2026-01-09 20:59:43
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 10: The Hierarchy of Pain
The air inside the lighthouse lantern room had turned into a pressurized soup of ozone and madness. Adrian stood rooted to the stone floor, his muscles still humming from the lightning surge, but his mind was reeling. In front of him, three men stood in a perfect, terrifying triangle. They shared his height, the sharp slope of his jawline, and the cold, analytical depth of his emerald eyes.They weren't just clones; they were mirrors. But while Adrian was covered in the grime of a prison cell, the blood of the gala, and the scars of a dozen betrayals, these men were pristine. They wore slate-gray tactical bodysuits that looked like liquid shadow, and their skin possessed a polished, translucent quality that suggested they had never known the touch of a winter wind or the sting of a human fist."System synchronization at 98%," one of the clones said. His voice was Adrian’s voice, but stripped of the rasp of exhaustion. It was the voice of a machine playing a recording of a man. "Subjec
Chapter 9 : The Lighthouse of Lost Souls
The darkness was no longer a void; it was a hungry, pulsating pressure that tasted of salt and old copper. When the world finally bled back into focus, Adrian didn’t find himself in a lab or a penthouse. He was lying on a cold, circular stone floor, the air around him thick with the rhythmic, mournful groan of a foghorn and the violent crash of the Atlantic against jagged rocks.He tried to gasp, but his lungs felt like they were filled with wet sand. His neck throbbed where Elena had driven the needle—a betrayal so clinical it felt like a final signature on his death warrant."Don't try to stand too quickly, Adrian. The neuro-toxin is a derivative of the blue fluid. It’s designed to keep the 'vessel' compliant while the neural pathways are being re-mapped."Adrian forced his head to turn. He was at the top of the Blackwood Point Lighthouse—the ancestral heart of the Thorne estate, a place where his grandfather used to take him to "watch the storms." But the old Fresnel lens had been
Chapter 8 : The Wedding of the Damned
The city below looked like a circuit board made of flickering neon and liquid shadow. From the cockpit of the Rossi Group’s sleek, blacked-out chopper, Adrian watched the Grand Metropole Hotel grow larger. It was a monolith of glass and arrogance, where the elite had gathered to celebrate a merger built on the bones of a dead man.His side pulsed with a rhythmic, dull agony, but he ignored it. He was dressed in a tactical suit provided by Seraphina’s team, the heavy fabric hiding the fresh bandages that bound his torso. Over it, he wore a tuxedo coat, a costume of civilization for a man who had long since left it behind."Ten minutes until the 'Kill Switch' detonates the pension funds," Seraphina said, her eyes fixed on a glowing tablet. "Lucas isn't bluffing, Adrian. He’s already pushed the first sequence. If we don't hit the mainframe in the penthouse, twenty thousand people will wake up tomorrow with nothing but a suicide note from a brother who doesn't exist."Adrian checked the m
Chapter 7: The Architecture of the Lie
The transition from the void back into consciousness wasn't a slow awakening; it was a violent collision with reality. Adrian’s eyes snapped open, but for a moment, he believed he was still blind. The world was a sterile, shadowless white an infinite expanse of surgical brightness that burned into his retinas.He tried to move his hand to shield his face, but a heavy, hydraulic hiss stopped him. His wrists and ankles were bound by reinforced polymer restraints, fixed to a cold, slanted table. He wasn't in a prison cell anymore, and he wasn't in the Rossi clinic. The air here was too thin, too pure, smelling of ozone and pressurized nitrogen."Subject 9452 is responsive. Heart rate elevating. Cortisol spike detected."The voice was the same one from the warehouse, cold, clinical, and devoid of the messy fluctuations of human emotion. Adrian turned his head, fighting the dizziness that threatened to pull him back into the dark.Standing beside a floating holographic terminal was the wom
Chapter 6 : The Vault of Dead Secrets
The black sedan carved through the rain-slicked streets of the city like a scalpel through velvet. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of adrenaline and the sharp, metallic tang of the blue diamond resting in Adrian’s palm. He didn't look at the glittering gem; his eyes were fixed on the side-view mirror.The motorcycle was still there.It was a low-profile, matte-black sportbike, weaving through the late-night traffic with a fluid, predatory grace. The rider was a shadow among shadows, but the streetlights occasionally caught the flash of a dragon’s tail coiling up a porcelain-white neck. Kaelen. The Lotus’s cleaner was no longer just an observer; he was a tether."We have company," Adrian said, his voice now clear of the muffled rasp of the bandages.Seraphina didn't look back. She tapped a command into her tablet, and the privacy glass between them and the driver hissed shut. "I told you the Lotus wouldn't let their 'investment' wander the streets unmonitored. You’re a dead ma
Chapter 5: The Ghost of the Rain
The rain didn’t just fall; it hammered against the asphalt like a thousand rhythmic drums, drowning out the distant, panicked sirens echoing from the direction of Blackwood Penitentiary. Adrian stood frozen in the glare of the sedan’s headlights, the water soaking through his tattered prison rags until they clung to his skin like a second, colder shroud. His side was a cavern of white-hot agony, but the adrenaline, sharp, bitter, and intoxicating kept him upright.He looked at the black car, a sleek predator idling in the filth of the alley. Then he looked at the digital device lying in the gutter, its screen displaying the flatline of a dead man’s pulse.His pulse."I’m going to count to three, Adrian," the woman’s voice drifted from the darkened interior, calm and dangerously melodic. "On three, the Lotus cleaners will arrive to 'verify' the charred remains in your cell. If they find you standing here, breathing and thinking, the Librarian’s deal expires. And trust me, the Lotus doe
You may also like
Son-in-Law: A Commoner's Path to Revenge
Naughty Snail122.7K viewsTop Expert in Floraville
Earth at Dawn172.1K viewsThe Heir of the Family
Rytir89.4K viewsRejected Billionaire
Drew Archeron133.1K viewsThe Return Of The Young Marshal's
Thewitchwriter223 viewsBecoming Tyler Kramer: The Hidden Billionaire Boss’ Revenge
Yin U.824 viewsRAY MARTIN CODE
Pen Lord230 viewsHER CONTRACT HUSBAND IS THE COMMANDER KING
khadijah735 views