[CONTENT TEMPLATE HERE]
Chapter 804:
Cole’s vision went completely white. The final phone call. The static on the line. Caleb begging him to go to Switzerland to protect a girl.
He turned to the very last page. There was only one sentence, written alone in the center of the paper. It carried the weight of a falling mountain.
Cole, if you are reading this, please love her for me. Protect my June with your life. Do not let her suffer a single grievance.
The diary slipped from Cole’s fingers and hit the wooden floorboards with a heavy thud.
Cole grabbed fistfuls of his own hair. He opened his mouth and let out a scream that tore his throat to shreds — the sound of a man being ripped in half. He slid from the chair and crashed onto his knees, slamming his forehead against the hard wood floor. The impact echoed through the room. He slammed it again. And again.
He had not simply mistaken a stranger for a savior. He had taken the girl his brother died to protect, the girl his brother had loved with his entire soul, and dragged her into a three-year nightmare. He had let Alycia poison her. He had let her child die.
Cole remained on the floor of the dark bedroom for a long time. Blood oozed from the broken skin on his forehead, sliding down the bridge of his nose and dripping onto the dusty floorboards.
He felt entirely hollowed out, his soul scraped clean. Every memory of the last three years played behind his eyes like a torture film — June looking at him during the thunderstorm, begging for comfort. June bleeding out in the hospital while he drank champagne with Alycia. June looking at him with absolute, freezing hatred.
Every single frame was a barbed hook tearing through his flesh. He had murdered the miracle Caleb died to save.
A low, twisted laugh bubbled up from Cole’s chest. It grew louder, echoing off the sheet-covered furniture — the laugh of a man who had completely lost his mind, mocking the absolute absurdity of his own existence.
𝗧𝗋e𝘯di𝗇𝗴 n𝘰𝘃е𝗅ѕ o𝗻
Then it stopped. The silence rushed back in.
Cole pushed himself up off the floor. His joints popped. He walked to the antique mirror standing in the corner and looked at his reflection. He saw Caleb’s exact face staring back at him, but the eyes were entirely different. The eyes in the mirror held no human emotion — just black, bottomless pits of pure, concentrated murder.
He bent down and picked up the leather diary. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped the book carefully, and slid it into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket, pressing it flat against his heart.
He pulled out his phone and dialed his chief assistant’s direct line. His voice came out like gravel grinding against steel.
“Initiate the Scythe protocol p>
The assistant sucked in a sharp breath. The Scythe protocol was the Compton Group’s nuclear option — a financial assassination directive designed to liquidate hostile corporate targets entirely.
“Target, sir?” the assistant asked, his voice tight.