Chapter 8: The phantom

"Tell me your Secret, Sera," Dave sat across from her in a changed cloth. A loose white shirt that hid his ripped body beneath. "Everyone has one or more."

Sera, sitting across from him, stared at him for five seconds, trying to read him, but the more she tried, the more the man she thought she knew was unreadable.

"You start first," She said with an edge. "You're different from what the world sees about you. The F-class scrap, the man who couldn't even hold a weapon. You're keeping a lot of Secrets and Secrets makes men dangerous."

Dave smirked faintly. "Not Dangerous. impenetrable."

Sera held his gaze.

Then Dave continued, and the smirk at the corner of his lips disappeared.

"Four months ago, my secret safe was broken, and my theory was Stolen by a Ghost from my Laboratory."

"What kind of theory?" Sera raised a brow, curious.

"One that contains a high-risk research. Gene mutation. The kind of research that could change the combination of the human genes, giving them ten times their strength. But that wasn't the primary reason for the research. That was the side effect."

"Like forging a killing machine with chemicals?"

"Except it wasn't meant to kill." Dave clipped. "It was meant to bring life to the hopeless. Project Genesis. Designed to give Accidental victims a new beginning after losing their body functions: Spinal cord injury, nerve damage, Traumatic Brain injury and other crises that kill accident victims hope. A project that cost $20 million."

Sera gasped, her eyes wide in surprise. "$20 million? That much?"

Dave nodded curtly. "Not too much." He said simply, smiling faintly.

"Who are you exactly?" Her eyes narrowed to him, staring intently.

"A Man you might regret knowing, Sera." He stood up and walked to the house Bar, pulled out a bottle of Pinot Grigio, popped open the cork and poured half into two glass cups. The sloshing sound echoed through the room.

He set one glass before Sera and he sat back, holding his own glass. Sera didn't touch the wine.

"Why?" She leaned forward slightly, curious.

Dave sipped the wine gently and set down the glass with a clink.

"Because men like me have Enemies. Some I know, most I don't know. And once you know my secret, you'll be in my circle, sharing Adversaries with me. Hence, it'll be my duty to protect you."

"This is a link..to form an alliance with him as the system said— the only man that together, they would survive the impending doom." But sera didn't speak it yet.

Then she said,

"Everyone has an Enemy. The only difference is— we might not share the same enemy."

Dave smiled faintly. "You're being logical."

"I'm stating fact."

Dave stared at her for a short while, reading her the way you read something you're seeing for the first time to see hidden details. Intently.

"Dave Voss. Founder of Nexus hospital and six other businesses across the country. That is me." He said casually like the name meant nothing.

Sera froze in place, the name: 'Nexus', rang in her head like a bell. She had heard the name too many times to forget it. Magazines, Media outlets, interviews, the entire world had heard about the name except no one knew the man exactly.

The billionaire who hid behind the scene, the famous CEO of the famous hospital, Nexus, the man whose donations shook cities, the man who was a phantom, was sitting across from her.