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Chapter 320
“What was that?” Christopher demanded, his voice low and seething. “In there? That wasn’t a cross-examination, it was a public flaying! She made me look like a jealous, scheming idiot, and you just… let it happen!”Sandy remained seated behind her desk, her hands steepled, projecting a calm she did not feel. “Sir, I understand your frustration. Ava Rennet is a formidable opponent. She exploited the family history angle, which was a known vulnerability. Our strength is the forensics, the physical evidence. We’ll pivot back to that.”“Pivot?” Christopher stopped, slapping his hands on the glass surface of her desk, making her flinch. “You don’t pivot when your star witness is turned into the prosecution’s best argument! The reason we hired you—the reason my father is paying your astronomical fees—is to win. Not to ‘pivot’ and hope the jury forgets that my testimony now smells like sour grapes and a decades-old inheritance fight!”He leaned in, his face flushed. “Did you see her? Ava? Sh
Chapter 319
The meeting was held at a place which Richard had chosen; a private viewing room at the most austere modern art gallery in the city, which was closed to the general public. It was an area of cold concrete, glare and a single, bloody splash of color upon a large white wall--a metaphor which Richard must have admired.Richard was already there standing before the picture, with his back turned, when Robert came into the room. He was dressed so well that he appeared to be an outcast of the dust in the air. The gulf of years and philosophy in the gap between him and Robert, was felt by the latter in his custom-crafted, though less rigorous costume.Richard turned. Time had drawn its own fine cold lines down his face, but the eyes were the same--cold, cold, without pity. There was a long period when the brothers just gazed at each other. It was the last face-to-face meeting, and Steven had simply just disappeared, and they had been the competitors on a crumbling kingdom."Robert." There was
Chapter 318
The weight of the discovery, of his own erased identity, settled in Robert’s gut like a block of ice. The cold was clarifying. All the old jealousies, the competitions with Richard, the fury at their father—they were the struggles of phantoms, fighting over a legacy that was never theirs. The only thing real was the power locked away in the vault. And the only person who could open it now was Chance.He needed a new strategy. And for that, he needed the only other person who truly understood the nature of their exile, the shared wound of being Alfred’s beloved imposters.He pulled a burner phone from his pocket, a relic from a past collaboration. A number he hadn’t dialed in over a decade. After Steven’s believed death, they had tried, briefly, to be brothers united in their sudden, unwanted inheritance. It had lasted less than a year. Their ambitions were too different, their methods too opposed. Richard sought to erase the O’Connor name with scandal and financial cannibalization. R
Chapter 317
The silence in the vaulted archive was thick with the ghosts of a scorned lineage. Robert sat amidst the detritus of his father's life—ledgers bound in cracked leather, journals with pages yellowed by time and bitterness. The failure of the ritual had stripped him of triumph, leaving behind a raw, intellectual hunger. The power was real; he had felt its breath. So why had it recoiled?The answer, he was certain, lay in Alfred O'Connor's own meticulous, spiteful hand.He found it not in a grand grimoire, but in a margin note in a ledger tracking mining yields from 1962. The ink was faded but the words were a dagger to the heart of his ambition: "The vault accepts only the true lineage. The blood is the signature. The Living Key."A blood lock. Robert's lip curled. Of course his father, that obsessed dynast, would sew such a fail-safe into his greatest treasure. It was the ultimate act of exclusion.Driven by a new, colder fury, Robert began a different search. Not for ritual instructi
Chapter 316
Vance gave a sharp nod and disappeared.Robert turned back to the pedestal, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. He leaned close to the ring, his breath fogging the cold metal. "If you have played me for a fool," he whispered to the empty room, a promise of violence in every syllable, "you will learn that your mother's fate will seem like a mercy compared to yours."In the cell, the unnatural stillness that had followed the strange phenomena was shattered by the sound of heavy, hurried footsteps in the corridor. A key scraped in the lock. The door burst open.Vance stood there, his expression unreadable. "You. Come. Now." He pointed at Wilfreda.Helsin instinctively moved in front of her daughter. "Where are you taking her?"Vance ignored her, his gaze locked on Wilfreda. "Don't make me drag you."Wilfreda met her mother's terrified eyes, giving a slight, reassuring shake of her head she didn't feel. The abrupt summons, the tension in Vance's posture—it wasn't about verificat
Chapter 315
The heart of the Obsidian Citadel was a chamber that felt older than the stone around it. It was circular, windowless, and lit by recessed crimson lights that gleamed off the polished black walls. In the center, on a pedestal of obsidian that seemed to drink the light, lay the three O’Connor relics: the necklace, the bracelet, and the newly acquired Aurelian ring.Robert stood before them, his breath shallow with anticipation. This was the culmination of a lifetime of plotting, of seething in the shadow of his brother’s legacy. He had followed the obscure family lore, deciphered the codes hidden in their father’s journals. The unification ritual was not about mystical incantations, but about precise alignment, about completing a circuit that had been broken for decades.With meticulous, almost reverent care, he arranged them. The necklace formed a circle. The bracelet was placed within it, its clasp touching the pendant. Finally, the Aurelian ring was set at the precise central point
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