2025-06-30 20:53:09The folder in Kai’s hand felt heavier than metal. He opened it slowly, expecting balance sheets, blueprints, or maybe classified company intel.
What he found instead was madness. PROJECT LAZARUS. Confidential Level: VL (Vault Lineage Only). Objective: Resurrection Protocol for Strategic Leadership Continuity.
Initiated: 27 years ago. Lead Architect: Lucian Everhart. Status: Inactive (Subject Fatality Recorded)
Kai frowned. “Resurrection?”
He flipped to the next page, a document stamped in red: DECEASED: Subject Zero (Kestrel Prototype).
Below it, a blurry black-and-white photo of a human-shaped figure, strapped to a hospital table, with half its skull exposed… wired into machines.
His stomach twisted. Another page. A medical scan. The name listed under “DNA Match” was his mother.
He stepped back. “No…”
Another page: a transcript of Lucian’s voice recording. “Subject One failed. The Everhart genome isn’t compatible with synthetic integration... yet. But the boy… the boy might be the key.”
The words hit like a hammer. The boy? Him? He nearly threw the folder. His hands shook.
They hadn’t just built a fortune, they built experiments. And Lucian hadn’t just left him an empire.
He had left Kai the legacy of a ghost scientist obsessed with cheating death.
A voice broke the silence. “Now you know.”
Kai turned sharply. Thorne stood at the entrance.
“You knew?” Kai asked, voice low.
Thorne nodded once. “Not everything. I was told the project was buried when your mother died. But your DNA was stored. Your existence is hidden, and when Lucian’s health declined… he reopened the file.”
Kai stepped forward. “He wanted to bring himself back?”
Thorne didn’t blink. “Or something worse.”
Silence settled. Only the quiet hum of a server hidden somewhere in the walls.
Kai felt a weight press into his chest , deeper than anger. A betrayal wrapped in family and science and power.
He wasn’t just a forgotten heir. He was a contingency. “I want every file, every location, every person who ever worked on Lazarus,” Kai said.
“Already in motion,” Thorne replied.
Kai walked past him. “From now on, I see everything. No more lies. No more curtains.”
“Yes, sir.”
Later that night, Kai sat in the library with the memory card from the box, the one marked "Watch Me."
He inserted it into the tablet. A video opened. The image was grainy. A camera pointed at a desk.
Lucian Everhart appeared, much older, frail but fire-eyed. He stared into the lens.
“Kai. I assume you’ve found the chamber. And the files. You were never meant to be ordinary. That’s why I left you alone, to grow free of the corruption this house bleeds from every wall. But if you’re watching this, then I failed. Which means it’s your turn. Do not trust the board. Do not trust the name Everhart. And most of all… do not resurrect what I died trying to bury.”
He leaned closer to the camera. “But if they come for you, and they will, you’ll have to choose. To run…Or to become the monster this world fears.”
The recording ended. The screen went black. Kai sat still for a long time. His fingers hovered over the seal ring, then closed into a fist.
He didn’t ask for this war. But it was his now, and he wouldn’t run. He’d burn it down before they used him like a puppet.
From the shadows, Dr. Vael watched on a secondary monitor. She closed her notebook and whispered to herself, “He’s awake now. The real game begins.”
...
The mansion slept under a velvet sky, lights dimmed, guards posted, systems armed.
But death doesn’t knock. It slithers in.
It was 2:13 a.m. Kai stood shirtless in the private gym, drenched in sweat, throwing brutal punches into a sandbag like it owed him answers.
The weight of what he’d uncovered, Project Lazarus, his mother’s link, the board, it boiled under his skin.
Every punch was a vow, to never be weak again. To never be used again. To never trust again.
Until he saw the movement in the mirror. Not his. A blur behind him.
Kai ducked instinctively, just as a blade swiped through the air where his neck had been.
He rolled, kicked the attacker in the ribs. A masked figure dressed in matte-black combat gear staggered back, then charged again.
A second one appeared from the shadows near the sauna. This was a hit, and what followed was chaos.
Kai ducked, dodged, used weights, benches, whatever he could. He wasn’t trained like them, not yet, but he had rage, adrenaline, and desperation.
The first attacker came in with a taser. Kai grabbed a kettlebell and cracked his wrist with it, sending the weapon flying.
The second almost had him, until a shot rang out. The man dropped. Blood pooled.
Thorne stood in the doorway, a pistol in his hand, breathing hard. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
Kai looked down. A long slice across his ribs. He hadn’t even felt it. They dragged the surviving attacker into the panic room. Stripped. Bound. Mask removed.
What they found wasn’t what Kai expected. Young. Blonde. Female.
Her mouth was bloody, but her eyes were sharp. No fear. Kai knelt in front of her. “Who sent you?”
She spat blood. Thorne stepped forward. “Let me,”
“No,” Kai interrupted. “I want her to look me in the eye when she lies.”
The woman smirked. “You really think this is about you?”
“It’s exactly about me.”
“You’re a placeholder,” she hissed. “A spark. The real fire comes next. And when it does, you’ll be nothing but smoke.”
Kai didn’t blink. “Name.”
Nothing. He stood. “Strip the body of the other one. I want to know everything, tattoos, scars, gear, blood type.”
“Already in progress,” Thorne said.
Kai turned to her one last time. “Tell whoever sent you… I don’t run.”
She laughed. “You will.”
Thirty minutes later in the strategy room, Thorne presented a small object found sewn into the attacker’s gear, a gold-plated chip.
Embedded inside, encrypted data and a familiar crest. Not Everhart’s. Valencia Calderón’s.
Kai’s jaw tightened. “Open it.”
Thorne nodded. “With your authorization only.”
Kai pressed his seal ring to the tablet. A hologram bloomed in the air, a private message, not meant for him. It was addressed to someone named “Harland Rook.”
Valencia’s voice played: “Strike before he roots. Do it quietly. I’ll deny knowledge. The boy has Lazarus. We need it. Make it look like a robbery gone wrong if you must. Just don’t leave the body breathing. If Thorne interferes… burn him too.”
Thorne said nothing. Kai stared at the screen, voice low. “She tried to kill me on day two.”
“Correct.”
“And she knows about Lazarus.”
“She’s not the only one who will.”
Kai walked to the window overlooking the estate. The night was calm. But the storm was awake now. Inside and out.
“I want Valencia watched,” he said. “Every call. Every movement. Every breath she takes.”
“And if she makes another move?”
Kai’s voice turned ice. “Then I remind her, you don’t play kingmaker in a kingdom you don’t own.”
He turned away from the glass and picked up the ring. In the mirror, the blood from his wound had dried. But the fire in his eyes had not.
He whispered to himself, “Come at me again. Just once. I’ll show you what resurrection really looks like.”
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CHAPTER 177. THE EXILE OF THE ONE WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
The morning began with a storm that refused to move. Heavy clouds clung low over Crest Tower, gray and unmoving, as if the sky itself wanted to trap everything inside the building.Wind hit the windows in harsh bursts, like fists pounding to be let in. Inside, the halls were quiet, not peaceful, but tense, like a breath held too long.Rhea Caulder walked quickly toward Kai’s private command floor, her footsteps sharp against the polished ground. She held three datapads against her chest, filled with proofs, counter-proofs, system logs, and desperate explanations she had repeated a thousand times to herself since dawn.She rehearsed the words again: “It’s not me. I was framed. Kai, you know me. You KNOW me.”But fear twisted inside her. Ever since the Whisper Grid showed her name. Ever since the blackout that erased the signature. Ever since the satellites were traced back to her access…Nothing had been the same.Eren hardly looked at her. Security watched her every step. And Kai, Ka
CHAPTER 176. THE SHADOW IN HER SIGNALS
The night after Kai dissolved the board felt too quiet, unnaturally quiet, the sort of silence that made the walls of Crest Tower feel alive. It was the silence before a break, before something whispered from the dark.Eren Vale stood alone in the lower data vault, a place few people ever entered willingly. The cold metal walls rose like cliffs on all sides, humming with faint energy. Hundreds of sealed storage columns lined the chamber, each holding archives of Crest’s deepest secrets, logs, encrypted keys, forgotten experiments.Tonight, something in this room was wrong. Terribly wrong. He felt it before he saw it.A pull. A disturbance in the hum. Like someone breathing behind a closed door.Eren tightened his grip on the datapad in his hand. The Whisper Grid’s message from earlier still glowed on the screen: “ORIGIN: RHEA SOLD THE SYSTEM KEYS.”He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to. But Kai’s face after reading that message… the fear in his eyes… the confusion… the trembling p
CHAPTER 175. THE COUNCIL OF NO RETURN
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CHAPTER 174. THE SILENCE BEFORE THE SCREAM
Morning broke over Crest City like a dying ember. There was no brightness. No warmth.Only a faint, cold glow that painted the towers in pale silver, as if the entire city was holding its breath.Inside Crest Tower, the atmosphere was heavier than the sky. The Whisper Grid had gone silent.No flickering lights. No sudden pulses. No coded murmurs. A total, unnatural stillness.Rhea Caulder felt it the moment she stepped into the analytics wing. The air felt wrong, too clean, too empty, like something huge had left the room only seconds before she arrived.She stood in the doorway, breathing fast, eyes scanning the dark screens. “Why is everything off?” she whispered.Her voice echoed slightly, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, responding to her.She touched the console. It did not hum. It did not react. It did not even acknowledge her touch.Eren Vale rushed in from the opposite door, hair disheveled, face tense. “Rhea,” he said, “the Grid’s silent across the entire buildi
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