Chapter Seventeen: The BloodLine Matrix

The silence in the room didn’t just fall, it suffocated. It was dangerous.

On the glowing screen, the blurry figure continued his steady, unbothered march down our private corridor. But my eyes were entirely glued to the rolling chair behind him. Aunt Marissa. Her face was pale, her silver-streaked hair disheveled, and the sheer terror in her wide eyes pierced right through the digital display and into my chest.

I had thought when Silas shot her at the Lena’s house, she was carried out by Arthur. I wondered with a sickening twist in my stomach how she had ended up here with this mysterious human.

Aunt Marissa struggled weakly against the heavy restraints holding her to the chair. Tears shined in her eyes, reflecting the harsh light of the corridor. The silver duct tape covering her mouth completely muffled whatever she was trying desperately to say to the camera.

"Marissa..." The name left my throat as a breathless, broken sob.

Beside me, Silas didn't make a sound, but the air around him instantly turned like he was ready to hunt. His towering frame went completely rigid, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle cracked violently under his stubble. His dark eye shifted from the monitor to the heavy, reinforced steel entry doors at the end of the architectural foyer.

Silas turned towards me. “Pause it”.

I quickly did as I was instructed. My trembling fingers flew across the keys terminals.

"Elias," Silas’s voice dropped to a lethal, quiet tone that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "Lock down the inner sanctuary. If those elevator doors open, I want a localized EMP grid ready to blow."

"I'm trying!" Elias hissed, his fingers a frantic blur over the encryption terminal. "But Silas... it seems impossible because whoever this is, they aren't hacking our system. They have a physical, hard-coded master override key. It's bypassing my firewalls like they don't even exist. No override. No breach. No forced entry. No signal interference." Elias swallowed hard, staring blankly at the unyielding green code.

I didn’t understand a single word of it, and honestly, neither did Silas, because Elias was saying so many technical things at the exact same time. Sincerely, I wasn’t going to blame him; he was obviously completely tensed up.

“Aah…” The panic suddenly punctured my chest, and the word came out of my mouth sharply. “LENA! What about her?”

“Trust me! She is already safe," Silas snapped, his eye never leaving the door. "Where she currently is... it’s very restricted."

Hearing that, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. But the relief was short-lived as the stranger's voice from the audio file echoed in my mind over and over, making my head spin. “Tell Vienne her brother came to see her.”

A brother? My parents had never spoken of another child. I was an only child—the sole heir to the Caelthorne name. Or was that just another massive lie spun to protect Level Four?

“Someone in here must have sold us again! Trust me”. I burst out loud looking between Elias and Silas.

Suddenly a heavy, mechanical clunk echoed through the penthouse structure.

The private elevator had arrived. The digital interface above the entrance flashed a brilliant, mocking green light.

Silas seamlessly stepped in front of me, his massive shoulder entirely blocking my view of the door, shielding my body with his own. He reached behind his back, smoothly drawing a matte-black semi-automatic pistol from his holster, the click of the safety echoing sharply in the quiet room.

I wondered briefly if he took that weapon with him to the grave, because he was truly never without a gun.

The double steel doors slid open.

The man who stepped into the warm, golden light of the penthouse looked shockingly young; perhaps a few years older than me. He wore a pristine, tailored midnight-blue overcoat that screamed old-money luxury. But it was his face that made my heart physically stop. He had the exact same striking, piercing gray eyes as my father. His cheekbones, his sharp jawline, the subtle slope of his nose—it was like looking at a male, hyper-focused version of myself in the mirror.

I don’t have a brother honestly. So why, does this guy looked so much like me? Or has my parents also lied to me about my entire life?

He was pushing the rolling office chair ahead of him with one casual hand. Aunt Marissa muffled a desperate scream behind the heavy silver duct tape, her tear-stained face turning toward me in absolute agony.

"Step back, boy," Silas growled, his pistol aimed directly between the stranger's gray eyes. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't be painting this marble wall with your brains right now."

The stranger didn't even flinch at the sight of the gun. Instead, he let out a soft, melodic laugh that sent a shiver straight down my spine.

Silas Vane. Still playing the loyal guard dog, I see," the man said, his voice smooth and dripping with casual arrogance. He stopped pushing the chair, stepping to the side and leaving himself completely exposed. He raised his hands up slowly, as if he were completely ready to die. “Go ahead and shoot. But if my heart rate drops below sixty beats per minute, the close-linked thermite charges tied beneath her dear aunt's chair will explode. We'll all go up in a very pretty, very expensive cloud of smoke." He pointed his finger directly toward me on that last word.

Elias cursed under his breath, his monitor quickly corroborating the threat. "He's telling the truth, Silas. There's a localized thermal signature under the seat."

I stepped out from behind Silas’s shoulder, my heels clicking defiantly against the concrete floor. My cream silk blouse felt thin against the sudden icy draft in the room, but I forced my voice to remain steady. "Who are you?"

A soft sound interrupted the heavy silence. Everyone in the room spun around.

A second later, Lena stepped inside the main office.

She looked incredibly pretty. She had changed into a mini white gown, wearing a golden necklace with a fitted pair of short golden earrings, her lips painted with a fresh, glossy layer. Her eyes were playfully closed with her hands, so she was completely unaware of the deadly matrix she had just walked into.

“Boom” She opened her eyes smiling. How do I look Vie… what the hell is going on here?”

The man turned his piercing gray eyes to Lena, his expression softening into something deeply unsettling; something that looked genuinely like affection.

The moment Lena recognized him, she gasped loudly. “Julian!”

Without a single care for the weapons drawn, she ran forward and threw her arms around him to hug him immediately. I felt a deep wave of irritation and disgust rise in my throat at the sight of what was happening. The exact same man who was acting dangerous and threatening to blow us up was the person Lena was casually hugging.

“I didn’t know you were back,” she muttered, stepping back. Then, she turned her eyes down and sighted Aunt Marissa strapped to the chair. “Oops. What happened, Auntie?”

She didn’t even sound bothered. Lena had never liked Aunt Marissa, so she wasn’t going to pretend to care now.

“Lena!” I screamed, my voice cutting through the office like a whip. “Move over here!

I sounded incredibly angry, and she must have felt the heat in my tone because she did just as I said, scurrying over to my side. The moment she reached me, we collided in a fierce, protective hug.

"Hello, Vienne," the man turned drawing his attention towards me me again and murmured softly. “I would answer your question”. My name is Julian Caelthorne. Your older brother. The one our parents locked away in a foreign safety the moment you were born, all to ensure you would be the perfect, clean face of the family legacy."

"You're lying," I whispered, shaking my head as a wave of dizziness hit me. "My parents wouldn't…”

I turned toward Lena for immediate confirmation, expecting her to laugh it off. Instead, she simply nodded her head—a silent, heavy sign of yes. My world fractured completely.

"Our parents were monsters, little sister," Julian interrupted smoothly, taking a slow step forward. Silas instantly adjusted his grip on the gun, his knuckles turning stark white.

I didn’t know what to believe anymore. If my parents were truly monsters or something else.

Julian stopped, raising his hands in a mock surrender. "They hid me away because I saw what they were building. I saw Level Four. And more importantly, I know exactly what is locked inside it."

“I thought level four was a person. So what possibly locked in a person?” I asked.

"If you want Level Four, you're tracking the wrong person," Silas snapped, his voice tight as he cut along the conversation. “Victor Laurent has already occupied the corporate headquarters downtown. He's seizing the vault tomorrow."

Julian scoffed, a look of pure disdain crossing his handsome features. "Victor is a bureaucratic cockroach playing in a sandbox. He doesn't have the biometric frequency code. Only Vienne does." Julian looked back at me, his gaze dropping to the pocket of my tailored trousers where the half-medallion was hidden. "And she needs the second half of the key to open it. Which, I believe, our dear old housekeeper Evelyn gave you before she blew up the estate."

"How do you know about Evelyn?" I demanded.

"Because Evelyn works for me," Julian smiled smoothly.

The revelation hit me like a physical blow. Evelyn wasn't a rogue agent or a loyal family servant. She was working for the shadow brother I never knew I had.

"I didn't come here to kill you, Vienne," Julian said, his tone turning businesslike as he leaned casually against Aunt Marissa's chair. Marissa wept silently, her eyes begging me to run. "I came to offer a trade. You and Silas are going into Vane Industries tomorrow to bypass Victor's security. You are going to use your voice to open Level Four. You will retrieve the black ledger inside, and you will hand it to me."

"And if I refuse?" I asked, my blood running cold.

Julian reached into his midnight-blue overcoat and pulled out a small, sleek detonator. His thumb hovered right over the glowing red toggle.

"If you refuse, I blow this penthouse, I blow your beloved aunt into pieces, and I let Victor Laurent hunt you down until there is nothing left of the Caelthorne bloodline but ash," Julian said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion now. He looked at Silas, then back to me. "You have exactly ten seconds to decide if we are going to be a happy family, or if this is where your story ends."

Silas didn't lower his gun. His eyes met mine, a silent, burning question in his dark gaze, waiting entirely for my command.

The digital clock on the mahogany desk began to tick down.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight...