2025-06-05 06:21:19“Why now?” Diane muttered, more to herself than to him.
“She’s obviously playing a game and up to something that definitely won't favor us,” Holt said. “And she’s got the influence. That black card’s real. The accounts are active again.”
Diane stood, walking to the window.
“You need me to find out who it is,” she said.
“Yes,” Holt replied. “Quietly, with no trace. If she gets the upper hand…”
“She won’t,” Diane cut in. “I still have ears around, If the heir’s anywhere close to us, I’ll know.”
“Good,” Holt said. “And Diane…”
She paused. “What?”
“If Vivian learns what we did to Michael… what you did…”
Diane’s eyes darkened. “She won’t.”
“Let’s hope not,” Holt said and ended the call.
Diane stared at her reflection in the glass. Her heartbeat was still normal, but her thoughts and mind weren't.
If the heir was already in motion… if he was close…
She couldn’t afford mistakes. Not now. Not after all these years.
She turned from the window and made a call of her own.
“Get me access to Kane Tower,” she told her assistant. “Everything. Staff, security feeds, deliveries. Quietly.”
She hung up and whispered to herself.
“Let’s see who you are.”
Diane sat at her sleek office desk in the Carter Group, her hand on her cheek as she thought.
Waiting for every link to the mysterious heir of the Kane Syndicate.
She didn’t know the heir’s name yet, but she thought she was getting closer.
She called holt and they decided to meet as they got a lead.
At six pm, Diane sneaked out of her own mansion, in a Highlander that's not flashy too avoid the attention, twyn she met up with Holt.
Together, they decided to follow the leads.
They found a clue in the security logs at Kane Tower, which her ally had sent her.
Someone had used the elevators late at night.
The logs showed visits to a local bar Jake often went to.
The bar was lit, smoky, with the smell of old whiskey.
Diane and Holt drove quietly to the bar.
Diane’s heart beat fast.
She was walking a dangerous path but needed answers desperately.
Insidethe bar, Jake sat at the far end, nursing a drink and watching people dancing
He looked calm, like he belonged there.
Holt stayed near the entrance, watching, and ready to move into the car Incase of anything.
Diane’s eyes searching and following the gps lead.
Suddenly, a sharp pain hit her from behind.
She stumbled and fell.
Holt ran inside immediately toward the attacker but was blocked by a few men who quickly dragged Diane out of sight.
Someone had hit her hard, with a bottle— someone protecting Jake.
Her vision blurred, and she lost consciousness.
Diane was rushed into the hospital in a hospital bed. Flashing cameras and reporters crowded the entrance.
“What happened to Diane Carter?” they shouted, snapping photos.
Security pushed them back. The hospital doors closed quickly behind Diane.
Inside, a nurse called Diane’s family.
Richard answered first. His voice was tense. “What happened to Diane?”
“We’re not sure yet,” the nurse said. “She was found unconscious and brought here. She in a critical condition and she's loosing blood a lot, she might fall into a comaa.”
The Carter family gathering at the IU alongside Jake, the nurse came out, “she lost a lot of blood, and her blood group is O- we need a donor in 1 hour, or she sleeps into a coma”.
“None of us match,” Greg said, with frustration and fear.
Amanda nodded, looking toward the door. “What about Jake?”
“I don't know my blood group” Jake responded “well we'll take your sample and check it” the nurse said and took Jake to a smaller room.
Minutes later Jake came out and waited his results.
Amanda with tears on her eyes, nurse please could I see my mum, “yes but only for two minutes”.
Amanda sat beside her mother, gently brushing a strand of hair from Diane’s face. Machines beeped steadily beside the bed, the only signs of life.
Diane’s lips moved, whispering one word over and over — “Holt… Holt… Holt…”
Amanda blinked, confused. “What?”
She didn’t know who Holt was, but the name sounded important.
She stayed a few more minutes, then quietly stepped out of the room, heading down the hallway to where the rest of the Carter family waited.
“She’s not waking up,” Amanda told them, voice tight. “But she’s murmuring something. A name.”
“What name?” Richard asked.
Amanda shook her head. “Holt, I think. I don’t know who that is.”
Before anyone could respond, a nurse approached quickly.
“We’ve tested everyone,” she said, urgent. “Jake’s blood is a match. O-negative.”
All eyes turned to Jake.
He didn’t say a word. Just gave a small nod.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
A few minutes later, Jake was guided into the ICU. The nurse moved swiftly, prepping for the transfusion.
As he approached Diane’s bed, he heard it.
“Holt…”
Jake froze.
His pulse jumped. His jaw clenched.
That name.
The name that had haunted his life.
He stared at Diane—unconscious, fragile, whispering a ghost.
He snapped back acting like he just didn't hear something.
The nurse didn’t seem to notice.
“Holt…” Diane murmured again, lips barely moving.
Jake said nothing.
He sat down calmly, rolled up his sleeve.
As the transfusion began, he watched her closely.
Pretending he didn’t hear.
Pretending Holt meant nothing.
“What does she know? How does she know that name?Could this be a link? Is she connected to my dad's death? "Several thoughts ran through Jake's head.
Jake left the hospital without telling a soul. He didn't speak to Amanda. Didn’t update the Carter family.
He got into his battered Honda, his hands shaking slightly, as he drove.
There was only one person he trusted with what he just heard.
Vivian Cross.
It was late. He didn’t care.
When he reached her estate, he didn’t call ahead. Just parked, walked through the private side entrance, and knocked.
Her gate creaked open.
Vivian stood in the doorway in a long gray robe, barefoot, a glass of wine in her hand.
“Jake? She said in shock upon seeing Jake.
“You weren’t supposed to check in until tomorrow.”
“I know,” Jake said, stepping past her. “But something happened.”
She followed him inside, closing the door behind her. “Talk.”
Jake stood in her entrance under the dim chandelier light.
“Diane Carter’s in a coma.”
Vivian blinked. “What?”
“She was attacked at a bar tonight. Someone hit her hard. Knocked her out cold. I was there.”
Vivian raised an eyebrow. “With her?”
“No. I went alone. Diane showed up probably minutes later,probably following me. Someone hit her over the head. Ambulance came fast. No one saw who did it.”
Vivian moved to the mantle. “And Holt?”
“I don’t know if he was there himself. But she was murmuring his name in the ICU. Over and over. ‘Holt.’ Just that.”
Vivian’s expression changed. She lowered her glass. “She probably followed you then, or maybe a signal, but it didn't happen by chance”.
Jake nodded. “That’s what I think. She and Holt must’ve followed me to the bar… but something went sideways.”
“I didn't see anyone there, like her buddy or someone who knew her, I hid and didn't let anyone know I was at the bar,” Vivian murmured.
“Or maybe someone else was watching.”
Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Why would Diane Carter—CEO, media darling, old money royalty—end up at a bar on Division Street?”
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Chapter Six Hundred and Thirty
A hundred and fifty years after Jake Sullivan walked into the river, the canyon woke to find Jake’s apple waiting on the bare ground as it always did (perfect, red, warm).Only this year the apple was split cleanly in half, as though someone had taken one deliberate bite and set the rest back down.No one had touched it. No child had been brave enough. No elder had been curious enough.The two halves lay side by side in the grass, juice still glistening, scent drifting across the square like a memory that refused to stay buried.By sunrise the entire settlement had gathered (five, maybe six thousand now, spread across both rims and down the river valley). They stood in a quiet circle the way their great-grandparents once had around a dying silver tree.Ember Sullivan (Asha’s granddaughter, ninety-one years old, hair the color of late snow, eyes still sharp enough to map a ridge by starlight) knelt and lifted one half of the apple.She did not hesitate.She bit.The taste rolled th
Chapter Six Hundred and Twenty-Nine
Fifty-one years after Jake Sullivan was laid beneath the ordinary tree, the canyon celebrated its hundredth harvest festival.The tree (now two hundred feet tall, trunk thick as a house, roots sprawling across half the old cemetery) had become the heart of Defiance in every way. Children climbed it, lovers carved initials in its bark that vanished by morning, and every autumn it dropped Tomorrow apples by the wagonload. People no longer spoke of the silver tree except in stories told to wide-eyed young ones who thought the Maw was a dragon.Hope Sullivan died peacefully the winter before, at ninety-nine. They buried her beside her parents, and the tree dropped one perfect red apple onto her grave that never bruised, never rotted.That night, for the first time in a century, the tree spoke.Not in wind. Not in Jake’s recorded voice.It spoke aloud, in the canyon, in the dark, in a voice every soul from the oldest elder to the youngest child recognized instantly (rough, smoke-cured,
Chapter Six Hundred and Twenty-Eight
They buried Jake Sullivan on the first day of autumn, when the cottonwoods were bleeding gold into the river and the air carried the first bite of winter.The whole canyon shut down. No school bells, no hammers on anvils, no children shouting in the square. Even the goats stood quiet in their pens. Thousands walked behind the litter of woven wildflowers and cedar boughs, but no one spoke above the hush of boots on dust and the soft creak of wagon wheels. The river itself seemed to lower its voice, as if it understood the weight of the man it had carried in life and was now carrying in death.Hope walked at the front, one hand resting on the edge of the litter, the other cradling the mended violin against her chest like a child. She was seventy-eight now (the same age Jake had been when he walked away), hair silver as moonlight on water, face carved deep by sun and grief and joy in equal measure. Her eyes were dry. She had cried every tear she owned the night the runners brought him
Chapter Six Hundred and Twenty-Seven
Jake Sullivan was seventy-eight the year the Tree stopped giving.He noticed it before anyone else, because he still walked to the silver tree every dawn the way other men check the weather or their pulse. That morning the branches were bare, the fruit gone, the bark cold for the first time in fifty years.He stood there a long time, palm against the trunk, waiting for the familiar pulse of thirty-three thousand names.Nothing answered.He was not afraid.He was tired in a way that went past bone, past marrow, into the place where stories are born and end.He did not tell anyone what he felt. Not Hope, not Asha, not even the Tree itself. Some knowings are private, even from the people you love.Instead he went home, kissed Elara’s stone on the way past the cemetery, and began packing.A simple pack this time. One canteen. The knife he had carried since the Long Walk. The cracked violin Lilah had pressed into his hands the week before she died, saying, “You still owe me a song, o
Chapter Six Hundred and Twenty-Six
It happened without warning, the way the best and worst things always do.One morning in late summer, the silver tree bore no fruit.Not a single luminous orb hung from its branches. The leaves were still perfect, still shimmering, still warm to the touch, but the harvest that had fed the canyon in body and memory for three generations simply failed to appear.At first no one worried. Trees have off years. The old-timers shrugged and said they’d eat regular apples and remember on their own.But the next morning the leaves began to fall.Not the gentle, one-per-year ritual leaves that never withered. These were ordinary leaves, silver turning dull, drifting down in silent thousands until the ground beneath the Tree looked like a moonlit snowfield.By the third day the trunk had gone cold.Asha (now thirty-three, mother of two, elected to the canyon council because someone had to be) stood beneath the bare branches with her daughter Ember and felt the same chill her great-grandfather Ja
Chapter Six Hundred and Twenty-Five
Asha Sullivan was twelve the year the last person who had seen the Maw died.Old Marta (once Mrs. Guzman, once simply Marta, once no-name at all) slipped away in her sleep at ninety-four. She was the final living soul who could still describe the sky bleeding upward. They buried her beside the Memory Wall with a silver leaf tucked beneath her folded hands, and the canyon closed the circle.That spring, the schoolchildren asked Hope to tell them the story of the shadow one more time.Hope stood on the porch that had once belonged to her parents (now hers, though she still thought of it as theirs) and looked at thirty bright faces who had never known a night without stars they could trust.She told them the short version.“There was a darkness that tried to make us forget how to choose. We chose anyway. That’s all.”The children nodded solemnly, then immediately asked if they could use the trebuchet to launch watermelons instead of pumpkins this year. Hope said yes, because some lessons
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