Chapter 938
“Silver? Never heard of him. Kick him out. I’m a Sterling — we own this town.” Parker slammed a Black Card, Liam’s, onto the desk.
The manager scurried over. “Mr. Sterling! Our sincerest apologies. Your reservation seems to have just appeared in our system. The penthouse is strictly off-limits — medical quarantine. However, the Presidential Suite on the floor below is available.”
“Fine,” Parker huffed. “But I want extra pillows.”
Once inside the room, Parker dropped the act entirely. He pulled a micro-drone the size of a hummingbird from his suitcase.
“Deploying fly-on-the-wall,” he whispered into his comms.
Skye, Liam, and Alistair watched the feed from a van parked down the street.
The drone lifted into the air vent and buzzed up toward the penthouse. The camera feed flickered, then stabilized.
The penthouse had been converted into a lab. Medical equipment filled every surface. Ethan was strapped to a chair, unconscious.
𝖰u𝘢𝗹і𝘵𝘺 trаո𝘀𝗅𝗮tіоոs 𝗼n gа𝗅ո𝗼𝘃е𝘭𝗌.co𝗆
A man stood over him, adjusting a drip. He turned around.
Skye gasped.
It was Lucian.
“What?” Alistair shouted. “Lucian is at the Oracle secure wing — we just left him!”
“It’s a proxy,” Liam said, leaning closer to the screen. “Look at the ears. The lobes are attached. Lucian’s are free.”
“A stand-in,” Skye realized. “Silas announced Lucian’s death to the public, but he must have kept a double on ice — for biometric bypasses, or to sign documents requiring a physical presence behind closed doors. This is how they kept the empire running while the real Lucian was in a coma.”
“If that’s a fake,” Alistair growled, checking his weapon, “then we are going to expose him. Tonight.”
The door to the penthouse exploded inward.
Parker stood in the breach, holding a detonator, looking terrified but triumphant. “Room service!”
Liam, Skye, and Alistair stormed in through the smoke.
The Fake Lucian spun around, dropping a syringe. “Security!”
“They’re sleeping,” Liam said, stepping over a groaning guard. “Gas leak in the ventilation. Nasty stuff.”
“Who are you?” the Fake Lucian demanded, straining to mimic the real Lucian’s imperious tone. “I am Lucian Graves! I will have you executed!”
“You’re a bad actor,” came a voice from the hallway.
The real Lucian Graves walked in. He was leaning on a cane, pale and heavily bandaged, but his presence filled the room like a change in air pressure.
The two Lucians stared at each other. It was like looking into a mirror.
“Impossible,” the Fake whispered. “You’re dead.”
“I’m hard to kill,” the real Lucian said. He crossed the room and stood before his double. “You have my face. You have my voice. But you don’t have this.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his forearm — a complex geometric pattern interwoven with the Graves family crest.
“Ink?” the Fake scoffed. “I can get a tattoo.”
“Not this one,” Lucian said. “It’s UV reactive. And it contains a microchip with the Graves cryptographic key.”
He held his arm beneath the UV light Parker raised. The tattoo blazed neon blue, and the room’s smart screens unlocked instantly, displaying: WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR.
The Fake Lucian panicked. He lunged for a gun.