Chapter 912
“Ethan,” Julian’s voice trembled over the intercom. “Ethan, look at me. It’s Julian.”
Ethan didn’t blink. He kept humming, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall.
The door to the observation room flew open. Alistair stormed in, bringing a gust of cold air with him. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“He’s faking it,” Alistair snarled, moving toward the glass as though he wanted to punch through it. “He’s playing the insanity card to avoid the needle.”
𝖱om𝗮𝘯𝖼𝗲 a𝗻𝗱 р𝗮𝘀si𝗼𝗻 o𝘯 𝗀alոo𝘃𝘦𝗹s.𝗰o𝗺
“No.” Julian stepped in front of Alistair, blocking his view. “Look closely. Look at his eyes.”
Alistair stopped, breathing hard, and leaned in.
Ethan’s pupils were constricted to pinpoints — so small that the blue of his irises looked like vast, empty oceans. He wasn’t blinking. His pulse, visible in the vein at his neck, was hammering at a rate that would have killed a normal man.
“Pinpoint pupils. Tachycardia. Catatonia,” Skye listed the symptoms, her mind racing back to the files they had stolen from the Architect’s lab months ago. “It’s not insanity. It’s chemistry.”
“Elysium,” Alistair whispered the word like a curse. “The new strain.”
“Only the Mastermind had access to this formula,” Julian said, his voice thick with guilt. “Ethan didn’t just escape the black site. He was extracted. Reprogrammed. He’s a hollow man, Alistair. A weapon they aimed at your grandfather.”
Alistair ran a hand down his face. The rage was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but the target had shifted. “So killing him won’t solve anything. The finger that pulled the trigger is miles away.”
“But who holds the leash?” Skye asked.
Her phone buzzed. An encrypted email notification.
She opened it. A single image file. No subject. No sender.
The photo was grainy, taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. It showed a rainy street corner in Sea City. Beatrice Thorne was handing a thick envelope to a man. His back was to the camera, but he wore a distinctive trench coat — cashmere, tailored, with a high collar.
“That coat,” Skye frowned, zooming in. “It looks like something Lucian would wear.”
“Lucian is at the safe house,” Alistair said immediately. “Or at least, that’s what we told the press.”
“Then who is this?” Skye turned the screen toward them. “He has the same build. The same posture.”
“A body double?” Julian suggested. “Or… a relative?”
Alistair’s face darkened. “The Graves family history is murky. Lucian always said he was the last of the line.”
“Guys.” Parker’s voice burst through the secure line on Skye’s phone, strained and urgent. He was still bunkered in the secondary server room beneath the city, recovering from his injuries but working remotely. “Turn on the news. Now.”
Skye grabbed the remote and switched on the wall-mounted TV.
A banner headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen: THORNE GROUP ANNOUNCES EMERGENCY RESTRUCTURING. ‘WAKE’ TO BE HELD TONIGHT AT THE ONYX LOUNGE.
“A wake at a nightclub?” Alistair scoffed. “Beatrice has no shame.”
“It’s not a wake,” Skye said, reading the sub-headline. “Major Shareholder Announcement Expected.”