LOGINShare
Chapter Sixty-Five: Welcome Home
publish date:
2026-08-06 00:51:53The words remained on Marcus's screen.
WELCOME HOME, ADRIAN VALE.
No one spoke.
No one needed to.
The system had accepted my authorization.
Yet I was still standing inside the hidden nursery above the library.
Marcus looked from the screen to me.
"If you're here..."
He swallowed.
"...who just opened Office Seven?"
"I don't know."
The answer tasted wrong.
For too many chapters, I don't know had been my only honest response.
I was done with it.
I looked at the silver ring on my finger.
Three stars.
Warm against my skin.
The ring had activated something.
Not remotely.
Personally.
Which meant whoever entered Office Seven hadn't bypassed security.
They'd triggered the room because I had become Keeper.
"They weren't opening it," I said.
"They were waiting for me to."
Ronan understood immediately.
"The office was locked until the succession was complete."
I nodded.
"My father couldn't leave anything there until the Keeper changed."
Inspector Mara Voss frowned.
"So whoever's inside..."
"...couldn't have entered before today," I finished.
That changed everything.
The silhouette wasn't someone who had been hiding inside for years.
They had arrived minutes ago.
Just like us.
Daniel checked the tunnel beneath the rolled-back rug.
"Then we're racing them."
"No."
I looked toward the hidden staircase.
"We're racing what they're looking for."
We descended beneath the library.
The tunnel was nothing like the old stone passages below Silverfang Tower.
Concrete walls.
Steel support beams.
Modern ventilation.
Someone had renovated this route within the last decade.
Emergency lights glowed softly along the ceiling.
Marcus ran one hand across the wall.
"This wasn't built a hundred years ago."
"No," Ivy replied.
"It was rebuilt."
She stopped walking for a moment.
"Sebastian paid for every repair himself."
"He never mentioned it."
"He wasn't supposed to."
Her answer no longer surprised me.
My father had spent his life protecting things no one knew existed.
Ronan walked beside me in silence.
After several minutes, he finally spoke.
"What did the letter say?"
I looked at him.
"The part you didn't read aloud."
I knew which part he meant.
The apology.
The truth.
The confession that had changed everything.
"He said..."
My voice caught for just a moment.
"...he should never have forced me to live as someone I wasn't."
Ronan didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he smiled.
"I spent years trying to beat Adrian Vale."
I looked sideways at him.
"You usually lost."
"I know."
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"I've decided I prefer the real one."
Heat rose unexpectedly to my face.
Not the dangerous heat I'd spent twenty-four years suppressing.
Something quieter.
Something warmer.
Marcus glanced back at us.
"Is this really the time?"
"No," Ronan admitted.
"It isn't."
"But?"
"But life keeps trying to kill us."
He looked at me again.
"I'm tired of pretending tomorrow is guaranteed."
For a heartbeat, the tunnel disappeared.
There were no conspiracies.
No Genesis.
No Lucien.
Only two men who had spent years standing on opposite sides of the same battlefield.
Then the moment passed.
A metallic door blocked the tunnel ahead.
Unlike every other hidden entrance we'd found, this one looked unmistakably modern.
A biometric scanner glowed beside the frame.
No keypad.
No card reader.
Only a shallow circular indentation.
Exactly the size of the silver ring.
Marcus whistled softly.
"Convenient."
I stepped forward.
The ring slid naturally into the indentation.
A soft tone echoed.
Then another.
The scanner pulsed blue.
Keeper identity confirmed.
Heavy locks disengaged one after another inside the wall.
The steel door slowly opened.
Cool air rushed toward us.
Beyond it lay an underground parking level.
Not the public garage beneath Silverfang Tower.
A private level.
Only six parking spaces.
Five stood empty.
The sixth held a black sedan covered by a gray protective sheet.
Ivy smiled faintly.
"He kept it."
I pulled away the cover.
Beneath it rested an immaculate vintage Aston Martin, polished until the silver paint reflected every overhead light.
Marcus stared.
"Your father owned this?"
"No."
I recognized the license plate.
My breath caught.
"It belonged to Victor Ashcroft."
Everyone turned toward Ronan.
He walked toward the car slowly, his expression unreadable.
"My father sold it."
"No," Ivy said gently.
"He hid it."
She opened the driver's door.
Inside, resting on the leather seat, lay a folded envelope.
Across the front, in two different handwritings, were four words.
For Our Sons.
Sebastian's handwriting.
And Victor's.
Ronan picked it up with trembling fingers.
Neither of us opened it.
Not yet.
Because another sound echoed through the garage.
An engine.
Close.
Too close.
Headlights swept across the concrete wall at the far entrance.
Someone else had found the private level.
The black SUV rolled slowly into view and stopped thirty feet away.
Its engine idled.
The driver's door opened.
A man stepped out wearing an immaculate charcoal suit.
Not Lucien Cross.
Not the tactical leader.
He removed his leather gloves with deliberate calm.
Then looked directly at me.
"I was hoping," he said with a polite smile, "that you'd arrive before I had to break into the car."
He glanced briefly at the envelope in Ronan's hands.
"Now."
His smile widened just enough to feel dangerous.
"Shall we finally introduce ourselves?"
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 CEO's Ex-Wife Is A Famous Doctor
LiLhyz4.1M viewsHer Accidental Billionaire Husband
Lexusstar writes690.7K viewsMy Bestfriend's Brother Shouldn't Know How I Taste
Demiah13620.0K viewsHired a Gigolo, Got a Billionaire
Kayla Sango934.2K viewsShadow of the Luna's revenge
Livinus Chima44 viewsDirty Daddy
S. Ley 66 viewsFALLING INLOVE WITH THE EVIL ALPHA
Ani_b152 viewsThe Wrong Brother, The Right Mistake
Dianna Jam29 views
