The holding cells beneath the Kaelen Tower were cold, sterile, and smelled of ozone and damp concrete. This was where the family dealt with those who threatened their empire—a place designed to make even the bravest soul feel small. Elara Hawthorne sat on a steel bench, her once-expensive silk dress stained with mud and tears, looking nothing like the heiress who had stood Ethan up at City Hall.
I walked down the corridor, the clicking of my boots on the stone floor echoing like a countdown. When I reached her cell, the guard stepped aside, and I stared through the bars at the woman who had spent three years pretending to love me.
"You have five minutes, Elara," I said, my voice empty of emotion. "Make them count."
Elara jumped to her feet, her hands gripping the cold iron bars. "Ethan! You have to get me out of here! Marcus Vance’s men are everywhere, and the police... they’re taking everything! I didn’t know Gerald was a fraud, I swear!".
"You didn't care if he was a fraud as long as he had a bigger bank account than mine," I replied, leaning in close. "I'm not here to talk about Gerald. I'm here because you claimed to know the truth about my parents."
Elara’s eyes flickered with a desperate, cunning light. She realized this was her only leverage. "If I tell you, do I get my life back? Do I get a seat at the Hawthorne Group again?".
"You get to live," I said. "That’s the only deal on the table."
Elara swallowed hard, her knuckles turning white on the bars. "Fine. Everyone thinks your parents died because their car went off the bridge during a storm. They called it a tragic accident. But my father... he was the one who serviced their car that day at the Hawthorne workshop".
I felt the air in the room turn cold. "What did he do?"
"He didn't do anything to the car," Elara whispered, her voice shaking. "But he saw who did. It wasn't Silas Vance or the Blackwoods. It was a man wearing the Kaelen family crest. He was in the garage for less than five minutes, and when he left, the brake lines were barely holding on. My father was paid ten million dollars to keep his mouth shut and to make sure the evidence burned with the car."
The emerald ring on my finger began to pulse with a violent, dark light. The conspiracy didn't start with my uncle Silas; it had been rotting at the core of the Kaelen family for twenty years.
"Who was the man?" I hissed, my hand gripping the cell door so hard the metal began to groan.
"I don't know his name," Elara cried, shrinking back from the intensity in my eyes. "But my father kept a copy of the bank transfer. It was sent from a hidden account labeled 'The Second Sun.' He has the documents buried in a safe-deposit box at the Central Bank."
I stood back, my mind racing. 'The Second Sun' was the private code name for the Kaelen family’s internal security council—a group of elders who were supposed to be the guardians of our bloodline.
"Thomas," I called out, my voice sounding like a thunderclap in the narrow hall.
Thomas appeared instantly. "Master?".
"Take the Hawthorne girl to a secure house. Don't let her speak to anyone. Then, get the heavy tactical team ready," I commanded, my eyes glowing with the fire of the God-Eye. "We’re going to the Central Bank. If the elders of my own family murdered my parents, I’m going to make sure they're the last generation of Kaelens to ever draw breath."
"Master, the Central Bank is under the protection of the city’s elite guards," Thomas warned. "If we force our way in, it will be a declaration of war against the government."
"Then let it be war," I said, walking toward the exit without looking back at Elara. "I’ve spent too long playing the role of the humble student. It’s time the world remembers that when a Kaelen God is angry, the earth trembles."
As I stepped back into the night air, my phone buzzed. It was an encrypted message from an unknown sender. It was a single image: a photo of the Hawthorne safe-deposit box, already blown open and empty.
The caption read: "You're too late, Ethan. The past is already ash. Now, it's your turn to burn."