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Ghosts & Kings

Author: Oathpen
last update Last Updated: 2025-04-26 20:58:53

DAMIAN Point of View

Manhattan's skyline burnt gold as the sun sank, but my world had never felt darker. The past was pushing its way into the present, destroying everything I'd built with Ava. Lucas had returned. Rachel had a child—my child, apparently. And Liam? I was barely hanging on to who I used to be, let alone who I was supposed to become.

But Lucas made one error. He expected me to play by his rules.

Not anymore.

"Your meeting is confirmed," Marcus stated as he entered the study. "Lucas wishes to meet at The Black Moth. Discreet. Private room. "No media."

The black moth. An exclusive gentlemen's club where CEOs shared secrets over $100,000 scotch. Fitting for a serpent like Lucas.

"Tell security I want eyes on every entrance," I informed them. "No surprise. "Not this time."

Marcus nodded and departed without saying anything else.

Across the room, Ava leaned against the bookshelf, arms crossed, phone flashing in her fingers. She had not said much sin
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  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   The Proxy Mother

    AVA I could not help but stare at the report. not the embryo. Not the cryosignature. But what about the words? Ava Reynolds is the mother (proxy copy). She was not only attempting to imitate me anymore. She was trying to give birth through me. Or, through my stolen body, my likeness. Genesis left behind a clone.They did not recognize me by name. I was a blueprint. And they had found someone to complete the scheme. Camille began with blood and lies. DAMIAN I had seen terror before. But never this personal. Julian located the lab to a remote hillside in Moldova. Privately owned. Unlisted. However, the funding comes from old CrossTech companies. "Knox is preparing for transfer," he informed us. "He plans to implant the embryo within 48 hours. "He is utilizing your clone, Ava." Ava clinched her jaw but did not flinch. "This time," she continued softly, "we burn the entire program down." AVA Later, Liam caught me crying in the hallway. It is not loud. I di

  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   Run Like We Burn

    AVA "Go!" Damian said nothing else as the countdown shouted through the bunker like an enraged god. 00:01:27 00:01:26 My legs did not require convincing. I ran. The chilly steel creaked around us. Every hallway felt longer than the last, and each turn presented a choice between life and fire. Dominic's voice cut through the communication. "Extraction point established at the north cliff edge. "Thirty seconds distant.""I will make it," I said, panting. "You are not alone," Damian muttered behind me. DAMIAN I lingered behind long enough to get the flash drive. Cassian's final failsafe.Genesis' initial root data includes everything he was and could have been. I did not accept it as science. I stole it so no one could reconstruct him ever again. Not even us. Then I ran. AVA I climbed the last ladder and burst into snow and moonlight, my lungs burning. Julian's shadow motioned us ahead toward the helicopter, its blades already churning in terror. "Where i

  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   Welcome to the womb

    AVA The air in Finland did more than just freeze; it bit. Isolation feels cold. Cold memory. I walked out of the plane into a silent landscape of white. There are no guards. There are no drones. Only snow-covered concrete and a hatch carved into the side of a glacier. The Womb. Genesis' final stronghold. Mine, too. When I neared, the metal door hissed open. There is no code. There is no key. He had expected me. I went inside. Alone. Every step echoed against the steel walls, like a heartbeat I did not want to hear.DAMIAN I was not keeping an eye on the jet. I was following along. Julian redirected a tracker into Ava's wristwatch, making it micro-embedded and invisible. We saw the coordinates light up as she landed. "Two kilometers from the old DNA forge," Julian mumbled. "Underground, insulated, and self-sustaining." Genesis had made his own planet. This is a new one. With Ava at the center. But he would underestimated something. She was not stepping int

  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   The perfect version

    AVA I have experienced betrayal. Kidnapping. Gas chambers. Death threats. Nothing chilled me more than seeing my own face blink on a screen, flawless, soulless, and spreading. "She is not real," I kept repeating. But the world did not care about reality. It cared about persuading. Julian stated that the avatar had already emerged on two ancient security camera networks in Berlin and Moscow, depicting shadow images of me roaming streets I had never visited. Genesis was not only replacing me physically. He was reinventing my past.DAMIAN "She is leaving a footprint," I told Julian. "No," he corrected, typing quickly. "He is creating evidence." Genesis was creating a trail. A digital life for a clone that did not yet exist, but would soon. And when he let her go... Ava would be rewritten. Not killed. Not erased. Replaced. "You must destroy the pod," Julian stated. "Before it awakes.""How long?" He paused. Thirty-six hours. Tops." AVA I stood on the balcony

  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   Blackout Protocol

    AVA Complete silence. No alerts. There are no lights. There was no breathing—only the four of us, gasping in the pitch black, surrounded by the sound of our own horror. Genesis has disappeared into the darkness. The vault power grid had crumbled when Dominic became stuck in the drive. Cassian's flash upgrade had caused a system-wide blackout. That just provided us one thing. Time. "Has he died?" Liam muttered, grabbing my sleeve. I shook my head slowly. "No. But he is down. "And we run." DAMIAN The last thing I saw before the lights went out was Genesis's face cracking. Not bleeding. Not broken.Glitching. As if the rewriting had not erased him. It baffled him. Dominic exploited Cassian's override to replace Genesis' command logic with looped neural feedback. In other words, we did not kill him. We simply locked him in his own thoughts. This meant we only had minutes. Perhaps seconds. We sprinted. Julian's voice vibrated softly in my earpiece. "The doors

  • One Night, One Baby, One Billionaire Mess   Stepping into the Fire.

    AVA "No!" I shouted. Dominic's foot hovered inches over the biometric pad, with a luminous ring flashing red beneath it. The timer on the tablet blinked furiously. 00:01:17 Override unfinished. Omega sequence resumes. Julian's voice yelled in my ear: "Stop him! Cassian is thirty seconds away!" However, thirty seconds could have felt like an eternity. Dominic looked to me, calm and resigned, his eyes fixed on something way too old for a thirteen-year-old boy. "I was born for this," he murmured softly. "No," I begged, moving closer. "You were born in spite of it. You get to decide what you want to become." Liam stepped beside me. "I do not want to lose another brother." Dominic's expression cracked slightly. And then...He put his foot on the glass. DAMIAN The entire room began to light up. Blue light exploded from the floor, cascading up the walls in an arc and illuminating the ceiling with symbols and patterns. For a while, I believed we were too late. I s

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