2025-04-23 22:35:25The mansion smelled different that morning.
Not the usual mix of lemon cleaner and cigar smoke, but something tense, sharp—like metal in the air before a storm.
Gregory descended the attic stairs as usual, already mentally preparing for the day’s insults. But today felt different. The halls were quiet. Too quiet. No laughter from the brothers. No barking orders from Mr. Rosewell.
He stepped into the main foyer—and froze.
Every member of the Rosewell family stood there.
All five children.
Mr. Rosewell in a sharp charcoal suit.
And someone new.
A man in his early forties. Neat, clinical, like a hospital administrator in disguise. He held a slim black briefcase and had the kind of smile that made Gregory feel like a lab rat.
“Ah,” the stranger said. “You must be Gregory.”
Gregory instinctively glanced at Mr. Rosewell, who offered nothing but a hard, unreadable stare.
“Gregory is the housekeeper,” Mr. Rosewell said coldly. “We found something of interest last night in the attic. Some… items.”
Gregory’s stomach dropped.
“You went through my things?”
“They’re not your things if they’re in my house.”
The man with the briefcase stepped forward. “My name is Dr. Harold Graves. I’ve been contracted to assist Mr. Rosewell with a matter of paternity verification.”
Gregory blinked. “What?”
Samuel, standing behind his siblings, looked confused too. “Dad, what’s going on?”
Mr. Rosewell cut him off with a raised hand. “Silence.”
Dr. Graves continued, “Due to the recent media attention surrounding Mr. Caldwell’s search for his lost son, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to conduct some… housekeeping of our own. Gregory here seems to be at the center of some curiosity.”
Gregory’s fists clenched. “You stole my things. My birth tag. The wristband—”
Mr. Rosewell raised his voice. “Enough!”
Gregory stood his ground.
For once, he didn’t bow his head. “If this is about Mr. Caldwell, then I should be the one to—”
“You are nothing, boy!” Mr. Rosewell thundered. “You clean toilets in my house. Do not mistake the charity of a roof over your head for significance.”
Seth chuckled. “Let the rat get tested. Maybe he’ll find out he’s just a rat after all.”
Dr. Graves opened his case with a metallic snap, revealing a small DNA swab kit.
“It’s simple,” he said, approaching Gregory. “A quick sample. Then we compare it to the sample provided by Mr. Caldwell’s legal team. Discreet. Confidential.”
Gregory’s chest rose and fell.
This could be it.
He nodded.
Dr. Graves swabbed the inside of his cheek, sealed the vial, and packed the kit like it was nuclear material.
“You’ll hear from us in a few days,” he said. “But I suggest you don’t go anywhere.”
Mr. Rosewell turned to his sons. “Escort him back to his quarters.”
Gregory narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a prisoner.”
“You’re nothing unless that test proves otherwise,” Seth smirked. “And if it doesn’t…?”
Gregory didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, he didn’t know.
Back in the attic, Gregory stared at the ceiling.
His mind ran wild.
What if he wasn’t the heir?
What if it was all some sick game?
Or worse—what if he was the heir… and Mr. Rosewell had known all along?
Downstairs, he could hear raised voices. Samuel yelling at his father. A door slamming. Footsteps pacing.
Then silence again.
His pulse wouldn’t slow.
He needed air.
He needed answers.
That night, under cover of darkness, Gregory slipped out through the service door and headed to the local public library.
It wasn’t far. Fifteen blocks. He ran the entire way.
Inside, the night librarian gave him a wary glance, but he nodded politely and went straight to the newspaper archives.
He searched for hours.
Looking up anything on Richard Caldwell. Birth records. Old interviews. Anything about a missing child. A scandal. A loss.
And finally, he found it.
“Tragedy at Sea: Wife of Young Entrepreneur Drowns in Ferry Accident — Infant Presumed Missing.”
The photo of the woman in the article—long brown hair, a kind smile—sent a chill through Gregory.
He’d never seen her before.
But something deep in his chest ached.
His mother?
The article claimed the child vanished after the crash. The body was never recovered. The father, Richard Caldwell, had nothing but a single hospital ID wristband. No trace of the child since.
Until now.
Gregory snapped a photo of the article with his phone.
As he turned to leave, the librarian approached. “Library’s closing, son.”
Gregory nodded, heart still racing.
He was halfway to the exit when his phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
He answered cautiously. “Hello?”
A voice on the other end spoke quickly, almost urgently.
“You don’t know me, Gregory, but they’re watching you.”
Gregory stopped walking.
“Who is this?”
“I used to work for Caldwell’s company. On the inside. You’re closer than you think. But be careful. If they confirm you’re the heir, they won’t let you live long enough to claim it.”
The line went dead.
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CHAPTER 316: THE MANHUNT PROTOCOL
The city lights blurred into streaks of white and amber as the armored transport tore through Cairo’s outer districts. Sirens wailed somewhere behind them, but none were close enough to matter. Not yet.Inside the vehicle, no one spoke.Gregory sat rigid, elbows on his knees, jaw locked. His mind was already elsewhere, mapping patterns, projecting outcomes, running probabilities the way his father once had… and the way Host Zero now did better.Amelia broke the silence first. “You said you’d start thinking like a virus.”Blake snorted softly. “I was hoping that was metaphorical.”Gregory didn’t look up. “It’s not.”Crane stirred on the bench opposite them, coughing weakly. His neck was bruised purple, his voice hoarse. “He’s activated it, hasn’t he?”Gregory nodded. “The Manhunt Protocol.”Blake frowned. “I’ve heard rumors. Never thought it was real.”“It was theoretical,” Crane said grimly. “A global response framework Richard Caldwell designed but never deployed. It links private s
CHAPTER 315: THE RAVEN LEGION
The first shell slammed into the outer wall with a violence that turned concrete into dust. The second shook the entire underground level, ripping cables from the ceiling and flinging them like angry snakes.Emergency lights burst. Fire alarms shrieked. The facility, already wounded, began to die around them.Amelia stumbled but stayed on her feet, gripping her weapon. “Those aren’t standard rounds,” she shouted over the chaos. “They’re testing structural weaknesses!”“They’re not trying to destroy the facility,” Gregory said, eyes focused, mind racing. “They’re trying to flush us out.”Host Zero stood in the center of the room, perfectly calm while the world collapsed around him. “You see them as enemies,” he told Gregory. “That amuses me. They see me as salvation.”“Delusional cult thinks the same about every false god,” Gregory shot back.Outside, engines roared in layers. Heavy transport carriers. Armored vans. Drones splitting the air like mechanical hornets.“The Raven Legion,”
CHAPTER 314: THE DARK FACILITY
Darkness swallowed the chamber in one savage gulp. For half a second, the world no longer existed, no walls, no floor, no enemies, no allies, only a vacuum of black, punctuated by the shriek of emergency sirens choking themselves to death.Then Gregory felt the cold concrete beneath him, the copper taste of blood on his tongue, the dull ache radiating through his ribs. And the sound. Breathing. Not his. Not Amelia’s.Something else. Slow. Even. Unafraid. Host Zero was still standing. He didn’t need light. He already knew where everything was.“Stay still,” Blake’s voice crackled in his ear. “Thermal imaging’s all over the place. He’s moving like he doesn’t care if we see him.”“He doesn’t,” Gregory muttered, pushing himself upright. “He wants us to know he’s here.”A low chuckle echoed through the dark. “You always understood me better than the others,” Host Zero said pleasantly. “Even as a child, your threat assessments were beyond your age. You saw weaknesses before anyone else.”“T
CHAPTER 312: THE HUNT FOR HOST ZERO
The jet tore through the night sky like a blade through cloth, its engines humming under Gregory’s feet. Below him, Eastern Europe stretched out in darkness, cities flickering like signs of life on a dying circuit board.Gregory stood in the cabin, headset on, eyes fixed on the two split-screen feeds in front of him.Blake’s bodycam showed a decaying industrial compound. Snow drifted across rusted metal gates. His strike team moved in tight formation, weapons raised, breath fogging the air.Amelia and Crane navigated a labyrinth of sandstone corridors beneath an old research annex. Sweat glistened on Amelia’s brow despite the low light. Crane’s portable scanner pulsed in his hand.Two locations. One real. One a trap. And every instinct in Gregory’s bones told him they were already walking into his father’s game. “Status,” Gregory said, steady and clipped.Blake’s voice crackled through the left feed. “Compound is quiet. Too quiet. Motion sensors haven’t triggered once. I don’t like it
CHAPTER 311: RESURRECTION PROTOCOL
The jet-black clouds over Prague hadn’t lifted by the time Gregory, Amelia, and Blake touched down in Berlin. Crane’s secure-lab bunker sat beneath a decommissioned intelligence outpost, one of the few places left where Gregory trusted the walls not to listen.The moment they entered the operations bay, Crane shoved a tablet into Gregory’s hands. His face looked like it had aged ten years in a night. “You need to see this,” Crane said. “Now.”Gregory scanned the screen, and froze. A biometric profile glowed in red. Vitals. Neural rhythms. Cognitive mapping signatures. All linked to a single ID tag: CALDWELL_GEN_01.Amelia covered her mouth. “That’s the same algorithm signature embedded in your scans.”Blake’s brow furrowed. “But that shouldn’t be possible. The vault is gone. The mainframe’s fried. How the hell do we still have activity?”Crane swallowed hard. “Because it’s not in the mainframe anymore.”He tapped another window. A live feed appeared. A man strapped to a medical gurney
CHAPTER 310: THE GHOST MARKET
The technician who opened the courier envelope never saw the sunrise. By dawn, the small East London warehouse was nothing but twisted metal and ash.When news reached Caldwell Tower, Gregory was already at his desk. He didn’t flinch when Blake slammed the report down. “Another leak,” Blake said. “Same pattern as before. The drive you locked up, a copy somehow got out.”Gregory’s jaw tightened. “It didn’t ‘get out.’ Someone took it.”Amelia stood by the window, arms folded. “Then we’re not just fighting your father’s ghost anymore. Someone out there thinks they can profit off it.”Gregory turned to Crane’s live feed on the screen. The intelligence director’s face was pale, even through static.“The chatter’s real. The black-market networks are calling it Project ECHO. They think it’s a full digital clone of Richard Caldwell’s mind.”Gregory’s voice was flat. “They’re wrong.”Crane hesitated. “Are they? Because governments, cartels, and defense contractors are already bidding for it li
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