The Last Inheritance

Chapter Five

Elias caught the knife Lena tossed, feeling his scar start to tingle. For the first time, he was beginning to see it—he wasn’t just a janitor. He was his mother’s son, trained without knowing it. 

The warehouse felt tense and quiet. Lena gave a nod to Marcus, her ally, a broad Syndicate enforcer with a shaved head and skeptical glare. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” Marcus said, cracking his knuckles.

Lena led Elias to a small training space made by moving crates aside. “That tattoo holds memories. It can guide you,” she said, tossing him a blindfold. Elias tied it on, his heart thudding. Marcus stepped in fast, throwing a fake punch. Just then, Elias’s scar burned, and a voice in his head, his mom’s: Duck left. He moved, just in time, Marcus’s fist missing. “Lucky,” Marcus grunted, but he looked at Elias differently now.

They trained for hours, Lena calling the moves. “Your mom taught you through that tattoo,” she said, watching Elias parry Marcus’s jab. “She planned deals, not fights, right?” Elias panted, nodding. “Clean business.” Marcus snorted. “Prove it.” Elias sidestepped a kick, earning a grunt of respect. Lena smirked. “Good. We’ve got a job.”

Lena pulled up a laptop, showing a Voss data center downtown. “Mara’s family hid files there—proof they tanked Syndicate deals,” she said. “Get the drive, and we expose ’em.” Elias frowned, his scar itching. Mara’s corruption? He nodded, ready. Lena handed him a sleek device. “Your tattoo’ll guide you past security.” Marcus crossed his arms. “Don’t screw up, rookie.”

Elias crept into the data center just after midnight. The place was built like a bunker, with walls of concrete and the constant hum of machines. In his ear, Lena’s voice came through the earpiece, calm and directive: “Server room, basement.”

Red laser beams flashed across the hallway in front of him. Elias moved like water, twisting and slipping between the lights with perfect control.

Lena’s voice whispered again, impressed, “Damn, you’re good.”

He reached a locked door with a keypad. The scar on his skin pulsed again, and heard the numbers in his mind, four, seven, one. He typed them in. The door clicked open. Inside, the server room glowed with blinking lights from rows of machines.

Elias spotted what he came for: a small black chip. He yanked it out, and his mother’s voice faded from his thoughts. 

Lena’s voice came back, urgent: “Get out, now.” Elias slid the drive into his pocket and ran.

Loud footsteps echoed in the hallway. Elias quickly hid behind a server, his heart pounding. A tall man in a black coat—Viktor Crane, a powerful leader from the Syndicate—burst into the room with a group of armed tech mercenaries. Marcus followed close behind, his face tense and unreadable.

Crane’s icy eyes swept the room until they landed on Elias. “This is Kane?” he said with a mocking tone. “Cheap tricks won’t help you.” He pulled out a small device—it was an EMP. When he activated it, a wave of energy pulsed through the room. The hard drive Elias had hidden in his pocket sparked and burned out instantly.

Suddenly, the alarms blared. The servers crashed, and the lights started to flicker. The voice of Lena, who had been speaking to Elias through his earpiece, was cut off by static. Crane gave a cruel smile. “You really thought you could take down the Voss family?” he taunted. “I’m in control now.”

Marcus stood silently, looking away with a clenched jaw. Elias felt a deep pit in his stomach—the drive had all the proof of Mara family crimes. Now it was destroyed. Before he could react, the mercenaries seized him, forcing his arms behind his back.

Crane chuckled. “You’re no heir, kid.”

Lena, who had been guiding Elias from outside the skyscraper moments ago, suddenly burst into the server room, with her gun raised and ready to shoot—but Crane’s mercenaries immediately pointed their weapons at her.

“Stand down,” Crane ordered sharply. Lena’s eyes narrowed with fury, but she slowly lowered her weapon. “You set us up,” she said through clenched teeth.

Crane just shrugged. “The Syndicate belongs to me now. Your little mission ends here.” He looked at Marcus. “You were the one who trusted this idiot.”

Marcus didn’t respond. He kept his eyes away from Elias, saying nothing.

The alarms blared even louder, and more guards were closing in. Elias tried to break free, but it was no use. His scar—which usually gave him a strange guidance—was silent.

His thoughts turned to his mother. She had always done honest work, had real talent... and somehow, it had all led to this disaster. Lena’s plan to expose the Voss family had completely fallen apart.

The mercs forced Elias toward the exit. The chip—the drive he had risked everything to get—was now fried and useless.

“It’s over, Kane,” Crane said coldly.

Lena’s expression was full of mixed emotions—rage, maybe even regret.

Then Marcus muttered under his breath, “Told you he’d screw it up.”

Back at the warehouse, Lena slammed her laptop shut, clearly frustrated. “Crane tricked us,” she said in a low, tense voice. Marcus walked back and forth, shooting Elias an angry glare. “You had one job, rookie,” he snapped.

Elias’s hands tightened into fists. He had dodged lasers, cracked security codes, and gotten the drive—then Crane had ruined everything. Even the strange guidance from his mom’s voice hadn’t warned him about betrayal.

Lena let out a long sigh. “We’ve got nothing left, Elias. This failure cost us big.”

Meanwhile, in a dark office, Mara sat quietly as her phone buzzed. Carla’s voice came through: “The Voss data center was hit, but no data leaked.” Mara didn’t move, her papers still untouched on the desk. She was still thinking about Elias’s earlier break-in at Dray’s. Was he behind this one too? She shook her head. No—he wasn’t that clever. Just a stubborn ex. But even as she told herself that, a flicker of doubt stayed with her.

Back at the warehouse, Elias sat alone, staring at the charred remains of the drive he had. His scar gave him no signals. The voice of his mother was silent. Lena and Marcus had turned against him, and Crane had humiliated him.

Elias had tried to do the right thing, to live by his mom’s honest example—but it had all fallen apart. The Voss family’s secrets were still protected. Their lies were untouched. And now, more than ever, his life as a janitor felt like the only thing waiting for him.