Chapter 886
Liam was already waiting at their table. He looked different — lighter, somehow, as though something heavy had been lifted from behind his eyes. A small bandage was visible near his hairline, the only sign of the surgery that had given him back his life. The ticking clock was gone.
“You look terrible,” Alistair said, sitting down.
“Good to see you too, Alistair,” Liam grinned. He looked at Skye. “You look happy.”
“I am,” Skye said, taking Alistair’s hand.
“I have news,” Liam said. “I’m staying on at Kensington Global. The board wanted me to resign — to disappear quietly after everything that happened. I refused.”
“Good,” Skye said. “The city needs strong leadership. And Kensington Global has resources Oracle doesn’t.”
“Exactly,” Liam nodded. “I’m turning the company around. No more shadow deals. No more weapons manufacturing. We’re going into infrastructure — rebuilding what the Mastermind tried to destroy.” He paused. “And I’m establishing a foundation. For victims of manipulation, of abuse. People like us.”
Skye smiled. “That sounds perfect.”
“And,” Liam reached into his pocket and produced a small box.
Alistair stiffened.
ѕ𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗶е𝘀 у𝗈𝘶 𝘄o𝘯’t р𝘶𝘁 𝘥𝗼𝗐𝘯 𝗼n 𝗀a𝗅ո𝗈𝘷е𝗅ѕ.с𝘰m
Liam opened it. It wasn’t a ring — it was a thick envelope, folded inside a velvet-lined case. Legal documents.
“The Sterling Trust,” Liam said. “My grandmother held onto the original deeds to your family’s estate — the ones she took decades ago. I found them in her safe.” He slid the envelope across the table. “They belong to you.”
Skye took it. Her hands trembled. This was her heritage. The final piece of herself that had been missing.
“Thank you, Liam.”
“I’m happy for you,” Liam said.
And for the first time, Skye believed him.
As they ate, she looked out at the city stretched below — its towers of glass and light, the harbor dark and still in the distance. She thought about the pain, the betrayal, the timelines that might have been. She thought about the girl who had died on an operating table and the woman she had become in the years since.
She squeezed Alistair’s hand beneath the table. He squeezed back, three times. I love you.
The waiter arrived with champagne, setting the flutes down without a word.
“A toast,” Liam raised his glass. “To the future.”
“To the future,” Skye and Alistair echoed.
Skye brought the glass to her lips. The bubbles danced on her tongue, cold and bright.
She was Skye Sterling. She was the Oracle.
And she was finally, truly, free.
The morning sun that filtered into the high-security wing of St. Jude’s Sanatorium felt deceptively warm — a cruel contrast to the sterile, accusatory white of the hallway. Skye Sterling adjusted her grip on the paper bag in her hand, the sweet, yeasty scent of cinnamon rolls drifting up to her nose. It was a smell that belonged to a different life, a life she felt she had finally reclaimed just hours ago. The memory of the previous night’s dinner at the Oracle Tower still hummed in her veins like fine champagne — Liam’s laughter, the clinking of glasses, the way Alistair had squeezed her hand three times under the table. To the future, they had toasted. For the first time in years, the future didn’t look like a battlefield. It looked like a promise.