2025-10-27 04:28:27Rain lashed the city as Ethan’s convoy sped through the midnight streets.
Subject Beta lay unconscious in the back seat, her skin pale under the dim cabin light, the faint blue veins along her neck dimming with every passing second.
Leanna drove fast, weaving through traffic with calm precision, though the tension in her jaw betrayed the urgency beneath.
Ethan sat beside the woman, his hand pressed to her wrist, counting every weak, faltering beat.
“Stay with me,” he murmured. “Don’t give up now.”
Her breathing came shallow and slow. The glow beneath her skin pulsed once more—then faded almost completely.
Leanna’s voice broke the silence. “Ethan, whatever’s happening to her, we can’t keep her stable for long.”
He stared ahead, determination burning in his eyes. “She said the stabilizer’s under the glass. That means the lower vault in my lab.”
Leanna frowned. “That lab hasn’t been touched in years. It could be sealed.”
Ethan’s tone hardened. “Then I’ll unseal it.”
An hour later, they stormed into Braxton Pharmaceuticals under the cover of night.
Security guards froze, too stunned to question the CEO’s return—especially with an unconscious woman in his arms and Leanna at his side, both soaked from the storm.
They reached the elevator leading to the restricted lower levels.
Leanna keyed in her override, but it required Ethan’s biometric confirmation before unlocking.
As the elevator descended, Ethan kept his gaze on the woman. Her hair clung to her face, rainwater trailing down her cheeks. She looked fragile, yet he knew there was something extraordinary within her—something he had created… something Voss had twisted.
Leanna finally spoke. “Ethan, who do you think she is to you?”
He hesitated, voice low. “When I touched her, I saw fragments—her on a hospital bed, me promising to save her.”
He swallowed hard. “But it felt… personal.”
Leanna’s eyes narrowed. “Personal how?”
He didn’t answer.
The elevator stopped. They stepped out into the lower vault—a vast circular room of glass and steel. At its center stood a massive transparent floor panel etched with the Braxton insignia. Beneath it, darkness.
Leanna frowned. “There’s nothing here.”
Ethan wiped dust from the control console. The system flickered to life, a familiar voice echoing through the room:
“Welcome back, Dr. Braxton. Sublevel Three access requires biometric verification.”
He pressed his palm to the scanner. The glass floor hummed, then retracted, revealing a spiral staircase descending into the dark.
Leanna’s eyes widened. “You hid a lab… under your lab?”
Ethan said nothing. He was already descending.
The hidden chamber below was pristine, untouched by time.
Rows of machines flickered awake as he approached. At the center stood a cylindrical containment unit—half medical pod, half power core—connected to a massive processor. Inside it glowed a vial of blue serum.
Leanna’s voice was barely a whisper. “What is that?”
Ethan stared at it, memories stirring. “The Lazarus Stabilizer,” he said quietly. “It repairs cellular decay after neural reconstruction. It stops the body from rejecting resurrection.”
He opened the containment unit and gently placed Subject Beta inside. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse barely there.
Leanna watched as Ethan’s hands moved with surgical precision—instinctive, confident. Despite the amnesia, his old skill had resurfaced effortlessly.
“Scalpel,” he murmured, then stopped, realizing Leanna had no tray. He shook his head. “Never mind. Habit.”
He injected the serum into her neck.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then her back arched violently, light surging through her veins.
Monitors blazed alive, data streaming across the screens.
Her heart rate spiked—then steadied.
Leanna gasped. “It’s working.”
Ethan held his breath as the glow softened into natural color. Slowly, the woman’s eyes opened—still faintly blue, but human again.
Her lips trembled. “Ethan…?”
He nodded. “You’re safe now.”
But she shook her head weakly. “No. No one’s safe. Voss… he isn’t trying to kill you. He’s trying to finish the transfer.”
Ethan frowned. “Transfer? What transfer?”
Her hand gripped his. “Project Lazarus wasn’t about healing. It was about replacing.”
Leanna stiffened. “Replacing what?”
The woman’s voice broke, tears glinting in her eyes. “Souls.”
Ethan froze. “You mean… consciousness transfer?”
She nodded slowly. “He tested it first on me. My body died, but he brought my mind back—altered it, merged it. I’m not who I was. I’m what he made.”
Ethan’s voice trembled. “Who were you?”
She hesitated, then whispered, “Your wife.”
The world seemed to stop.
The air grew heavy.
Leanna’s breath caught. “Your… wife?”
Memories slammed into Ethan—wedding laughter, hospital corridors, her voice whispering Don’t let go.
“Tilda,” he breathed. “No… it can’t be…”
The woman shook her head faintly. “Not Tilda. Elara. Before Tilda. Before the accident. I was your wife, Ethan. And Voss killed me to perfect his experiment.”
Ethan staggered, gripping the console as fragmented memories pierced through—rings, vows, blood, loss.
Leanna stood frozen, sympathy shadowing her face. “Ethan…”
Before he could answer, the lights flickered.
The monitors went black.
Then Voss’s voice filled the room, smooth and venomous.
“Touching reunion, isn’t it? My two greatest creations in one place. The husband who defied death… and the wife who became it.”
Ethan glared up at the cameras, fury blazing. “This isn’t over, Voss.”
Voss chuckled. “It’s just beginning. You’ll come to me soon enough, Doctor. You always do—even in death.”
The line cut. Silence fell.
Leanna turned sharply. “He knows where we are.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Then we move before he does. I’m not losing her again.” His voice carried a conviction that startled even him.
He turned to the woman—to Elara—her trembling hand clutching his sleeve.
“We have to finish Lazarus,” she whispered. “It’s the only way to stop him.”
Ethan nodded slowly, the weight of buried memories pressing down on him.
“Then we finish it… together.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 208
The city did not announce Mara’s disappearance.It never did.Disappearances were absorbed the way rain was absorbed by cracked pavement,quietly, unevenly, leaving darker patches that no one wanted to step in. Leanna learned of it the way she learned everything now, indirectly, through absence.Mara did not answer her comms.Mara did not show up for the morning briefing.Mara did not argue when Leanna proposed rerouting supplies.At first, Leanna told herself it was caution,that Mara was lying low,that this was what survival looked like now silence, misdirection, patience.By noon, denial tasted like ash.Leanna stood in the small office behind the clinic, hands braced against the desk, staring at the empty chair opposite her. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old paper,outside, volunteers moved in low voices, their steps careful, as if sound itself had become dangerous.She replayed the last conversation with Korrin again and again, searching for the moment she might have mi
Chapter 207
The city did not react all at once,and that was what unsettled Leanna most.There was no riot after the Council’s announcement,no cheers either,just a slow, uneven ripple,conversations in doorways, pauses in broadcast chatter, eyes lifting from screens and then dropping again. People absorbed the news the way one absorbed a change in weather,warily, with the instinct to adapt before questioning whether it was deserved.Leanna Hale appointed Civil Liaison to the Council,temporary mandate,oversight of humanitarian coordination.Temporary.Everything dangerous was always temporary at first.She watched the broadcast from a quiet room above the clinic, the sound turned low,her name looked strange in official typography, stripped of context and blood and fear,cleaned,sanitized.Legitimized.Mara stood behind her, arms folded so tightly her knuckles had gone white.“You didn’t warn us,” Mara said.Leanna didn’t turn. “I didn’t know until an hour ago.”“You could have refused.”“Yes.”Silenc
Chapter 206
The city learned restraint the way a wounded animal learned stillness.Carefully,suspiciously,with flinches that never quite went away.Leanna felt it every morning when she walked through the lower districts,the pauses in conversation when uniforms passed, the way shopkeepers kept their hands visible, the way laughter died down too fast,peace had arrived, but it had not been welcomed,it sat heavy in the air, like humidity before a storm.She had stopped pretending this was temporary.That was the first lie leadership burned out of you.There was no until Ethan returns,no until Korrin overreaches,no clean turning point waiting just beyond the horizon. There was only now messy, compromised, fragile,and the question of what kind of damage you were willing to accept in order to keep it standing.Leanna stood in the clinic doorway and watched volunteers work in practiced silence. Bandages. Rations. Quiet reassurances murmured to people who didn’t ask for hope anymore just relief.Mara joi
Chapter 205
The city learned how to live without Ethan faster than it should have,and that was the cruelest part.Leanna noticed it in the small things first the way patrol routes stabilized, the way blackouts became scheduled instead of sudden, the way people stopped looking over their shoulders every time a rumor passed through the streets. Order settled in like dust, quiet and persistent, coating everything.Korrin’s order.She hated how efficient it was.Three days after Ethan left, Leanna stood on the balcony of the safehouse and watched the city breathed,morning traffic crawled below,vendors argued over prices,children ran across cracked pavement chasing something that looked like hope but might have just been boredom.Life went on.That should have been comforting.Instead, it felt like betrayal.She pressed her palms against the railing, grounding herself. Sleep had become optional these past nights,brief, shallow, full of half-dreams where Ethan was always just out of reach,not dead,not
Chapter 204
The city did not celebrate.That was the first thing Leanna noticed when they released her.No crowds,no cheers,no whispered legends rising up the way they always had when Ethan broke something that was supposed to be unbreakable,just streets moving at their usual pace, people stepping around each other with careful indifference, as if nothing monumental had happened at all.As if the world hadn’t tilted.She stood at the edge of the transport bay long after the guards unlocked her cuffs and shoved her forward,the metal doors slid shut behind her with a sound that felt final in a way she couldn’t explain,not imprisonment ending,but something else.Something quieter.Her wrists were raw,her body ached in the dull, exhausted way that came after fear had burned itself out,but it was her chest that hurt most tight, shallow breaths, like her lungs didn’t trust the air anymore.Ethan.That was the thought she couldn’t escape.Not where he was,but what did he do.She had seen the broadcast.
Chapter 203
Night did not fall in the city anymore.It descended.The kind of darkness that didn’t simply remove light but rearranged meaning,turning familiar streets into corridors of intent, every shadow a decision waiting to be made. Ethan moved through it without disguise, without haste. That alone felt like a provocation.People noticed.They always did now.Some turned away quickly, fear reflexive and sharp. Others stared too long, eyes burning with questions they would never ask out loud,a few inclined their heads, gestures small but weighted, like prayers offered to something they weren’t sure deserved worship.Ethan hated that most of all.He adjusted the strap of his jacket and kept walking.Korrin’s perimeter loomed ahead not a wall, not a gate, but a gradual shift in atmosphere. Surveillance density increased,patrol patterns tightened,the air itself felt watched. This was where the city stopped pretending it was shared.Ethan crossed the invisible line anyway.Immediately, his comm ch
You may also like
Incredible Oliver Storm
Dragon Sly103.6K viewsThe Ex-Billionaire Husband
Sunny Zylven80.0K viewsTop Expert in Floraville
Earth at Dawn172.8K viewsThe Charismatic Charlie Wade
Lord Leaf63.7M viewsRise Of The Discarded Husband
Curly Green329 viewsThe Tyrant Heir's Return: Reclaiming the Thorne Empire
William Tsang404 viewsCharismatic Ex Husband Dominance
LordEnjay347 viewsSystem Activated: Empire Reset Protocol
Canice Hays246 views