Chapter 63: CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Amelia's POV

The air inside the Blackwood mansion felt like it hadn't been breathed in decades.

It smelled of glass and secrets polished, perfumed, but rotten underneath.

I had been here before, of course. As Damian's wife, I'd smiled in these marble halls, posed for photographs beside chandeliers that cost more than I would earn in ten lifetimes. But tonight, the house wasn't familiar. It was haunted. Maybe by memory, maybe by truth.

Adrian walked beside me, his shoulders tense beneath his soaked shirt, eyes flicking toward every corner as though the walls might speak. Outside, thunder rolled across the horizon like a warning drum. The rain had stopped, but its scent lingered, damp and metallic.

The guards had let us in without question. That was the first red flag. The Blackwoods never allowed surprise visits, unless they were expected. And Damian was expecting us.

He was waiting.

I could feel it before we reached the main room, he weight of his gaze from somewhere above, unseen but sharp. The grand staircase curved like a serpent, its golden rail glinting faintly in the dim light. My heels echoed on the marble floor. Every sound felt too loud.

"Are you sure about this?" Adrian asked under his breath.

"No," I said honestly. "But running hasn't helped us either."

He nodded once, jaw tightening. There was exhaustion in his eyes, ot the kind that sleep could fix, but the kind that came from fighting too long in a war you didn't start.

We stopped before the double doors of Charles Blackwood's study. The same place where I had signed my marriage contract two years ago. My hand hovered over the handle, remembering the cool press of the pen, the flash of the cameras, the hollow congratulations. I had walked in a daughter. I had walked out of a transaction.

Now I was walking back as something else entirely.

The doors creaked open before I touched them.

Damian stood inside.

He was perfectly composed, of course, he was. Always the image of control, even when everything around him was bleeding. He wore a dark three-piece suit, no tie this time, the top button undone. His hair was slicked back, his eyes reflecting the low amber light like a predator's.

For a moment, no one spoke.

"Welcome home," he said finally, voice smooth as ice.

Home.

The word landed like a knife.

I stepped forward, careful, matching his gaze. "You've been watching us."

He smiled faintly. "I watch everything I own."

Adrian bristled beside me, but I touched his wrist, silently asking him not to speak yet. Damian thrived on reaction. He fed on it.

"We saw the video," I said. "The one you didn't want us to find."

"Ah." His eyes narrowed with polite curiosity. "You mean the one your father left behind?"

The floor tilted beneath me. My breath caught. "You knew."

"Of course I knew," he said. "Charles told me everything before he died. Or rather, before he decided I wasn't the son he wanted anymore." He stepped closer, the distance between us shrinking into something heavy. "Helix, Amelia. The name you've been chasing like a ghost. You really thought you'd find salvation in it?"

"I thought I'd find the truth."

He laughed softly, but there was no joy in it, only fatigue, bitterness, and the echo of betrayal. "Truth doesn't free you. It buries you deeper."

I took another step, my heart drumming hard against my ribs. "Then tell me. Tell me what this was. Why me?"

Damian's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes flickered with hesitation, maybe even pain. Then it was gone.

"Because you were chosen," he said. "Your father and mine made sure of that."

Adrian's voice was low. "Chosen for what?"

Damian turned to him, a faint smirk ghosting over his lips. "For me."

The silence that followed was unbearable.

He gestured toward the desk behind him. On it sat a single folder, thick with age, sealed with the Blackwood crest. "Your marriage wasn't a coincidence, Amelia. It was an inheritance."

I didn't move. Couldn't.

Damian circled me slowly, like a man lecturing a student. "Two decades ago, Charles Blackwood and your father invested in genetic continuity, a private project called Helix. They wanted to build perfect compatibility, to merge two legacies without flaw. The Blackwoods' empire was crumbling under greed and scandal. Your father's pharmaceutical research promised restoration."

His words blurred together, scientific, cold, methodical. My body felt detached from my mind.

"Helix was supposed to secure the future. You, Amelia, were the control variable. Designed, monitored, and placed. A merger dressed as marriage."

My throat tightened. "That's not possible."

Damian tilted his head. "You think it's a coincidence that your father died days after signing the contract? Did Charles hand you to me before his last breath? You were born to keep the name alive."

"Stop," Adrian snapped.

But Damian didn't stop. He leaned forward until his voice was barely a whisper. "The real joke, brother, is that you're part of it too. You don't know your place in the equation."

Adrian froze. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means," Damian said calmly, "that none of this was love. It was a legacy."

I stepped back, shaking my head. The folder on the desk seemed to pulse in the dim light. I could feel something pulling me toward it, the same sick curiosity that had destroyed every boundary I once believed in.

"Why tell me now?" I asked. "Why not keep lying?"

Damian's smirk faded. "Because I need you to understand what you're running from."

"And what's that?"

"Me," he said quietly. "You're running from me."

For a heartbeat, the room felt weightless.

Then everything crashed back: he ticking of the antique clock, the hiss of the rain against the window, the way Damian's eyes refused to look away from mine.

He wasn't angry anymore. That was what terrified me most. He looked calm. Resigned.

The kind of calm that came when a man had already chosen what line he was willing to cross.

"Why are you doing this?" I whispered.

"Because you still don't see it." He turned toward the window, watching lightning flicker over the dark skyline. "You think this is about betrayal, Amelia. About love gone wrong or power gone too far. But this… this is about inheritance. You can run from me. You can hide behind Adrian. But you can't escape what you are."

My pulse hammered in my throat. "And what exactly am I?"

He turned back to me, eyes burning now not with hatred, but something sharper, sadder. "You're proof that the Blackwood legacy worked. That our fathers succeeded. You are the perfect continuation of what they started."

"No," I said, my voice shaking. "I am not your experiment."

"You're more than that," he replied softly. "You're the result."

Adrian took a step forward, jaw tight. "Enough."

But Damian ignored him, walking closer until we were only inches apart. His voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible above the storm. "You think I'm afraid of losing you, Amelia? No. What terrifies me is losing to you. You were built to replace me."

That word "uiltt "made my stomach twist.

"You're insane," Adrian muttered, but Damian's gaze stayed locked on me.

"Am I?" He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small flash drive identical to the one that had led us here. He set it on the table between us. "This is everything Charles never wanted you to see. Every test, every match, every adjustment made until you were the one who fit."

I stared at the drive. "Why give this to me?"

"Because I want you to know what you're choosing."

"Choosing?"

He smiled faintly. "You think you can just leave? Walk away with my brother and start a new life? You carry the Blackwood code in your blood. You are the Blackwood code."

Lightning cracked outside. The power flickered once, twice.

Adrian moved protectively in front of me, but Damian didn't move closer. He just watched us, a ghost of a smile still on his face.

"You've spent so long trying to destroy me," he said, "that you never asked what happens if you succeed. When this empire falls, it won't be me who dies with it. It'll be you. Because you were never just my wife, Amelia."

His voice lowered, heavy with truth.

"You were my inheritance."

The words hit harder than any scream could.

I felt my breath tremble as I looked at him, the man I thought I had known, the man who once made me feel safe, now staring at me like I was a relic of his own creation.

Adrian's voice cut through the silence. "We're done here."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. But as we moved, Damian's tone shifted soft again, almost human.

"Amelia."

I stopped. Against my will, I turned.

His eyes were glassy now, something fragile flickering underneath the calm. "When you look at me," he said, "do you ever wonder which parts of you I still own?"

I didn't answer. Couldn't.

His smile returned that hollow, perfect smile. "You'll find out soon enough."

Then he stepped back, letting us leave. No guards. No fight. Just silence.

We walked down the hall like ghosts, the echo of our footsteps swallowed by the mansion's emptiness. When we reached the front doors, Adrian exhaled shakily.

"That wasn't a warning," he said. "It was a promise."

I looked down at our joined hands, he same hands that had signed our fate years ago, without even realizing it.

Outside, the rain had begun again, softer this time, like the sky itself was grieving.

As we stepped into the storm, I whispered the only truth that still made sense.

"He's not trying to keep me."

Adrian looked at me, confused. "Then what?"

"He's trying to make me remember."

The mansion loomed behind us, its windows flickering faintly in the distance.

And somewhere inside, Damian stood at the window, watching.

The hunter's smile never left his face.