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Chapter forty-two
Author: Viva
last update2025-11-30 15:14:33

The Dawson mansion was unusually lively that evening. Servants whispered in corners, uncles gathered in the living room pretending to watch the news, and the aunts sat around with cups of tea they barely sipped. Everyone was talking—but only about one thing.

Ethan.

Three years ago, they mocked his clothes, his silence, his lack of money. Today, his name was suddenly everywhere.

“He came back with men in black suits,” Aunt Vivian whispered, leaning forward. “Six cars! Who even has that many escorts?”

“And Lila didn’t tell us anything,” Uncle Henry added with irritation. “She kept saying he was unemployed.”

“Unemployed my foot!” another relative hissed. “No ordinary man would have that aura. Even his posture that day… he looked like someone used to being obeyed.”

They said the last word—obeyed—with a mix of fear and envy.

But beneath the gossip lay a deeper truth none of them wanted to speak too loudly:

They had mistreated a man who clearly wasn’t ordinary.

Just when the room simmered w
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  • Chapter seventy-five

    For a full heartbeat, Lila couldn’t speak.She couldn’t move.Her father—alive, trembling, staring at her through the second glass room—looked nothing like the stern, prideful man she grew up with.This man looked broken.“Dad…?” Her voice cracked. “You—how are you—why are you here?”Riker leaned in to Ethan. “Marian timed this. She wants maximum emotional collapse.”Ethan didn’t answer.He couldn’t tear his eyes off Lila.Not when the ground under her was giving way.Lila’s father pressed his palm to the glass.“Lila… please listen. I don’t have long.”Ethan stepped forward instinctively.“We’ll get you out—”“No,” Mr. Dawson said sharply, eyes snapping to him.“You don’t understand. Once I speak, Marian won’t keep me alive.”Lila’s breath hitched.“Dad, stop—”He shook his head.“No. You deserve the truth. All of it.”The overhead lights dimmed.A hum filled the room.Marian wasn’t stopping him.She wanted this.She wanted Lila shattered.Mr. Dawson swallowed hard.“It began twenty

  • Chapter seventy-four

    The room vanished.The white walls blurred.The cold floor dissolved beneath Lila’s feet.All she could see—all she could feel—was the flickering image on the wall.Her eight-year-old self.Ethan’s eight-year-old self.Sitting in the same room.The same white facility.Side by side.Silent.Terrified.Branded children of the Ghost Program.“No,” Lila whispered.“No, that’s not real—my parents… they would never… I wasn’t— I couldn’t have been—”But her pulse hammered.Her knees weakened.A sharp, stabbing pain shot behind her eyes.A memory surged.Not a dream.Not an illusion.A buried truth slamming to the surface.THE MEMORYA cold room.A humming light overhead.A woman’s voice—sharp, irritated.“She shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t chosen for this division.”Another voice—deeper, colder, familiar.Slate.“Her father agreed. That’s enough.”Child-Lila—small, trembling, clutching the sleeve of a boy next to her.Child-Ethan—silent, jaw clenched, already learning not to shake even whe

  • Chapter seventy-three

    The drive to District 7 was silent.Not the comfortable, warm silence that sometimes settled between Lila and Ethan—but a sharp, suffocating silence.The kind that wrapped itself around the throat and squeezed.Hale drove.Riker scanned every corner with restless eyes.Ethan sat beside Lila, jaw locked, body coiled like a loaded weapon.Lila didn’t realize she was trembling until Ethan’s hand slid quietly over hers.Warm.Grounding.Unsteady in a way she’d never seen from him.“You’re cold,” he murmured.“I’m scared,” she corrected.Ethan’s eyes softened for half a heartbeat.Then the Ghost in him returned.“You should be,” he said.“But not of them. Never of them.”Lila swallowed, nodding.THE FACILITYThey stopped before a massive, abandoned industrial site on the outskirts of District 7.Or at least—that’s what it looked like.Hale checked the coordinates again.“This is the place.”Riker grimaced.“I don’t like it. It’s too quiet.”Ethan stepped out first, scanning every shadow

  • Chapter seventy-two

    Lila froze.Her lungs stopped working.Her heartbeat stalled.The room tilted around her, too quiet, too still.“What… what do you mean it wasn’t the first time I saw you?” she whispered.Ethan didn’t look away.He couldn’t.Because this was the moment he’d spent years avoiding.The moment his past would finally collide with hers.Hale and Riker exchanged a silent look and stepped back, giving them space—but staying close enough to react if the world cracked open.Ethan took a slow breath.Then he said the words that shattered the ground beneath her:“You saw me once as a child.”Lila stared at him.“N-no. I don’t remember ever—Ethan, I grew up in the Dawsons’ house, I never left the country, I—”“You didn’t leave the country,” Ethan said quietly.“But the Ghost Program did.”Lila blinked, confused.Ethan continued, voice level but strained:“Twenty years ago, the Ghost Program ran covert field assessments. Psychological tests on children. Harmless ones—or so we were told.”He paused.

  • Chapter seventy-one

    The air inside the safehouse shifted.Not with noise.Not with movement.But with the weight of the name Ethan had just spoken.Someone who wants me to come home.Lila stared at him, her pulse skittering like something trapped.“Ethan,” she said slowly, “are you telling me your mother is alive?”Hale and Riker exchanged a tense look—one that said they’d been waiting for Ethan to confirm this for a long time.But Ethan didn’t answer.He didn’t have to.His silence was the answer.Lila stepped back in shock.“You told me she disappeared. That the Cole Council ruled her dead.”“They ruled her dead because they wanted her gone,” Ethan replied evenly.“They never confirmed her body. No search. No funeral. No investigation.”Riker muttered, “Because they feared what they’d find.”Lila swallowed. “Which is…?”Hale answered grimly:“That she walked away from them—and took loyal soldiers with her.”THE TRUE MEANING OF THE BRANDRiker tapped the holo-screen to pull up the enhanced image again—t

  • Chapter seventy

    Preparations moved fast—too fast for Lila’s racing mind to keep up.The safehouse, usually quiet and controlled, had turned into a storm of movement. Hale was loading tactical gear. Riker was calibrating the decoy unit. Ethan was issuing commands with a precision that made even the air feel sharper.But under the chaos, one truth pulsed like a heartbeat:Slate had her mother.And Slate wanted her.Ethan was about to give him neither.THE DECOYRiker powered up the synthetic frame.The unit blinked to life—blank-faced, motionless.Hale adjusted its height, then its skin tone, then the hair.Piece by piece, the mannequin transformed.Into her.Lila watched the process with a sinking feeling in her gut. The decoy looked eerily real, like a hollow echo of herself—something that could fool a camera, maybe even a guard.“Once it’s cloaked and dressed,” Riker said, “it’ll pass in low light. Slate’s people won’t inspect closely until they feel safe.”“They won’t get the chance,” Ethan said fl

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