Chapter 80: New Generation
Two days later.
The skies over the valley were pale and silent, as if the mansion itself had exhaled. The once-lustrous Blackwood Estate stood still and hollow, curtains drawn, walls scoured clean of blood and history.
Out front, Sofia leaned against her black sedan, speaking to a young man in a grey suit with a tablet in hand.
“She’s on the market now,” he told her. “We found a client. A family. Eager to move in quickly.”
Sofia nodded. She didn’t smile. “Let’s hope they don’t dig too deep.”
As she turned back to her car, Rami sat quietly in the passenger seat, his arm bound in a tight bandage. The bruises had started to fade, but the trauma was slow to heal.
“It’s settled,” Sofia said flatly, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Rami looked ahead, not speaking, eyes still locked on the mansion as they pulled away.
In the heart of Chicago, Erika stepped into a modern glass building with clean white walls and gold-lettered signs.
BLACKWOOD HOLDINGS
A receptionist greeted her, leading her through corridors of marble and glass, past boardroom doors and framed portraits. Her heels clicked on the floor, sharp, uncertain.
She was brought into an office where a tall man in a navy suit rose from behind a desk.
“You must be Erika Dalton,” he said. “I’m the acting CEO.”
“I thought I was the full heir of my father’s legacy,” Erika said, voice sharp.
The man looked up, hesitated.
Then the door opened again.
A young man entered maybe twenty, confident, clean-cut, eyes just like Gary’s.
“I’m Eliott, your younger brother,” he said with a slight smirk. “Lost and found, I guess. Turns out I’m the sole legal heir of the Blackwood corporate assets.”
Erika stared at him, her jaw tight. “He left it all to you.”
He nodded. “I guess he loved his secrets more than his first children.”
Erika said nothing. But her fists clenched at her side.
Far away, at Silver Pines Psychiatric Hospital, a nurse pushed a wheelchair through a long corridor. The woman inside the chair struggled, snarling and kicking, but the drugs were already working.
It was Alina.
She was thinner now. Bruised. Eyes darting like an animal.
At the end of the hall, a woman in white waited.
Veronika.
Composed. Calm.
“I’ll take her in my room,” Veronika said gently.
“No!” Alina shouted. “Stay away from me!”
Veronika moved closer. “I am your mother.”
Alina glared up at her. “You are a curse.”
Then she spit, right in Veronika’s face.
The nurse watched in frozen horror as Veronika slowly wiped her cheek and smiled. “You’ll come around. We have time.”
Alina just screamed.
Behind thick steel bars, in the Greyvale Correctional Facility, Jesse walked through a corridor lined with shouting inmates. His orange uniform clung to his thin frame.
He stopped at a cell door.
Inside, a hulking man shirtless, tattooed stood, arms crossed.
“You better behave,” the man growled. Then, with a swing, he struck Jesse hard in the gut.
Jesse collapsed, wheezing, tears stinging his eyes.
“I hate you,” he whispered. “I hate you, Dad.”
Back in the countryside, a white SUV pulled up to the gates of the Blackwood Estate.
A cheerful family stepped out: a father, a mother, two children.
They marveled at the towering façade, charmed by the winding paths and fresh paint.
As the realtor handed them the keys, the kids ran ahead.
The mother smiled, turning to her husband. “Feels like a new start.”
They crossed the threshold.
The door closed.
Behind them, the wind whispered through the trees.
And far below, buried in stone and shadow, the walls remembered.
The clang of iron doors echoed down the narrow corridor, each slam reverberating like a tolling bell. Guards in gray uniforms flanked a man in prison clothes, his steps slow but steady, his wrists shackled. His hair was longer now, face gaunter, but the smirk was the same. Jesse Blackwood had always carried arrogance like armor.
“Visitor,” the officer grunted, unlocking a heavy door and shoving him inside.
The visiting room smelled faintly of bleach and cold coffee. A metal table stood at its center, two chairs on either side. Jesse was pushed into one, the chains clinking as he leaned back. Across from him sat Erika.
She looked different calmer, sharper. The scars of the Blackwood mansion lingered in the hard line of her jaw and the way she kept her hands folded tightly over the table, as though holding back the storm.
For a moment, neither spoke. The silence stretched.
Then Erika leaned forward, her voice low but deliberate.
“Elliott has the house now. But the inheritance, Gary’s business, the rest of it, it’s still in dispute. I thought… maybe you’d want to share your half. Plead guilty. They’d reduce your sentence. You’d walk out one day with something left.”
Jesse’s laugh was hollow, bitter, bouncing against the metal walls.
“You really don’t get it, do you? Me being in here… is because of you. If you’d minded your own business, stayed out of it, none of it would’ve happened.”
His eyes burned as he leaned forward, his voice a hiss.
“You think you’re some kind of savior? No. You ruined everything.”
He shoved his chair back, the chains rattling as he stood. He didn’t wait for the guards — just turned his back and let them drag him out.
Erika didn’t move for a long moment. She stared at the empty chair, then pulled out her phone. A single app glowed on the cracked screen — Craig.
Her thumb hovered. Then, with one decisive tap, she shut it off.
No more secrets. No more experiments. She was done.
She stood, walked past the guards, and out of the prison into the pale morning light.
Miles away, the Blackwood mansion loomed in silence. Its windows caught the last glow of sunset, glass eyes watching the drive.
A black car rolled slowly up the gravel road and stopped before the front steps.
The doors opened. Sofia stepped out first, her heels clicking against the stone. Beside her, Judge Dekker adjusted his glasses, holding a leather case tight under one arm.
They stood at the entrance, waiting. The air was heavy, the house still.
Until the front door creaked open.
And the next chapter of the Blackwood legacy began.