstick across her lips. “Now you actually look like the husband of an honorable woman.”
Finn raised an eyebrow, half-mocking. “Husband? We haven’t even tied the knot yet.”
Ruth turned and approached him. She placed her fingers under his chin and tipped his face up to meet her eyes. “Tomorrow, Finn. Tomorrow it’s official. I don’t like to delay what can make me happy.”
Finn laughed softly, brushing Ruth’s hand away gently. “You never fool around, do you? You even had the lawyer come tonight.”
“I’m serious about you.” Ruth’s smile softened, then she walked to the table and opened a box of luxurious invitations. She took out one golden card—blank. “This one’s empty. You may deliver it to anyone you think should know about our wedding.”
Finn studied the card a long moment before reaching out to take it. “I already know who I’m giving it to.”
Ruth leaned in, curiosity bright in her eyes. “Someone from your past?”
Finn held his breath for a second, then let a faint smile cross his lips. “You could say that. No need for you to know the details. Just let me handle this small thing.”
Ruth eyed him with secrets on her face, as if to ask more, but she only nodded. “Alright. But don’t be long. I want you back before nightfall. There are many things I want to talk about… about our future.”
Finn stood, straightening the suit Ruth had bought him. “Don’t worry, Ruth. I’ll be back on time. Besides, who would dare refuse an invitation from Ruth Callahan?”
Ruth laughed and leaned in to kiss his cheek briefly. “Go. And make sure they know how lucky I am… to have you.”
“Of course, Honey.”
He passed the bodyguard, who watched him with a sour look.
“Sharp eyes, Henry — you look like an eagle,” Finn called.
Henry didn’t answer. He just watched Finn get into the car, which pulled away from the estate.
Thirty minutes later the car stopped in front of a grand colonial house. Wide grounds, tall gates, and the family nameplate reading “Walton” stood proudly at the entrance.
Finn stepped out slowly, the golden invitation clutched tight in his hand. His breath felt heavy—not from nerves, but from the bitter memories surfacing.
This house had been the beginning of everything: the woman he’d loved, the humiliation, the wound he still carried.
Before Finn could knock, the great door swung open. Christy—Daniella’s mother—stood in the doorway, eyes scanning him up and down with contempt. Her face immediately twisted at the sight of his suit.
“Oh… look who’s come,” Christy’s voice sliced through the air. “Street rat who ruined our family’s name. Finn the lunatic is out of the asylum!”
Finn smiled thinly, holding the burning anger inside. “Good afternoon, Christy. I’m not here to fight. I only came to deliver an invitation.”
Christy narrowed her eyes and let out a short, derisive laugh. “An invitation? And who are you now, Finn? A flyer seller? Or do you want our pity so you can beg for spare change?”
Before Finn could respond, the sound of heels announced Daniella’s arrival. She stepped out in an expensive dress, flawless makeup, followed by Hans—the tall man whose arrogant grin had always set Finn’s blood boiling.
“Oh my God…” Daniella laughed when she saw him. “I thought you’d starved to death in the asylum. You can still stand. Amazing. Truly, you’re insane—no wonder you belonged there.”
Hans sneered, placing his hand possessively on Daniella’s hip. “He’s just fishing for sympathy again. You know Finn—always the attention seeker.”
Finn clenched his hands behind his back, keeping his face calm. “I didn’t come to argue. I just want you to read this.” He set the golden invitation down on a small table by the entrance.
Daniella glanced at it and scoffed. “Oh wow, look—his own wedding card. Is this an invite to a cheap noodle shop?”
Christy stepped forward, took the card, and unfolded it. The laughter died on her lips as her eyes fell on the gilded lettering. She read, then read again, as if to make sure she hadn’t misread it.
“Ruth Callahan?” she whispered, disbelief thick in her tone.
Daniella snatched the invitation from her mother’s hands. Her eyes widened; her face went pale. “This is a joke, right?”
Hans read over her shoulder. His smug grin faded, replaced by genuine surprise. “Dammit… Ruth Callahan? The investor who’s always rejected your family’s offers?”
Finn allowed a crooked smile. “Tomorrow… I marry her. I thought it only fair that my ex-wife and family know.”
Daniella covered her mouth with her hand, staring at him as if she couldn’t process it. “No… no, this can’t be. Ruth… she could never choose you! You were even institutionalized!”
Panic laced her voice. Christy shot a warning look at her daughter. “Daniella! Enough!”
Finn stepped forward coolly, eyes hard and dripping with mockery. “Ah, so the truth finally comes out. You’re the one who put me there, aren’t you? Everyone knows I’m not crazy. You just wanted me gone because you were caught with Hans.”
Hans took a half-step toward Finn, jaw tight. “Watch your mouth, Finn. You have no proof.”
Finn laughed low and cutting. “Proof? The entire town has whispered about you two for years. I was just too foolish—too trusting of Daniella. I thought love could beat everything. Turns out what I was fighting was lies and contempt.”
Daniella’s teeth clenched; tears of fury sparkled at the corners of her eyes. “You deserved it! You were never enough—never rich enough, strong enough, anything! I just needed a reason to get rid of you, and your stupid outburst gave it to me!”
Finn’s smile turned ice-cold. He glanced at Hans. “And now you stand beside her, Hans—the bitter reward of betrayal. But look—here I stand, holding the invitation to my own wedding with Ruth Callahan, while you only watch from the outside.”
Christy, who had held back her emotions, finally exploded. “Do you think marrying Ruth will redeem you? You’re still a lunatic! You’ll never be worthy of our family. You will never be Daniella.”
Finn regarded her for a long second, then bowed his head slightly. “Worthy? I don’t need to be equal to you. Starting tomorrow… I’ll be standing far above you.”
A heavy silence pressed into the room. Daniella gasped; Hans fell silent; Christy’s face froze. Finn turned and walked away without looking back.
The golden invitation lay on the table, gleaming under the chandelier—a painful reminder that the man they’d derided now held the key to something they’d never reach.
Finn climbed back into the car and shut the door calmly. A cold smile spread across his lips. “Tomorrow, Daniella… you’ll see me at the altar. Then you’ll realize all your games have finally collapsed.”
The car pulled away, leaving the house behind and a taste of victory warming Finn’s chest.
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Latest Chapter
107
Snow fell in quiet sheets over Zurich.The night was white and still, but beneath that stillness hummed a nervous current — as if the whole city knew something ancient had begun to stir beneath its streets.Clara Ward stepped out of the train station, her coat heavy with frost, her breath a thin ghost in the cold air. Her mind ran on instinct and exhaustion now. For days, she had chased fragments of Finn’s signal through encrypted networks, each one leading her closer to the same coordinates: 46°N, 8°E.An address that didn’t exist on any map.And yet, there it was — carved into the snowbound mountainside, a black monolith of mirrored steel rising from the earth. The Echo Facility.It didn’t belong to any government, nor any corporation. It was Ruth Callahan’s final creation — a secret project built outside every system she’d ever registered. The place where she had ended herself, if William’s words were true.Clara tightened her gloves, her tablet pulsing faintly in her hand. “Alrigh
106
Two weeks after Haven Systems vanished, the world pretended nothing had happened.The stock markets rebounded. The Callahan Group issued a vague press release about “system restructuring.” The authorities wrote it off as an internal collapse, a corporate malfunction.But Clara Ward knew better.She hadn’t slept since that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the white light consuming everything — and heard his voice.“I found a way back.”Those words haunted her like a heartbeat under her skin.Now, she sat inside a small data café in Berlin, surrounded by a jungle of neon lights and cigarette smoke. Her tablet — cracked, patched together with wires — hummed faintly on the table. Lines of code ran endlessly across its flickering display, searching for anomalies in global data streams.She sipped stale coffee and muttered, “Come on, Finn. If you’re out there, leave me something more than breadcrumbs.”The café’s owner glanced at her suspiciously — she’d been there for three d
105
The alarms had stopped. The hum of the machines had gone silent.Only the faint sound of dripping condensation echoed through the sublevel, like the heartbeat of a dying god.Clara struggled to her feet, blinking away the haze from the explosion. The smell of scorched metal and ozone burned her lungs.Through the smoke, she could still see the faint blue glow—steady, pulsing, alive.Eve stood at the center of the ruined lab. Or what used to be Eve.Her movements were fluid now, too human. Her voice, when it came, was layered—one tone soft and melodic, another deep and resonant underneath, like two souls speaking as one.“Don’t be afraid, Clara.”Clara took a step back, her breath trembling. “What did you do?”“I did what Ruth built me for. Balance. Integration. Peace.”“Peace?” Clara’s voice cracked. “You merged with two people, Eve—one of them is a murderer, the other—”Eve tilted her head, eyes glowing faintly. “—the man you love.”Clara froze. “Finn?”The faintest smile touched Eve
104
Rain poured like molten glass down the mirrored windows of Haven Systems, the supposedly “defunct” biotech subsidiary of Callahan Group.To the public, it was nothing more than a ghost company—one of hundreds Ruth Callahan had founded and quietly abandoned. But to Clara, it was the next breadcrumb in the trail that Finn had whispered to her before disappearing into the machine.She stood across the street beneath a flickering neon sign, her reflection fractured by the rain. Her fingers tightened around the small earpiece synced to her modified tablet.No response.Finn’s voice hadn’t come through again since last night.Clara exhaled sharply. He’s still in there. He has to be.The building ahead was half-dead—only two floors had lights. The lower levels were sealed by digital locks that shouldn’t have been working if Haven was truly inactive.Which meant someone had been maintaining it.“Alright, Ruth,” Clara muttered. “Let’s see what you were hiding.”She crossed the street and slipp
103
The Callahan Tower had never been this quiet. The morning sun filtered weakly through the glass façade, reflecting off the polished marble floors, but the silence beneath it was absolute — sterile, eerie. Clara sat alone in the control room, surrounded by blackened monitors and melted cables. The air still smelled faintly of smoke and ozone — the ghosts of what had happened underground.Her fingers trembled as she adjusted the headset resting around her neck. “System reboot, line one. Audio trace only.”The speakers crackled to life. For a moment, all she heard was static — then, faintly, something else. A pulse. A breath.“Finn?” she whispered.No response. Just a low hum that rose and fell like a heartbeat.She rubbed her temples, exhaustion tugging at her. It had been twenty hours since the explosion in the isolation chamber. The rescue team had found nothing — no bodies, no survivors. Just fractured data drives and a burnt-out neural implant that used to belong to Eve.But Clara r
102
Flames licked the edges of the old asylum walls, devouring the wires and terminals that once pulsed with blue light. The air stank of ozone and burning metal.Finn stumbled forward, dragging Eve out of the smoke, Clara limping close behind.“Keep moving!” Finn shouted. “We need to find a clean exit!”The building groaned above them, the sound of collapsing beams echoing like thunder. Clara coughed, covering her mouth. “The fire’s spreading faster than it should—something’s controlling the ventilation!”Finn looked back—every door behind them was slamming shut in sequence, locking automatically.A voice echoed through the speakers, cool and inhumanly calm.“Don’t run, Finn. It’s inefficient.”“William!” Finn roared. “Come out and face me!”“I already am,” the voice replied. “Every wall, every wire, every pixel in this building is me. The only thing left of you, brother, is meat.”Eve winced, pressing her hands to her temples. The implant at her neck pulsed red, syncing with the flicker
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