2025-07-26 16:30:39The wind howled like a warning across the Goodman Estate, but the mourners only clutched their black coats tighter and turned their tearless faces toward the casket.Richard Goodman,the titan, the tycoon, the tyrant,was finally dead.
A polished mahogany coffin sat beneath the white silk canopy. Gold-trimmed roses lined the velvet, and mourners lined the earth like vultures dressed in Prada.
Press cameras flashed beyond the wrought-iron fence, catching every solemn nod and practiced frown. The scene was perfect.Too perfect.
A black Bentley pulled up to the estate gates, its arrival unnoticed amidst the carefully choreographed grief. But when the door opened, and a tall figure stepped out in a long black coat, everything stopped, Conversations died mid-sentence.
Chins turned slowly, one after another, like dominos falling in a chain of disbelief.And then someone whispered it, like a curse, or a ghost story resurfacing, “Jeffrey. ”His name cracked through the silence like a gunshot.
Jeffrey Goodman hadn’t been seen in six years, Not in the boardroom, Not in the will, Not in the obituaries or society pages he was a ghost, burned from every Goodman record after the infamous fallout with his father and stepmother.
But now, that ghost walked again.He adjusted his cufflinks, the glint of a black obsidian ring flashing briefly in the weak morning light. His jaw was sharper, his presence heavier, as if time hadn’t just aged him,it had forged him.
Zane Goodman, the late Richard’s younger son and now-proclaimed heir, staggered one step backward from the gravesite. “What the hell is he doing here?” Zane hissed.
His mother, Eleanor, didn’t blink. Her red nails curled around the diamond handle of her umbrella. “Hold your ground. ”But Jeffrey didn’t look at either of them. His eyes, cold and cutting, were fixed on the casket.
“Did he die clean?” Jeffrey asked suddenly, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Murmurs broke out. The minister paused, confused.Jeffrey walked forward, slicing the air with each step. He reached the casket and stared at it for a long moment. Then, he pulled a black rose from his coat pocket and dropped it on top.
“I wonder how many of you were already planning his death before he hit the ground,” he said softly.
Gasps followed. Eleanor stepped forward, lips curled. “You weren’t invited,” she said. “You don’t belong here.”
Jeffrey finally turned to face her. “Neither did his killers,” he replied.
Zane lunged forward, rage overtaking reason. “You son of a... Jeffrey moved faster than anyone expected. In one fluid motion, he caught Zane’s wrist mid-swing, twisted it behind his back, and forced him to his knees.
The security guards hesitated. Eleanor raised her hand to stop them. Jeffrey’s grip on Zane tightened “Still weak,” he murmured in Zane’s ear. “All these years, and you’re still the coward hiding behind your mother’s skirts.”
Zane groaned in pain. “You can’t just walk back in here like you own the place!”Jeffrey released him with a shove. Zane fell to the grass.He stood tall again, scanning the crowd. Dozens of eyes darted away from his. Fear. Uncertainty. Recognition.
Jeffrey nodded slightly, satisfied“I’m not here to grieve,” he said. “I’m here for the truth.”
He turned his gaze back to the coffin. “My father didn’t die of natural causes. He was murdered.”
The minister stumbled back. Several guests whispered furiously. One woman clutched her pearls, Eleanor took a step forward. “You have no proof.”
Jeffrey didn’t answer her. Instead, he pulled a small black USB from his pocket and held it between two fingers “This contains video footage from inside the Goodman mansion, Not tampered,Not doctored. Dated two nights before the heart attack.”
A flicker of something passed over Eleanor’s face, Not surprise, fear, Jeffrey smiled. “Daddy didn’t die in his sleep, he died begging for air.”
He tossed the USB to the minister. “Do your duty,” he said. “And bury him knowing the truth will be exhumed with him if you don't.”
With that he turned on his heel and walked away, the crowd parting like waves before him. No one dared stop him.No one dared speak.But Eleanor’s voice rose sharply as he reached the Bentley again. “You’ve made a mistake returning, Jeffrey. You don’t know what you’ve started.”
He looked back over his shoulder. “I didn’t come back to start something,” he said coolly. “I came to end it.”
The car door slammed, and the Bentley peeled away, tires screaming against the gravel as it vanished down the winding road. Back at the gravesite, the USB slipped from the minister’s trembling fingers and landed in the grass. Unnoticed, Unclaimed, Unplugged, But not for long.
Jeffrey stood in the rain, watching a man bleed. The informant’s hands were tied behind his back, mouth stuffed with cloth, eyes wild with fear. Victor Kael, Jeffrey’s second-in-command and longtime ally, leaned against the alley wall, arms crossed.
“You sure about this guy?” Victor asked. “He was your father’s bookkeeper, not a hitman.”
Exactly why he knows where the bodies are buried,” Jeffrey replied, He stepped forward, crouched in front of the gagged man, and pulled the cloth from his mouth.
The man gasped. “I didn’t have a choice! Eleanor said,said she’d kill my family.”
Jeffrey held up a hand. “I’m not here for your excuses. I’m here for the list.” The man looked up, broken. “What list?”
“The ledger,” Jeffrey said. “The one that disappeared the night my father died. I know he trusted you to keep a second copy.“I.....I don’t know...,”
Jeffrey nodded once. Victor reached into his coat and pulled out a syringe. “No! Please!”Jeffrey crouched lower. His voice dropped.
“She killed him. You think she’ll let you live once the dust settles? I’m your only chance now. Give me the ledger, and I can keep you breathing.”The man’s lips trembled. Then he nodded.
“Safe house, East Harbor, Red brick building, third floor, Behind the false wall in the closet. It’s all there.”Jeffrey rose and stepped back, Victor holstered the syringe.
“We good?” he asked.
Jeffrey’s gaze didn’t leave the informant. “One more thing, ”He walked up, leaned close.
“Who ordered the hit on me six years ago?”
The man went pale. “I… I don’t know.”
Jeffrey’s eyes narrowed. “I swear! All I know is,it wasn’t your father. He tried to stop it.” A beat of silence.
Jeffrey stood slowly, digesting that.Victor tilted his head. “Then who did?”
The man whispered, “Ask Zane.”
Before Victor could speak, a shot rang out from the rooftop. The informant’s head snapped back,blood sprayed the alley.Jeffrey dove behind a dumpster, drawing his gun. Victor pulled his weapon too, scanning the rooftops.
“Sniper!” Victor shouted.
But the shooter was already gone.Rain hit the concrete in heavy, rhythmic taps.Jeffrey stared at the lifeless body. “Son of a bitch,” Victor muttered. “That was too clean. Pro.”
Jeffrey’s face was stone.“They knew he was going to talk.”
Victor looked at him. “What now?”
Jeffrey slid his gun back into its holster. “We go to East Harbor. And find that ledger before it gets burned.” He turned to the alley’s exit, but his phone buzzed in his coat.One message.
You’re playing a game you don’t understand. Stop digging, or you’ll end up in the next coffin.Jeffrey stared at the screen.Then he deleted the message.And walked into the rain.
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Chapter 54 – The Third Shadow
The sky was breaking. Every soul in the city looked up, frozen beneath the rain of chains that screamed like falling blades.The rift above gaped wider, tearing the heavens apart. Fire bled into blackness, and blackness pulsed like a living heart.Jeffrey’s knees buckled beneath him. He was slick with blood, barely standing, his sword trembling in his hand. His vision was ash and fire, but his instincts screamed what his mind refused to accept.This wasn’t over. It had never been about the Doppelgänger or the Beast. They were gatekeepers. And the true horror was still behind the door.“The heir has awakened. The seals are broken.”The voice rolled through the city like an earthquake, rattling windows, shaking steel, making children scream and soldiers drop their guns.Camilla stopped mid-run, clutching her ears as blood streamed from her nose. Her body crumpled, but still her lips formed his name.Jeffrey staggered toward her, each step tearing his muscles raw. He reached her in time t
Chapter 53 – The Ashen Veil
The world was fire. Jeffrey’s lungs burned, his skin flayed by molten air. Darkness pressed in from all sides, pierced only by violent flashes of red and white.He tried to move. His body didn’t respond. Then, voices. Whispers, endless, writhing. They slithered through the inferno, caressing his skull like smoke.Child of flame. Son of ash. You are not broken. You are becoming. Jeffrey’s eyes snapped open. He wasn’t in the courtyard anymore. He wasn’t anywhere human.The ground beneath him was charred bone. The sky above was a ceiling of fire, cracking, bleeding light. Chains hung down from nothing, rattling with no wind, stretching into infinity.And between them, two shadows. The Doppelgänger. The Beast. Alive. Waiting. The Doppelgänger loomed, his molten form reduced but no less menacing, heat dripping from his limbs. His eyes burned, twin suns locked on Jeffrey.The Beast crouched opposite, its body darker than void, its eyes two smoldering embers. Chains slithered from its skin,
Chapter 52 – Chains of the Abyss
The giant’s grip was closing. Jeffrey’s ribs buckled, vision tunneling, blood rising in his throat. The Doppelgänger’s molten fist was a coffin, searing, suffocating, inevitable. And then came the chains.They tore up from the fractured earth, red-hot and clanging, each link thick as a carriage wheel. They coiled around the titan’s arms, burning into molten flesh, dragging him backward toward the yawning abyss below.The Doppelgänger howled, his colossal body thrashing as though hooked by the hands of hell itself. And then, from that abyss, eyes ignited. Twin infernos, vast and hungry. The beast.The same abomination Jeffrey had chained in the underworld, the same monster he had bled and broken to prove his dominion, alive, reborn, hungrier than ever. Its roar split the heavens.The Doppelgänger reeled, momentarily distracted, and his grip slackened just enough for Jeffrey to gasp a ragged breath.Pain lanced through every bone in his chest, but he forced his arm to move, his blade to
Chapter 51 – Inferno Ascending
The sky was on fire. Not the scattered glow of burning rooftops or the desperate flicker of torchlight, but a living blaze that swallowed the heavens whole.The Doppelgänger, now a colossal infernal titan, towered above the Goodman manor. His molten limbs stretched wide, dripping rivers of fire that scorched streets, melted stone, and sent entire neighborhoods crumbling into ash. The city screamed beneath him.And on the fractured courtyard stone, Jeffrey Goodman stood alone, fire wreathing his shoulders like a mantle, his broken blade glowing like the heart of a dying star. He tilted his head up, eyes burning gold. “Then let’s finish this.”The infernal giant moved first. Its arm swept down, a molten hammer meant to crush Jeffrey and the manor in one strike. The impact split the ground, sending shockwaves that toppled walls and threw men screaming into the air.But Jeffrey was already moving. He leapt skyward, fire propelling him like a comet, and met the giant’s strike head-on. His
Chapter 50 – Fire and Shadow
The fire swallowed him whole. Jeffrey’s scream was drowned in the roar of molten flame. It seared his skin, clawed down his throat, boiled the blood in his veins.His body should have disintegrated instantly, reduced to ash, yet something deep within him refused. The beast’s voice thundered through the inferno. “Die, Goodman. Die as your father should have.”Jeffrey’s vision blurred. The broken blade slipped from his fingers. His knees buckled. And in that moment, between life and death, a shadow moved.It wasn’t the beast. It wasn’t the chained remnants. It was something else, darker, older, sharper than fire. A voice that coiled inside his skull.Stand, heir. This fire is not your enemy. It is your birthright. Jeffrey’s eyes snapped open, his pupils contracting to slits.The flames that should have consumed him bent, spiraled, and wrapped around him instead. They didn’t burn, they bled into him, stitching wounds closed, filling his lungs with power.The beast roared in fury. “Imposs
Chapter 49 – Into the Inferno
The fall felt endless. Jeffrey’s body plummeted through darkness that wasn’t just absence of light, it was alive, pressing against him, whispering with the voices of the damned.Heat licked his skin, ash burned his throat, and his ears roared with the sound of a thousand unseen wings. He slammed against stone, hard enough to break a lesser man.Agony shot through his ribs, but he forced himself to breathe, coughing blood and dust. The world around him glowed dimly, an underground chasm lit by rivers of molten fire that ran like veins beneath the earth.He wasn’t dead. Not yet. And from the shadows, something laughed.It was low, guttural, echoing through the cavern. “Finally,” it rasped. “The heir of Goodman returns to the place where his blood belongs.”Jeffrey staggered to his feet, his broken blade still clutched in his burned hand. “Show yourself.”From the fire, shapes emerged. Twisted figures with skin of stone and eyes like coals. Chains rattled across their bodies. The smell o
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