2025-08-15 10:47:25It crawled toward the vial, attracted by the tulip powder, and fell inside. Its movements slowed as the antidote worked to stop its poison.
Amelie held back a cry, covering her mouth with her hands. Voss’s jaw dropped, his doubt disappearing as the beetle moved in the vial. The monitors changed, the red warnings turned green. Pieter’s heart rate steadied, and his oxygen level went up.
Lukas closed the vial carefully, his hands steady even though he was full of adrenaline. He glanced at Pieter, whose eyes fluttered open, weak but alive. “Papa?” Amelie whispered, rushing to his side, tears streaming down her face as she grasped his hand.
Sofia exhaled, her shoulders relaxing for the first time since entering the ward. “You did it,” she said, her voice a mix of relief and admiration. She turned to Voss, her glare cutting. “You almost cost us everything.”
Voss stammered, his authority shattered. “I… I followed protocol. This… this is unprecedented.”
“Unprecedented?” Lukas said, his voice sharp as he removed the needles with care. “You ignored what worked because it wasn’t your idea. Ego isn’t medicine.”
Pieter moved slightly and spoke in a rough but clear voice. “Amelie… where am I?” His daughter sobbed, clutching him, as the medical team scrambled to check his vitals.
Sofia stood nearby, her eyes gleaming with a mix of admiration and calculation. “Viktor chose well,” she said, her French accent softening the words. “You’re not just an herbalist, Lukas. You’re a miracle worker.” She stepped closer, “The Laurent family is hosting a private dinner in The Hague tomorrow night. You’ll come as our honored guest.”
He turned back to Pieter, and felt his pulse with his fingers. The heartbeat was steady, but there was a small irregular beat that showed some poison was still inside. Lukas frowned as he remembered the shiny beetle, which seemed to be more dangerous than just a normal poison. “This wasn’t an accident,” he said, his voice making the room quiet. “The toxin came from a rare imported tea, likely a blend with lab-altered botanicals. Someone targeted Pieter.”
Dr. Heinrich Voss, still reeling from his earlier humiliation, scoffed from the corner where he’d retreated. “Sabotage? That’s absurd,” he said. “You’re spinning conspiracies to justify your parlor tricks.”
Lukas ignored him, addressing Sofia. “I’ll prepare a seven-day herbal tincture of milk thistle, dandelion root, and a trace of nettle. It’ll purge what’s left of the toxin. Have him take it twice daily.” He handed her a scribbled list of ingredients. “Source these from a trusted supplier. And find out where that tea came from.”
Sofia nodded, her lips curving into a smile. “I’ll trace it. Whoever did this will answer to me.” She turned to Voss, her expression shifting to playful malice. “As for you, Heinrich…” She reached into her bag, It was made from crushed dried tulip bulbs, the same medicine Lukas had used to cure the poison.. “A taste of your own medicine.” She thrust the jar toward him, with a mocking tone. “Eat it. Or I’ll make sure your board hears about your little stunt with the needles.”
Voss’s face reddened, his jaw tight, but Sofia’s influence, and the glares of her security left him no choice. He scooped a small amount of the bitter paste, frowning as he swallowed, the room stifling laughter. “This proves nothing,” he muttered, wiping his mouth.
“It proves you’re not infallible,” Sofia shot back, she turned to Lukas. “The tincture will be ready, and the archives are yours.”
Lukas nodded and started thinking about what he needed to do next. He excused himself and walked into the hallway, feeling proud but knowing there were still more challenges ahead.
In a private clinic in The Hague, the strong smell of cleaning medicine mixed with Felix Van der Meer’s anger. He walked back and forth in the clean, empty room, his face was bruised, showing purple and yellow colors, his nose still swollen from Lukas’s punch. “He humiliated me!” Felix shouted. “Lukas thinks he can walk away after this? I’ll ruin him!”
Clara Van der Meer sat in a cushioned chair. “He’ll pay, Felix,” she said, her voice low. “But we need to be smart. Elise is wavering, she’s too soft on him.”
A third figure leaned against the wall, his tailored suit as sharp as his smirk. Erik de Vries, a tech investor and Pieter Dubois’s longtime rival, exuded the confidence of a man who thrived on others’ misfortunes. “I can handle Brandt,” he said, his voice smooth. “A few calls, some enforcers and he’ll disappear quietly. For a price, of course.”
Clara’s lips curled. “Name it.”
Before Erik could respond, the door opened, and Elise strode in, her suit tailored for the tech summit she was attending later. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Felix, you’re supposed to be resting, not plotting revenge.”
Felix whirled on her, his face twisted. “Resting? Lukas broke my face, Elise! He’s a thug, and you’re letting him walk free!”
Elise’s gaze flickered to Clara, then back to Felix. “You said he attacked you unprovoked. But I know Lukas—he doesn’t lash out without reason. What did you do?”
Felix froze, his bravado faltering. Clara started to speak, but Elise raised a hand, silencing her. “No, Mother. Felix. Tell me.”
Felix’s jaw tightened, his eyes darting away. “I… might’ve pushed him,” he muttered. “He had this pocket watch—some ratty old thing from his grandfather. I thought it was yours, something he stole. So I… tore it apart.”
Elise’s breath caught, her heart twisting. The Pocket watch—Lukas’s most cherished possession. “You destroyed it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And then he hit you.”
Felix shrugged, defiant. “He overreacted.”
Elise’s eyes blazed. “Overreacted? You destroyed a piece of his soul, Felix. And you, Mother, lied to me about it.” She turned to Clara, her voice trembling with fury. “You let me believe Lukas was the villain. He showed restraint by only hitting you once.”
Clara’s face paled, and she started to lose control of her calmness. “Elise, we were protecting you—”
“Protecting me?” Elise snapped. “You manipulated me. Both of you.” She glanced at Erik, her disgust palpable. “And you’re no better, profiting off our mess.” She stormed toward the door, pausing only to add, “Stay away from Lukas. This ends now.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-One
The room was quiet in the way that came after storms, when even the air seemed to be listening for what would break next.Lukas stood by the window, his phone resting loosely in his hand, the screen dark. Below him, the city moved on, unaware and uncaring, cars threading through the streets like nothing in the world was wrong. He watched them for a long moment, grounding himself in the ordinary rhythm of it all, before he finally turned away.Elise sat on the edge of the couch, her posture straight, hands folded together in her lap. She had changed since the last time he had seen her, and not just in the obvious ways. There was a sharpness to her now, a restraint that had been forged under pressure. She looked like someone who had learned the hard way that hesitation could cost everything.“You shouldn’t have come alone,” Lukas said at last.Elise lifted her head. “Neither should you.”A corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Fair.”Silence settled again, heavier this time.
Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty
The first consequence arrived quietly.Lukas noticed it not through alerts or urgent messages, but through absence. No calls asking for concessions. No late-night intermediaries offering compromise dressed as cooperation. For nearly forty-eight hours after the framework announcement, the channels that had once been crowded went unnervingly still.That silence told him more than outrage ever could.He stood in the strategy room with his jacket draped over the back of a chair, sleeves rolled up, reviewing a live feed of implementation metrics. Regions were responding faster than projected. Compliance audits were activating without friction. Systems that had been resisted for years were suddenly being adopted with minimal protest.Too smooth.Margot leaned over the table, fingers braced against the glass. “They’re not pushing back because they’re recalculating,” she said. “They’re deciding where to hit instead.”Elise sat across from them, posture composed, eyes sharp. “If they can’t slo
Chapter Two Hundred and Nineteen
Lukas slept for less than three hours, and when he woke, it wasn’t to an alarm but to the familiar sense that something had shifted while he wasn’t looking.The city beyond the windows was already alive, pale morning light spreading across glass and steel. For a long moment, he stayed still, listening to the rhythm of the building, the distant hum of systems coming online. It reminded him uncomfortably of how things used to feel before Berg’s influence had been obvious—quiet, efficient, deceptively calm.He swung his legs off the bed and dressed without ceremony. There was no time for indulgence today. Momentum had its own appetite.By the time he reached the main operations floor, teams were already assembled in clusters, voices low but purposeful. No panic. No scrambling. That alone told him how much had changed. Fear had been replaced by something closer to discipline.Margot noticed him immediately and peeled away from a discussion near the central console. “You’re early.”“I didn
Chapter Four Hundred and One
The early morning fog settled low over the city, dampening sounds and muting colors, creating a temporary suspension of the familiar urban rhythm. Elias moved through the streets with a sense of measured urgency, observing the slow stirrings of life awakening beneath the haze. His thoughts were tangled with the events of the past weeks: coordinated disruptions, the pressure of upcoming council votes, and the delicate balance of distributed authority that remained untested in high-stakes real-world scenarios. Today, he knew, would demand more than data analysis; it would require intuition, ethical judgment, and direct engagement with those on the ground.He arrived at the operations hub before most of the team had logged in. Lana was already monitoring multiple feeds, her attention sharp as she tracked subtle deviations in traffic flows and energy distribution. “Something unusual in district nine,” she noted immediately, her voice low but tense. “Energy spikes coincide with minor crowd
Chapter Two Hundred and Seventeen
The first thing Lukas noticed was the silence.Not the good kind. Not the earned calm that followed a battle won. This silence was taut, stretched thin across the operations floor like wire pulled too tight. Every screen glowed. Every system breathed. But no alarms sounded, and that absence felt deliberate.He stood where Margot had left him, eyes fixed on the cascading code she’d flagged before stepping away. The contingency wasn’t loud. It wasn’t aggressive. It was elegant in the way only something designed by a patient mind could be.Berg had built decay.“Show me the trigger path again,” Lukas said.Margot reappeared at his side, shoulders hunched forward as if bracing against something unseen. With a few precise gestures, she isolated the sequence. The display shifted, lines thinning, nodes dimming until only a narrow thread remained.“It activates through advisory overlap,” she explained. “No single action looks suspicious. Each step is defensible on its own. But together, they
Chapter Two Hundred and Sixteen
The room felt different after Berg was secured.Not quieter. Not calmer. Just… heavier.Lukas stood at the center of the main operations floor, hands resting on the back of a chair he hadn’t realized he’d pulled out. Around him, systems continued to run, lights blinking in steady rhythms, data streams flowing like nothing monumental had just happened. That normalcy unsettled him more than chaos ever did.Containment was supposed to feel like victory.Instead, it felt like the pause between breaths before something broke.“Status,” he said, his voice cutting cleanly through the low hum of activity.Margot looked up from her console. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes, the kind that came from adrenaline wearing off too fast. “Primary networks are collapsing faster than expected. Financial shells are frozen. Three proxy boards resigned within the hour once the legal notices landed.”“And the rest?”She hesitated just a fraction of a second. Lukas noticed.“They’re quiet,” Margot sa
You may also like
The Return Of The God of War
Esther Writes373.7K viewsTHE SECRET HEIR AND HIS SECRET POWER
Wednesday Adaire166.9K viewsSon-in-law: The Billionaire's Reign
Deliaha Shine108.0K viewsSecretly The Quadrillionaire's Heir
Viki West121.7K viewsA Cure for Innocence
Ibechi135 viewsThe Quiet Supremacy
Zuxian624 viewsrise of the underdog
Mystic beauty234 viewsBillionaire's Retribution
Ciro-Grip260 views