LOGINShare
Chapter Fourteen: The Man Behind the Door
publish date:
2026-08-05 23:47:50No one breathed.
The voice outside the office was flawless.
Steady.
Controlled.
Unmistakably my father's.
“Adrian.”
Three more measured knocks echoed through the room.
“Open the door.”
Marcus's voice crackled through the phone still pressed against my ear.
“Chairman? Are you still there?”
I slowly lowered the phone.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
I kept my eyes fixed on the office door.
“My father is outside.”
Marcus laughed nervously.
“That... that's impossible.”
“I know.”
Ronan silently reached into his jacket.
Instead of a weapon, he removed his phone and opened the camera.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“If that's an impersonator, I want his face.”
Another knock.
This time harder.
“Adrian.”
The voice carried the same calm authority that had shaped my childhood.
“You're wasting time.”
Every instinct inside me wanted to unlock the door.
It wasn't logic.
It was conditioning.
My father had spent twenty-four years teaching me never to ignore his orders.
Whoever stood outside knew that.
Ronan stepped beside the wall instead of directly in front of the entrance.
“Don't answer.”
“He'll know we're inside.”
“He already knows.”
The doorknob turned slowly.
Locked.
Silence.
Then the voice changed.
Only slightly.
“Interesting.”
The warmth disappeared.
The tone became colder.
“Sebastian was right.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“What did he say?” I whispered.
Ronan had heard it too.
“He didn't call him Father.”
Outside, the stranger chuckled.
“So you've begun paying attention.”
Neither of us replied.
“You've found the key.”
My blood ran cold.
He wasn't asking.
He knew.
“I'll make you an offer,” the man continued.
“Leave the key on Adrian's desk.”
“Walk out.”
“And I promise no one else dies tonight.”
My fingers curled into fists.
Ronan's expression remained unreadable.
“Don't negotiate,” he mouthed.
The stranger sighed.
“I was hoping you'd be more practical.”
A soft metallic click echoed from the hallway.
Then footsteps.
Walking away.
Not hurried.
Confident.
We waited.
One minute.
Two.
Three.
Only after the building fell completely silent did Ronan approach the door.
He looked through the narrow security viewer.
“Empty.”
He unlocked it carefully.
The hallway stretched in both directions.
Vacant.
The stranger had vanished.
But something rested on the carpet directly outside the office.
A photograph.
Ronan picked it up by the corner.
He frowned.
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, he handed it to me.
The image stole the breath from my lungs.
It was old.
At least twenty-four years.
Three men stood beside a laboratory entrance.
I recognized two of them immediately.
My father.
Victor Ashcroft.
Both looked years younger.
Between them stood a woman in a white laboratory coat.
She smiled at the camera.
Around her neck hung an identification badge.
The name was just clear enough to read.
Dr. Evelyn Mercer.
Mercer.
The same surname as Elias.
My eyes dropped to the bottom corner of the photograph.
Someone had written a date.
July 18. Twenty-four years ago.
Exactly one week before I was born.
“What's on the back?” Ronan asked.
I turned the photograph over.
There were only two handwritten lines.
The first lie was yours.
The second belongs to your fathers.
Before either of us could speak, Marcus burst into the office, breathing hard.
“I've been looking everywhere!”
His eyes landed on the photograph.
“What's that?”
I handed it to him.
His face lost all color.
“I know her.”
Ronan and I spoke at the same time.
“You do?”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“She wasn't just a scientist.”
“Who was she?”
“She was the personal physician assigned to both the Vale and Ashcroft families before either of us joined Silverfang.”
My pulse quickened.
“What happened to her?”
Marcus swallowed.
“She disappeared.”
“When?”
“The week you were born.”
Silence filled the office.
The date.
The laboratory.
Project Genesis.
Elias Mercer.
None of it felt disconnected anymore.
Ronan carefully took the photograph back.
His thumb brushed across the edge.
“There's something underneath.”
“What?”
“This isn't ordinary photo paper.”
He held it beneath the desk lamp.
A second layer reflected faintly beneath the glossy surface.
Almost invisible.
He slid a letter opener beneath one corner.
The photograph separated into two thin sheets.
Hidden between them...
Was a strip of undeveloped microfilm.
Marcus stared.
“My God...”
“What is it?” I asked.
Ronan held it up to the light.
“It contains dozens of frames.”
“Can you read them?”
“Not without developing it.”
My mind raced.
Someone had hidden evidence inside a photograph for twenty-four years.
Not in a safe.
Not in a vault.
Inside a family picture no one would think to examine.
Whoever had left it outside my office wanted us to find it.
But why now?
A sharp buzz interrupted my thoughts.
The emergency alarm.
Red lights began flashing across the executive floor.
Marcus looked toward the hallway.
“That isn't the fire system.”
“No,” Ronan said quietly.
“It isn't.”
A computerized voice echoed through the building.
Attention. Security lockdown initiated.
Unauthorized access detected in Executive Archive Level.
Executive Archive.
My office wasn't there.
Neither was the boardroom.
Only one thing was kept on that floor.
Silverfang's original corporate records.
Including every document from twenty-four years ago.
Ronan looked at me.
“They're after the past.”
I looked down at the strip of microfilm in his hand.
“No.”
The realization hit me all at once.
“They're trying to erase it.”
Without another word, we ran for the door.
Behind us, unnoticed on my desk, my phone screen lit up.
A new anonymous message appeared.
Too late.
The fire has already started.
Latest chapter
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five: The Last Page
The lighthouse stood exactly where it always had.Wind polished its white stone.Salt stained its windows.The sea continued its endless conversation with the cliffs below.It had watched generations arrive.It had watched generations leave.It had never asked to be remembered.Only to keep shining.Years passed.Then more.The names changed.The work did not.The children who once raced through Beacon Twelve became teachers.The teachers became grandparents.The grandparents slowly became stories.New hands repaired fishing nets.New voices filled the schoolhouse.New volunteers polished the lighthouse lens every spring.No one remembered who had first started the tradition.They only knew it mattered.One bright summer morning, a ferry arrived carrying a class of children.They could not have been older than ten.Their teacher led them through the village.Past the bakery.Past Victor's old workshop, where young carpenters now taught children how to carve toy boats.Past the oak tre
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four: The Light We Leave Behind
The morning began with a funeral.Not for one of the main characters.For Old Ben Carter.The village blacksmith.He had lived on Beacon Twelve for nearly fifty years.Most people outside the island had never heard his name.Everyone on the island had.He had repaired anchors.Straightened bent hinges.Mended children's bicycles without charging a coin.Forged the iron brackets that still held the school bell.He had never led Orion.Never spoken at an international conference.Never appeared in a newspaper.Yet nearly the entire village gathered beneath the great oak tree.Children carried wildflowers.Fishermen removed their caps.Teachers stood beside carpenters.No one checked the time.Some people deserved an unhurried goodbye.The service was simple.Just as Ben had requested.Stories replaced speeches.A fisherman remembered the time Ben had repaired a boat through the night so a family wouldn't lose their season's catch.A teacher laughed while describing how he secretly sharp
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three: When No One Is Watching
Winter returned quietly.Beacon Twelve wore frost like an old coat.The harbor was still.The sea breathed slowly against the cliffs.Nothing remarkable happened that morning.That was precisely why it mattered.Adrian woke before sunrise.Not because he had to.Because the habit had never left him.He stepped outside carrying two mugs of tea.Ronan joined him a moment later, wrapping a scarf around his neck."You still wake too early.""I blame the lighthouse.""You've blamed the lighthouse for twenty years.""It hasn't argued yet."Ronan smiled."Perhaps it's too polite."They stood together on the porch, watching the first light touch the ocean.For several minutes...There was only silence.Comfortable silence.The kind people earn after a lifetime together.Across the village, the bakery lights flickered on.Mrs. Henderson's granddaughter, Lily, unlocked the front door.She was no longer "Mrs. Henderson's granddaughter."She had become the village baker in her own right.The reci
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two: The Bench Beneath the Oak
It was market day on Beacon Twelve.The village square buzzed with quiet life.Fresh bread cooled on wooden racks outside the bakery.Children darted between market stalls carrying apples much too large for their hands.Visitors browsed handmade carvings, knitted blankets, and jars of blackberry jam.Nobody hurried.Nobody needed to.Time moved differently here.It always had.The largest oak tree in the square had become impossible to ignore.Its broad branches stretched across nearly half the green.In summer it offered shade.In autumn, a blanket of golden leaves.In spring, birds nested among its highest branches.A small wooden bench rested beneath it.Simple.Unpainted.Worn smooth by countless conversations.A bronze plaque had been attached years ago.It read:Sit long enough to hear someone else's story.Nothing more.No names.No dedication.Just an invitation.Adrian sat there most mornings.Not because he was expected to.Because he enjoyed it.Some days no one spoke to hi
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One: Twenty Years Later
Twenty years later...No one on Beacon Twelve remembered a world without visitors.Children grew up believing it was perfectly ordinary to hear five languages while walking to school.They thought nothing of seeing historians eating breakfast beside fishermen.Or architects learning carpentry from retired boat builders.To them...This had always been home.The oak trees were enormous now.Their branches stretched across the village square, casting cool shade over long wooden tables every summer.No one remembered exactly who had planted each tree.Only that someone had.Children climbed them every afternoon.Parents pretended not to worry.Grandparents secretly smiled.The lighthouse still stood.Older.Weathered.Patient.Its great lens had been replaced twice.Its walls repaired countless times.The original brass lens key still rested inside the small maintenance box beside the door.Exactly where Adrian had left it.Nobody locked the box.Nobody needed to.Whoever maintained the
My Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega Chapter One Hundred Thirty: The Last Keeper
The letter arrived without ceremony.It was handwritten.Folded twice.Addressed simply:To Adrian.He recognized the handwriting immediately.Eleanor.She had been living on Beacon Twelve for so long that she rarely wrote notes.If she wished to speak to someone, she simply walked across the village.Adrian unfolded the paper slowly.Meet me at the lighthouse tonight.Come alone.There is one last story I owe you.The sun had already disappeared when Adrian climbed the familiar spiral staircase.Every step creaked exactly as it always had.The stone walls held the scent of salt and old wood.Nothing had changed.Everything had.Eleanor waited beside the great lantern.She stood with one hand resting gently on the brass railing.The evening light softened the lines on her face.She smiled as Adrian entered."You came.""You asked.""I wasn't sure you still listened to old women."He laughed."I learned that lesson years ago.""Good."She looked out over the sea."So did I."For severa
You may also like
The Breaking Point of Love
Cloudsearcher4.3M viewsForceful Marriage: Young Master's Mute Wife
A Lake’s Depth1.2M viewsOne Night Stand
Favor V April1.0M viewsTo Be Yours Again
Taylor1.0M viewsBRIDE FOR LEASE
LILY49 viewsSold to the Broken Throne
Rae58 viewsTrapped Between My Adoptive Brothers
kkyrieehale 167 viewsMy dad's bestfriend
Anatory127 views
