Chapter 47: Serena’s Lies Crumble

Chapter 47: Serena’s Lies Crumble
Evelyn Callahan’s POV

I didn’t want to be here.

Not in the shadows. Not pressed against a cold wall in the back hallway of Blackfang’s downtown office tower. But here I was, watching the pieces of a carefully constructed lie begin to fall.

I had come looking for closure.

Instead, I found the truth.

Ugly, unfiltered truth.

Kieran was missing. The city whispered everything from suicide to a secret escape. But I knew him better than most. If Kieran Blackwood had run, he wouldn’t have left without a fight.

He wouldn’t have left without trying to see Adrian.

Unless he was taken.

And if he was taken… Serena had something to do with it.

I knew it in my bones.

Which is why I was here, hiding behind a stack of archived files in the administrative floor, listening in on Serena’s heated conversation with someone on the phone.

She was in Kieran’s office. She thought the room was empty. She didn’t know the hallway surveillance had been disabled by a technician I’d bribed. She didn’t know I’d slipped inside wearing the same blazer as one of the assistants who ran errands.

She did not know she was being watched. "It does not matter what Evelyn thinks," Serena snapped into the phone in a hot, angry whisper. “Keep the pressure on the board. I need full control of Blackfang before anyone finds the hidden assets. If the transfer goes through before next week, no one can touch me.”

I closed my eyes, my hands trembling.

She wasn’t panicking because she missed her fiancé. She wasn’t scared of losing the father of her son.

She was afraid of losing power.

When the door opened a little, I ducked deeper into the darkness.

Serena walked back and forth in the office while still talking. Her heels hit the marble floor.

“No, I told you—the DNA results were destroyed. Kieran never got the full report. He only knew Adrian existed, not that the second test confirmed he was the father. As far as he was concerned, the numbers didn’t match. He was too guilt-ridden to dig further. I made sure of it.”

My breath caught in my throat.

I had begged him to believe me. To at least look at Adrian, to feel what I knew deep in my heart.

But Serena… she had destroyed the one thing that could’ve proven me right.

She manipulated everything. Even the science.

And he’d believed her.

God.

A lump rose in my throat, thick with pain and regret.

She went on.

“And the boy—the other one, Damien—he knows something’s off. He went to the safe house. I know because I planted a tracker there a month ago. But he won’t understand the bigger picture. He’s too sheltered. If he finds Evelyn, she’ll fill his head with her self-righteous nonsense.”

Serena stopped pacing. There was a pause. Then a chilling chuckle.

“Yes. I’ve considered it. If I can’t control the twins, I can always get rid of one.”

My heart stopped.

No.

No, she wouldn’t.

She couldn’t be that cruel. Not to a child. Not even to Damien.

But she could.

She had always been the woman with the perfect smile and poison in her words.

And now she was cornered.

She was capable of anything.

I couldn’t stay hidden anymore.

I slipped out the hallway door quietly and made my way back down to the lobby. I kept my head low, the blazer pulled close, my breath shallow. The building pulsed with power and legacy and shadows—but none of it mattered anymore.

This wasn’t about Kieran or Blackfang.

This was about the boys.

Damien and Adrian.

My son. Her son.

My hands curled into fists.

She had stolen one child’s truth and twisted the other into a mirror of her ambition. And now, the lies were collapsing faster than she could hold them.

I would make sure of it.

Two hours later, I stood in the private wing of the Callahan Foundation. My sanctuary.

My war room.

I slammed the door behind me and pulled out the hidden drawer on my desk. I’d kept records. Copies of the original paternity test. The one that Serena had insisted was “misplaced.” I’d gotten the lab technician fired for it, but not before he left me a copy out of guilt.

And now I had proof.

I laid it beside the recent one—retrieved by Damien from the safe house, according to the contact who passed me the tip.

Same result.

Adrian was Kieran’s biological son.

Damien’s twin.

But more than that, I had new evidence. Serena hadn’t just manipulated Kieran.

She had bribed the lab director. She’d used Blackfang funds—money Kieran never monitored—to pay off people to destroy or alter results, to erase timelines, to create doubt and distance between Adrian and his father.

That distance had broken us.

Stolen years.

And nearly cost Adrian his identity.

I wanted to scream, to sob, to run to my son and shield him from everything.

But he was stronger now. Wiser than I ever expected. And he had seen the truth in Kieran’s eyes—even if he hadn’t wanted to accept it.

I picked up my phone.

“Call Damien Blackwood,” I said.

It rang twice.

He picked up on the third ring.

“…Hello?”

“Damien,” I said quietly. “It’s Evelyn. I need to meet with you. It’s urgent. About your father. And Adrian.”

He hesitated.

Then said, “Where?”

“My office. Bring no one. And come quickly.”

I ended the call before he could ask more.

An hour later, Damien stood in front of me, eyes shadowed and lips drawn in a hard line. He looked older than fifteen—grimmer, like a soldier preparing for war.

I handed him the file.

He flipped through it, silent.

“I thought she lied,” he said finally, voice low. “But this…”

“She didn’t just lie,” I said. “She rewrote history. Your father—he wasn’t perfect. But he would’ve come for Adrian. He tried. But Serena knew how to manipulate him. She buried the truth. She let him doubt himself. Until he gave up.”

He nodded once.

“She said… if she couldn’t control you both, she’d get rid of one.”

Damien looked up sharply, face going pale.

“I think she’s already planning something.”

His voice trembled.

Adrian.

I grabbed my phone. My fingers moved fast, dialling, but it rang and rang and went to voicemail.

“Adrian,” I said, breathless, “please, call me back. It’s urgent. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

I hung up, my heart hammering in my chest.

Damien pulled out his own phone.

“No location data,” he said. “He’s probably turned it off again.”

“Where would he go?” I asked.

“He’s been skipping his last period… going to the library at the corner of Sycamore and West. He says it’s quiet there.”

I told them, "We are going." "Now."

When we got to the library, the sun was starting to go down.

But Adrian wasn’t inside.

The librarian hadn’t seen him that day.

I stepped outside, scanning the quiet street, panic rising.

Then I spotted it.

A black car.

Parked two blocks away.

The same one I’d seen in photos. The same model Serena often used.

I took one step forward—just as the engine started.

Damien’s hand gripped my arm.

“Look!”

My eyes followed his line of sight.

At the far end of the sidewalk, Adrian appeared.

He was walking toward us, a book clutched in his hands.

The car was new to him.

He missed the man getting out of the back seat wearing black and holding something shiny.

“Adrian!” I screamed.

He looked up, startled.

Then everything happened at once.

Damien shoved me behind a post. The man lunged. Adrian dropped his book.

And the car door opened again—this time revealing someone I hadn’t expected to see again.

Someone who was supposed to be gone.

Bloodied, limping… but alive.

Kieran.

“Get away from my son,” he growled.

And everything erupted into chaos.