Chapter 172: CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY-TWO

KYLE

PRESENT DAY.

The morning came too fast.

Not that I slept.

I hadn’t even moved.

I sat there the whole night, frozen in the leather chair beside my desk, watching the city bleed from night into day like it was trying to rinse me clean. The flash drive still glowed faintly in the USB port, a silent witness to the chaos it had unleashed. The screen had gone black hours ago, the files now closed—but it felt like they were still wide open, clawing at the back of my mind.

Everything inside me was still screaming.

Not loud. Not violent.

Just constant.

A dull, soul-ripping throb of disbelief, confusion… and something far darker.

Fear.

Real, ice-beneath-the-skin fear.

Not of what I’d seen.

But of what it meant.

What it destroyed.

I sat like that as the first horns blared in the street below. As people opened their cafes and walked their dogs and kissed their spouses goodbye like the world still made sense.

But mine didn’t.

Not anymore.

Because sometime in the dead of night, I realized the truth:

My entire life was built on a lie.

Not just a bad memory. Not just some dark chapter we all agreed not to talk about.

A carefully constructed illusion.

A legacy sculpted from erasure.

And I was its keeper.

I was the one who carried the name, wore the suit, rebuilt the company.

God.

The ache in my chest felt like it had settled deep into my bones.

I had protected him.

Defended him.

I’d sworn for years that Jonathan Blackwood, for all his flaws, was a visionary—ruthless, yes, but not evil. Not a man capable of burying children in test labs. Not a man who’d erase a doctor. Or a son. Or a wife.

But he had.

And I let him.

Because I never asked.

Because I didn’t want to know.

I told myself I was being loyal. That I was doing the right thing. That maybe the rumors about Lucian were true. That maybe what happened to our mother really was an accident.

But that was the cost of obedience, wasn’t it?

You look away once.

Then again.

Then again.

And suddenly you're the man you swore you'd never become.

I pressed my hands to my face, breathing hard.

My jaw ached from clenching all night. My legs were numb. My skin felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore. My thoughts were fire and fog—burning and blinding all at once.

Last night should’ve been about Ashley. Her store. Her triumph.

But the ghosts I’d kept buried didn’t care about timing.

They rose anyway.

Lucian.

Alive.

God, my brother was alive. And I’d grieved him. I’d mourned him. I’d spent years believing he was dead—because that’s what my father told me. That he was gone.

And I believed it.

Not because it made sense—but because it was easier.

Because the alternative meant facing the truth I wasn’t strong enough to carry back then.

I thought about the files again.

The memos. The reports. The footage I hadn’t even dared to watch yet.

I thought about Subject 17.

A child.

Tortured.

Deemed unstable.

Ripped from whatever life he had and tested like a lab rat.

And worst of all… I thought about the line in that clinical note:

“Parental reaction inconsistent with consent documentation.”

My stomach turned. I leaned forward, both elbows on my knees, and tried to breathe.

Did they test on me? On Lucian?

Did our mother find out?

Is that what killed her?

I could feel the walls of my apartment pressing in. The floor didn’t feel stable beneath me anymore. The world itself had shifted.

I thought I was rebuilding a broken empire with honor.

But what if all I did was reinforce a prison with better walls?

What if I wasn’t the savior of Blackwood…

…but its perfect mask?

A product of legacy. Groomed in silence. Dressed in denial.

A son designed to protect a monster.

I stood too fast, and the room spun. My vision spotted.

My father.

Jonathan Blackwood.

The man I once idolized. Then feared. Then avoided.

I thought I stopped seeking his approval years ago—but I didn’t. Not really. I just traded his voice for my own and called it independence.

And now?

Now I was done hiding behind suits and PR and precision.

It wasn’t time for press statements or quiet damage control.

It was time for truth.

I walked to the bar and poured water instead of whiskey. My hand still trembled.

Not from withdrawal. Not from exhaustion.

From fury.

From grief.

From the helpless, disoriented rage of a man who realizes he’s spent his whole life protecting the wrong thing.

I looked down at my hands.

The hands that signed the deals. That shook with politicians and billionaires and CEOs.

The hands of the son who inherited the kingdom built on blood.

I wasn’t that son anymore.

I couldn’t be.

I grabbed my keys. My coat. I didn’t even bother to change clothes or clean up.

Let him see me like this—undone. Fractured. Real.

Let him look me in the eye and try to lie again.

There was only one man left alive who could confirm what I saw last night.

And I was going to make him.

It was time to face the devil himself.

Jonathan Blackwood.

I was halfway to the door when my phone buzzed on the console table.

I almost ignored it.

My hand was already on the knob, the weight of the confrontation ahead pulling me like gravity.

But the name flashing across the screen stopped me cold.

Ashley.

Shit.

I stared at the screen like it had teeth.

I hadn’t spoken to her since yesterday—not properly. Not after the ribbon-cutting, not after the kiss at her door. Not after I walked straight into hell.

I told her I had something to finish. That I’d be back soon.

But “soon” had turned into silence.

God. She had no idea.

No idea that her perfect night had been the opening act to the collapse of everything I knew. No idea that my entire identity had just cracked in half while she was still basking in the glow of her success.

No idea that the man she kissed goodnight had spent the next twelve hours watching his entire life rot from the inside out.

I let the phone ring.

Once. Twice.

Then I picked up.

“…Hey.”

There was a pause—soft static, like she was somewhere near a window, or maybe outside.

“Kyle?” Her voice was careful. Soft. “I—I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up. You didn’t text. I didn’t want to… I don’t know. Be pushy.”

Her words hit me like a slap and a balm all at once.

God, she was worried. And kind. And still hers—still mine—even when I didn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, closing my eyes for a second. “I should’ve called. Yesterday just… spiraled.”

Another beat of silence.

“You’re okay, though?” she asked quietly.

No.

Not even close.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, voice rough. “I’m trying to be.”

I could hear the way she inhaled like she was about to ask more. But she didn’t.

Because she trusted me to tell her in my own time.

Except—I had already promised her I would never do that again. Never let silence be my weapon. Never hide things until they exploded between us.

And what was I doing now?

Running off to confront the devil without even giving her a name for the fire.

You told her you wouldn’t lie anymore.

You said no more secrets.

No more pretending.

My grip on the phone tightened.

Maybe I was going about this all wrong.

Maybe I didn’t need to go to my father first.

Maybe I needed to go to her.

Tell her the truth. All of it.

About my family. About Lucian. About the things my father did..no the things we hid.

The darkness I was born into.

The monster I swore I wasn’t, but maybe still was.

Maybe if she saw it…

Saw me..truly saw me—

Then she could decide if I was still the man she wanted to stand beside.

Maybe she’d run.

Maybe she’d stay.

But either way…

She’d know who she was choosing.

No masks. No shadows. No buried names.

Just me.

I exhaled slowly, the decision settling in my chest with a kind of painful clarity.

“I need to see you,” I said softly, already turning back toward the elevator. “I need to tell you something. Everything.”

A pause on the other end.

Then:

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.”