CHAPTER 35

Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly as Lucian pointed toward Aaron’s phone.

“Dad wiped them out,” Lucian said sharply. “Every single one of them.”

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck, uneasy. “That’s what we all believed.”

Lucian scoffed immediately. “Not believed. It happened.”

Aaron hesitated for a moment, clearly choosing his words carefully. “Maybe… not completely.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

Kael finally moved, taking one slow step forward. His eyes stayed locked on Aaron, dark and searching.

“What are you saying?” he asked quietly.

Aaron exhaled slowly. “I’m saying someone survived.”

Lucian stared at him like he had just lost his mind. “That’s insane.”

“Maybe,” Aaron admitted. “But the data doesn’t lie.”

Kael’s jaw tightened slightly.

Aaron continued, lifting the phone a little. “The same encryption. The same communication pattern. The same symbol.”

Lucian froze. “What symbol?”

Aaron slowly turned his phone around so both of them could see the screen. The image was dark, grainy, clearly taken somewhere with poor lighting. But the mark on the wall was impossible to miss.

Three vertical slashes.

Lucian’s face drained of color.

“No,” he whispered.

Kael didn’t blink.

He knew that mark.

He would recognize it anywhere.

It had been burned into his memory long before it appeared on that wall. It was the same mark that had been tattooed into the chest of the strongest boys in that place.

Including him.

For a moment the room disappeared.

Twelve years crashed back into his mind.

Cold metal tables. Locked doors that slammed shut and never opened when you begged. Chains scraping across concrete floors. The smell of blood that never seemed to leave the air.

Kael’s fingers curled slowly at his side.

Lucian took a step back, shaking his head. “That… that’s impossible.”

Aaron looked at Kael carefully before speaking again. “If Vera has been with them, it means some of them escaped with some of the kids and continued the operation.”

Kael’s breathing grew heavier.

Aaron continued carefully. “And it also means—”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

Kael’s voice cut through the room instantly.

Aaron stopped.

Lucian glanced between the two of them.

Aaron swallowed and looked at Lucian instead, finishing the sentence quietly. “That means you might have crossed paths with her back then.”

The words hung in the air.

“I’m sorry, Kael,” Aaron added. “When you were rescued and we thought your father ended the organization… Vera and some other kids were not among those rescued.”

“No.”

Kael stepped back.

“No… no… no.”

He shook his head slowly, like he could physically shake the thought away.

“That’s not possible.”

Lucian watched him carefully.

Kael rarely looked like this. The man who controlled every room he walked into now looked like someone had pulled the ground out from under him.

“Kael,” Lucian said quietly.

“No.”

Kael shook his head again.

“No. That’s not possible.”

Lucian stepped closer. “There’s only one way to be sure.”

Kael looked up sharply.

“No.”

His voice was harsher now.

“No.”

Lucian didn’t back down. “You have to check.”

“I said no.”

“Kael—”

“I said it’s not possible!”

His voice echoed through the room.

For a moment no one spoke.

Lucian let out a slow breath before continuing. “You have to check, Kael. I’m sorry this is happening, but you have to check if she has the same mark.”

Kael’s eyes darkened immediately.

“The mark…” he muttered.

He ran a hand across his face slowly.

“That mark is not just any mark, Lucian.”

Lucian stayed silent, letting him talk.

Kael’s voice dropped lower, rougher now. “It’s given to the toughest of us.”

Aaron shifted slightly but said nothing.

Kael continued, staring at the floor like he wasn’t even in the room anymore.

“They made us torture each other.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

“They made us kill our friends,” Kael went on quietly. “Just to prove we deserved to survive another day.”

Aaron lowered the phone slowly.

Kael’s voice became distant, like he was speaking from somewhere far away.

“They locked us in dark holes for days. No light. No food. Sometimes no water. You couldn’t see anything. You couldn’t hear anything. Just your own breathing and the sound of rats moving around.”

Lucian looked away for a moment.

Kael shook his head slowly.

“No… she couldn’t have survived that.”

His voice cracked slightly but he forced the words out.

“She couldn’t.”

He stepped back again, dragging a hand through his hair.

“I can’t… I can’t check.”

Silence stretched across the room.

Aaron finally spoke again.

“He called her his daughter.”

The words landed like a bomb.

Everything went still.

Kael slowly lifted his head.

Lucian’s eyes widened.

Aaron looked directly at Kael now. “When the man who kidnapped her spoke… he called her his daughter.”

No one moved.

Kael’s hands slowly curled into fists.

Lucian looked at Aaron. “What did you just say?”

Aaron didn’t look away from Kael. “He called her his daughter.”

Kael moved suddenly.

His fist slammed into the wall beside him with a loud crack.

Concrete shattered.

A hole formed instantly where his fist struck.

Blood slid down his knuckles immediately.

But Kael didn’t even react.

His chest rose and fell heavily, his breathing rough.

Lucian watched him quietly.

For a moment he didn’t see the cold, controlled man standing there.

He saw the fifteen-year-old boy who had come home after three years in hell.

The boy who barely spoke for months.

The boy who woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

Lucian swallowed slightly.

Kael’s hand was still pressed against the broken wall. Blood continued dripping down his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Aaron cleared his throat carefully.

“Kael.”

No response.

Aaron tried again. “Kael, you need to check.”

Still nothing.

Lucian stepped closer.

“We need to know.”

Kael slowly turned his head toward them. His eyes were dark again, but something inside them had changed.

“You think she went through that?” he asked quietly.

Lucian didn’t answer immediately.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Aaron spoke next. “But if she has the mark… then we’ll know.”

Kael looked away again.

Upstairs.

Where Vera was resting in her room.

The girl who had been trembling earlier.

The girl who had struggled to breathe when he grabbed her outside.

Kael’s jaw tightened.

“No,” he muttered.

Lucian crossed his arms. “You’re avoiding it.”

“I’m protecting her.”

“From what?”

“From the truth.”

Lucian shook his head. “You don’t even know the truth yet.”

Kael’s voice dropped. “Exactly.”

Aaron stepped forward slightly.

“If the man who kidnapped her called her his daughter, then something is very wrong here.”

Kael didn’t respond.

Aaron continued carefully. “That place didn’t just kidnap children. They trained them.”

Lucian muttered under his breath, “Turned them into monsters.”

Aaron shook his head slowly. “Or survivors.”

Kael’s fingers tightened again.

Aaron pointed to the phone in his hand. “The mark wasn’t given to every child.”

Kael’s eyes flickered.

Aaron continued. “Only the ones who survived the final trials.”

Lucian looked at his brother again.

“Kael.”

No answer.

Lucian tried again, his voice calmer this time. “You already know what that means.”

Kael spoke quietly. “It means she had to do things no one should ever have to do.”

Aaron nodded slowly.

“And if she has that mark… then she didn’t just survive.”

Lucian finished the sentence.

“She was one of them.”

Silence filled the room again.

Kael finally moved, walking slowly toward the table. He grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around his bleeding hand without even looking at it.

Lucian watched him carefully.

“You’re going upstairs,” Lucian said.

It wasn’t a question.

Kael didn’t answer.

Aaron spoke quietly. “We need to know.”

Kael stood still for a long moment.

Then he looked toward the staircase.

Vera was upstairs.

Unaware of the storm happening below.

Lucian’s voice softened slightly. “You need to check her, Kael.”

Kael didn’t reply immediately.

Aaron broke the silence again.

“We need to know.”