THE TRILLIONAIRE'S WRATH: RISE OF THE FALLEN SON-IN-LAW

CHAPTER 015: The Fragile Sanctuary

The iron gates of the Osbourne estate didn't just close; they sealed like the doors of a vault. Thiago stepped out of the black SUV, his clothes still smelling of the pine needles and cordite from the forest ambush. His hand was bandaged where the burner phone’s glass had sliced his palm, but he didn't feel the sting. The only thing he felt was the rhythmic, haunting echo of a child’s voice in his head: “Is my Daddy here yet?”

"Chairman, you need to see a doctor," Stephen urged, hurrying down the stone steps to meet him. "The news is already reporting a 'gang-related' explosion at the Jersey docks. Henry is spinning the narrative as we speak."

"Let him spin," Thiago growled, pushing past the Fixer. "Where is Melanie? I need the data from that wristband. Now."

He strode into the command center—a room filled with the hum of servers and the cold glow of blue monitors. Melanie was there, standing over a terminal, her face ashen. She held a glass of water, but her hand was shaking so violently that the ice clinked against the rim.

"The DNA sequence from the hospital database," Thiago demanded, slamming his bandaged hand onto the desk. "I need to know who the boy belongs to. If he’s a relative... if he’s a child of the extended family I didn't know I had..."

Melanie didn't look up. She tapped a key, and a massive comparison chart appeared on the main screen.

"Thiago," Melanie whispered, her voice cracking. "I didn't just run the boy's DNA against the public records. I ran it against the sample we took from you for your medical clearance when you left Iron-Gate."

Thiago’s breath hitched. He looked at the screen. On the left was his own genetic profile—the "Master" sequence. On the right was the sequence labeled Patient Zero-Nine: Daniel.

The lines matched. Not just in a few places, but in a perfect, undeniable staircase of biological truth.

PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 99.99%

Thiago staggered back, his knees hitting the edge of a leather chair. The world tilted on its axis. The oxygen in the room felt like it had turned to lead.

"No," he whispered, the word barely a sound. "No. Bernadette... she told me it was over. She sat behind the glass at the prison. She laughed. She said she’d scrubbed the 'convict’s seed' out of her life. She said there was no baby!"

"She lied, Thiago," Melanie said, finally looking at him. Her eyes were swimming with tears. "She didn't kill the child. She realized a Henderson heir was worth more alive as a bargaining chip than dead. She kept him hidden. She raised him in a medical box, telling him his father was a monster who abandoned him."

Thiago’s mind raced back to the night of his arrest. The rain. The handcuffs. Bernadette’s cold, beautiful face as she watched the police drag him away. He realized now that she hadn't been crying for him; she had been calculating the value of the life growing inside her.

"Five years," Thiago choked out, a raw, guttural sound of agony. "He’s five years old. He’s spent his entire life in those trucks. In 'The Willow Tree.' He’s never seen a park. He’s never seen the sun without a window in the way."

"He has my eyes," Thiago said, his voice trembling as he remembered the silver flash in the boy's gaze on the video. "He has my eyes, and he’s asking for a Daddy he’s never met. Iwill destroy them, and they will never see it coming, I will play the part of a fool but they will all pay when the time comes."

Suddenly, the doors burst open. It was Stephen, his face pale. "Sir! It’s Tamia! She’s had a reaction!"

Thiago didn't wait for the explanation. He strode through the marble halls, his boots echoing with a heavy, frantic pace. He reached the sunroom—a glass-walled sanctuary filled with rare orchids and soft light—but the peace of the room was shattered.

Tamia was crouched in the corner, her back pressed against the glass. The gold-wrapped chocolate Thiago had given her lay on the floor, half-unwrapped. The foil glinted under the recessed lights like a tiny, malevolent star.

"Get it away!" Tamia shrieked. Her voice wasn't flat anymore; it was jagged with a primal, suffocating terror. "The gold is burning! It’s burning everything!"

Thiago dropped to his knees a few feet away, holding his hands out. "Tamia, look at me. It’s just candy. It’s the gift I gave you. You’re safe here."

"No!" She clawed at her own arms, her nails leaving red welts on the skin that had already been thinned by years of neglect. "The gold... the sparks... I saw the roof fall! I saw the lady in the white dress laughing while the kitchen turned orange!"

Thiago froze. A memory of a fire. The night their family home burned down years ago—the night their mother was "rescued" only to die in a McHampton-funded hospital. The gold foil wasn't just candy to her; the flickering reflection of the sun on the metal had triggered a flashback of the embers that had consumed her childhood.

"Stephen, get the medical team!" Thiago roared over his shoulder.

"No doctors!" Tamia screamed, her eyes fixated on the chocolate. "The doctors have the long needles! They put the gray fog in my head so I wouldn't hear the baby crying!"

Thiago’s heart stopped. The baby.

"Tamia," he said, his voice dropping to a desperate, shaking whisper. "What baby? Tell me about the baby."

Tamia began to rock back and forth, her breathing coming in shallow, wet gasps. "The little bird. The one with the silver eyes. The Queen said he was a monster. She told me to put him in the box. But he was so cold, Thiago... he was so cold..."

She used his name. For the first time in five years, she had said his name, even if she didn't realize who she was talking to. The trauma of the fire memory was breaking through the chemical walls of the 'Lethe' drug, but it was doing it with the violence of an earthquake.

"I'm here, Tamia. I'm Thiago. I'm your brother," he said, crawling an inch closer.

She looked at him then. For a split second, the vacant, doll-like stare vanished. Her pupils dilated, and she reached out a trembling, scarred hand. "Brother? You... you went to the dark place. You left me with the Queen."

"I'm back now," he promised, tears blurring his vision. "I'm never leaving again."

But the moment snapped. A shadow moved across the sunroom floor—a guard passing by outside—and the flicker of light against the glass sent Tamia back into the abyss. She let out a soul-piercing wail and grabbed a heavy crystal vase from a side table, hurling it at the floor.

"LIAR!" she sobbed. "Everyone is a liar! The fire is coming back! I can smell the smoke!"

She began to hyperventilate, her face turning a terrifying shade of gray. The medical team burst in, led by a doctor carrying a sedative.

"Don't touch her!" Thiago barked, standing up to block them.

"Chairman, her heart rate is at two hundred," the doctor said urgently. "If we don't stabilize her, she’ll have a stroke. The drug interaction is too volatile."

Thiago looked at his sister—his little "bird" who had been crushed by the greed of the Hastings. He realized that his presence, his very face, was a trigger for the pain she wasn't ready to process.

"Do it," Thiago whispered, stepping aside. "But be gentle. If you hurt her, I’ll bury this clinic."

He watched as they administered the sedative. Tamia’s eyes fluttered, her body going limp as the "gray fog" she hated so much returned to claim her. As they lifted her onto a stretcher, a small piece of paper fell from her pocket.

Thiago picked it up. It was a drawing she must have made in secret. It wasn't a house or a flower. It was a crude, shaky sketch of a willow tree. But beneath the tree, she had drawn a small, rectangular box with a lock on it.

Melanie stepped into the room, her eyes taking in the wreckage. "She’s remembering, Thiago. That’s why she’s reacting like this. The Hastings didn't just erase her memory; they buried it under a layer of fear. The gold foil... she thinks it's fire because that's the last time she felt 'bright' before everything went dark."

Thiago looked at the drawing of the willow tree. "She knows where the boy is. Or she knew. It’s in her head, Melanie. Locked behind a wall of trauma and CIA-grade chemicals."

"We can't rush her," Melanie warned. "If we force her to remember, we'll break her mind permanently."

"Henry thinks he's safe because the warehouse is ash," Thiago said, his voice turning into the cold, calculating mask of the Chairman. "He thinks because Tamia is broken, I have no map. He’s wrong."

"What's the plan?" Melanie asked.

"I'm going back," Thiago said. "The 'Debt Observer' has been away from the Hastings mansion for too long. If they want to play with fire and memories, I’ll give them a masterpiece. I’m going to make that house so haunted by the truth that Henry will beg me to take his life."

He looked at the gold-wrapped chocolate on the floor and crushed it under his boot.