Chapter 317 Chapter 318

Chapter 317 Chapter 318
Chapter 318

Nikolai’s POV

Three years passed in a blur of cold calculations, endless lines of code, and rising power.

I stood on the top floor of a high-rise glass tower in downtown Boston, looking out over the glowing city skyline. The reflection in the double-paned glass showed a twenty-six-year-old man in a sharp, tailored dark suit. My shoulders were broader, my jawline sharper, and my dark eyes held the absolute, unyielding coldness of a man who had completely stripped himself of human weakness.

Below me, the tech firm I built from nothing was now worth hundreds of millions. I had earned my advanced degree from MIT in record time, using my technical brilliance to build cutting-edge encryption software and military-grade satellite tracking systems.

I didn't care about the wealth, the status, or the high-tech company. It was all just a vehicle. A massive, untraceable weapon built for one single purpose: absolute vengeance.

Every dollar, every satellite link, and every piece of software I designed was built to hunt down the corrupt shadow figures within the government agency who had murdered my father, attempted to assassinate my mother, and shattered my family for their own selfish interests. They had wanted my father's nuclear clearance and aerospace research for an illegal black-market nuclear weapons deal. They had broken my home, taken my family, and stolen my life to cover up their treason.

And I was going to burn every single one of them to ashes.

The heavy glass door to my private office clicked open.

Dante and Enzo walked into the room. Dante carried himself with the heavy, lethal aura of a born mafia boss, his dark eyes sharp and calculating. Enzo stepped in beside him, throwing a thick black leather folder onto my glass desk with a dull thud.

"We ran the final traces on the offshore accounts tied to the original agency hit squad," Dante said, his deep, gravelly voice cutting through the quiet office. "Your software picked up the breadcrumbs, Nikolai. The same corrupt faction that targeted your father's launch protocols is supplying dark-market nuclear components to rival syndicates."

"They used state resources to stage your father's disappearance," Enzo added, leaning his hands on my desk. "Then they tried to quiet your mother to keep the paper trail clean. They thought two twenty-two-year-old twin boys would just disappear into the noise."

"They thought wrong," I replied smoothly, turning around to face them. My voice was a low, flat rumble that carried zero emotion. "Do we have the names of the primary directors?"

"Three high-ranking intelligence officials and two weapons defense contractors," Dante said, his jaw tightening. "They are operating out of a private facility in Eastern Europe. The same faction is trying to bleed into my family's syndicate territory."

"Then we strike together," I said coldly. "We cut off their funding, expose their black-market nuclear buyers, and execute every man who signed my father's death warrant."

"There is one more thing," Enzo said softly, his usual arrogant demeanor dropping into something unusually quiet and hesitant. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a fresh surveillance report. "Our field contacts in Kyoto just updated the family tracking registry."

I picked up the file, opening it with calm, steady hands.

Nicholas was still living in Japan, using the funds I had left behind to build a quiet life as a private medical consultant. But as my eyes scanned the official registry document, my fingers froze over the paper.

The document listed the births of Nicholas and Freya’s twin children, born two years ago.

CHILD 1: NIKOLAI SOKOLOV.

CHILD 2: JULIANA SOKOLOV.

My own name. And our mother's name.

I stared at the black ink printed on the white paper.

Nicholas hadn't just stolen Freya. He hadn't just stolen my face and my place in her heart. He had taken my name and given it to his son. He was living in a house in Kyoto, raising a boy named Nikolai and a girl named Juliana, completely erasing my existence while living inside a twisted, stolen copy of the family we used to have.

It was the ultimate psychological theft. A sick, desperate attempt by a resentful brother to replace me entirely, to keep a piece of the twin he had destroyed while erasing the real man from the world.

Something deep within the frozen core of my chest snapped for good. The final, microscopic grain of human sentiment I had kept hidden away simply dissolved into pure dust.

I set the paper down on the desk, my hands completely steady, my face an unreadable marble mask.

"Nikolai?" Dante asked, watching me closely with his dark, tactical eyes. "Are you alright?"

"I am fine," I said. My voice was chillingly level, devoid of pain, anger, or remorse. "The past is irrelevant."

I looked down at the tactical layout of the corrupt government agency's offshore logistics network displayed on my desk monitor. The men who murdered my father were waiting. The syndicate war was coming. And I was completely ready.

"Dante. Enzo," I said softly, my dark eyes locking onto theirs with absolute, lethal focus. "Initiate the primary strike protocol. Let us hunt down my father's killers."