Chapter 20 - The Last DoorI opened my eyes.
Silence.
No pain.
No blood.
No church.
I was lying in a hospital room.
Sunlight came through the window.
For a moment, I thought everything had been a dream.
Then I saw the scar across my jaw.
A nurse entered.
“You're awake.”
“How long?”
“Three days.”
I sat up.
“Where are the others?”
She smiled.
“Your family is waiting.”
I expected Kyle.
Mom.
Emily.
Adrian.
Instead, the door opened.
Kyle stepped inside.
He looked older.
Exhausted.
But alive.
“What happened?”
“The network collapsed.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Money?”
“Frozen.”
“Buildings?”
“Seized.”
“People?”
“Arrested.”
I stared at him.
“And Daniel?”
Kyle shook his head.
“Dead.”
“Eleanor?”
“Dead.”
“My mother?”
“Alive.”
I looked toward the window.
“And Adrian?”
Kyle hesitated.
“What?”
“He left.”
“Where?”
“No one knows.”
He handed me an envelope.
My name was written on it.
I opened it.
Adrian's handwriting.
Son,
You wanted the truth.
Now you have it.
You were never a weapon.
You were never a king.
You were never a project.
You were a person.
That was the one thing they could never understand.
I read the final line twice.
Don't build another kingdom.
I folded the letter.
Kyle sat beside me.
“What are you going to do?”
I looked out the window.
For the first time in twenty years, nobody was telling me.
“I don't know.”
Then the hospital television switched to breaking news.
A reporter appeared.
“Authorities have discovered a hidden financial network connected to Blackwood Manor.”
Photographs filled the screen.
Dad.
Eleanor.
Daniel.
Kyle.
Me.
Then one more photograph appeared.
A woman.
My biological mother.
The reporter continued.
“Officials have also confirmed that several major accounts were secretly transferred before the network collapsed.”
I looked at Kyle.
“How?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
The reporter read the next sentence.
“And investigators believe the transfers were authorized using the biometric identity of Subject 47.”
My blood ran cold.
I stared at the screen.
A number appeared.
$2,800,000,000
Transferred.
To an unknown account.
I whispered:
“That's impossible.”
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU DESTROYED THE KINGDOM.
Another arrived.
GOOD.
Then a third.
NOW BUILD YOUR OWN.
I stared at the screen.
Kyle stood.
“What is it?”
I didn't answer.
Outside the window, a black SUV waited across the street.
A man stood beside it.
Gray coat.
Silver hair.
Adrian.
He looked up at my window.
Then he smiled.
He wasn't dead.
He had never been captured.
And he had not abandoned me.
He had been waiting.
My phone buzzed one final time.
CHAPTER ONE WAS YOUR FAMILY.
CHAPTER TWO IS THE WORLD.
I looked at Kyle.
Then at the burning files on the television.
Then at the man waiting outside.
For twenty years, I had been taught to survive.
Now I was going to learn how to fight.
I walked toward the hospital door.
And for the first time in my life, nobody stopped me.
Because they finally understood something.
I wasn't the useless son anymore.
I wasn't Kyle's shadow.
I wasn't Daniel's prisoner.
I wasn't Eleanor's experiment.
I wasn't the consortium's weapon.
I was the one person they had spent twenty years trying to break.
And they had made one terrible mistake.
They taught me exactly where to hit.
The doors opened.
Adrian waited outside.
He nodded.
I stepped into the sunlight.
Behind me, Blackwood Manor was gone.
Ahead of me was an empire built on secrets.
May you like
And now every secret belonged to me.
THE END
