Chapter 2: FRGR: The Hidden Legacy

Chapter 2: FRGR: The Hidden Legacy

Kourtney looked at me with tired eyes. “Because he thought he could fix it. We all did. We thought we could clean up a legacy soaked in shadows.”

She picked up the tape recorder.

“This,” she said, “is the last conversation my father had with Langdon. Before he disappeared.”

Travis raised a brow. “Disappeared?”

“Officially, he died of a heart attack. But I was there that night. He didn’t die. He was taken.”

My heart slammed in my chest.

Kourtney pressed play.

The tape crackled, then came the voice. Smooth. Controlled.

Langdon.

“You had your chance, Saaavedra. You should’ve sold while you had leverage. Now, you’ll be a liability. And liabilities get removed.”

A pause. Then my grandfather’s voice—frantic, angry.

“You don’t get to threaten me in my own home.”

Langdon again: “This isn’t a threat. This is a courtesy.”

The tape ended in static.

Kourtney turned it off.

“The next day, he was gone. The house staff were paid off. The death certificate was forged. And my mother—she kept up the illusion. For us. For the company.”

Travis looked stunned. “That’s why you left New York. Why you walked away from everything.”

Kourtney nodded. “I didn’t walk away. I was exiled. I started asking questions, and they made sure I was too unstable to be taken seriously.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“So what now?” I whispered. “Langdon’s still alive. Kim is helping him. They’re targeting us, the company... for what? Revenge?”

“No,” Kourtney said slowly. “They’re not just after destruction. They’re after something very specific.”

She reached back into the drawer and pulled out an envelope.

It was addressed in handwriting I recognized from old letters.

To Kourtney Saaavedra.

From Eduardo Saaavedra.

“My father sent this the day before he vanished. I never opened it.”

Her hands trembled slightly as she tore the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper.

Travis leaned over to read with her.

After a moment, he went pale.

“What is it?” I asked.

Kourtney looked up, her voice shaking. “Coordinates. And a phrase.”

She passed it to me.

I read aloud:

“The seed was never buried—it was planted. Watch the roots.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, feeling cold.

Kourtney whispered, “It means FRGR wasn’t the end goal. It was the cover.”

We stayed the night at the estate, in separate rooms. None of us could sleep.

I found myself wandering the halls, stopping in front of an old portrait of Eduardo Saaavedra. I stared into the painted eyes, hoping they’d blink. Speak. Explain.

In the distance, I heard Kourtney arguing with someone on the phone.

She was furious. Scared. Desperate.

“We can’t keep lying to her—she has a right to know!”

Then silence.

Then: “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

I didn’t know who she was talking to. But I knew the “her” was me.

The next morning, we gathered again in the drawing room. Travis was already working on tracing the coordinates. Kourtney looked exhausted.

“I need to show you something else,” she said.

She led us through a hidden passage behind the library. It spiraled downward into a sub-basement I didn’t know existed.

There were files. Computers. An entire server rack, humming quietly.

“This is my father’s backup archive,” Kourtney said. “Encrypted. Buried under the estate. The board doesn’t even know it exists.”

Travis began sifting through the files, eyes widening.

“These names… these are payoffs. Judges. Government officials. Even shareholders of FRGR.”

“They built an empire by controlling the people who could stop them,” Kourtney said. “But someone took it too far. Langdon. Kim. Maybe more.”

Then Travis paused.

“There’s a file here... with your name,” he said, looking at me.

I froze. “Mine?”

He clicked it open. The screen loaded slowly.

Inside was a photo of me. Birth records. School files. But something else too.

A DNA report.

Kourtney stiffened.

“What is this?” I asked.

Travis read aloud: “Subject 217. Genetically modified embryo. Sourced from the Saaavedra family genome pool. Experimental funding under FRGR biotech division.”

I stared at the screen. “What… are you saying?”

Kourtney moved toward me, her eyes brimming with something between fear and guilt.

“You’re not just my daughter,” she whispered. “You’re the key to everything they built.”

The penthouse was silent—too silent for a place so high above the city’s pulse.

Kim stood at the glass window, her arms wrapped around herself despite the warmth inside. Rain trickled down the pane in rivulets, like tears she didn’t have the strength—or permission—to shed.

Behind her, the door clicked open.

Langdon entered, his presence like gravity—pulling everything around him inward, making it hard to breathe.

“You didn’t call,” Kim said, voice flat.

“I never said I would,” he replied, cool and composed as ever. “You’ve been busy.”

She turned to face him, her eyes sharp, lips painted the color of blood. “We tampered with federal records. Manipulated security grids. Buried bodies in the system. And now the Saaavedras are onto us.”

Langdon’s lips twitched into a smile. “And yet… here you are. Still standing.”

She hated how much she needed his approval. Hated how it made her stomach twist when he looked at her like that—with hunger, with danger, with something unholy dressed up as devotion.

“You never told me she was part of the original genome project,” Kim said. “You knew Kourtney’s daughter was one of them.”

“She was insurance,” he replied. “Eduardo’s obsession. He thought the perfect heir could save the company.”

“And now?”

“Now,” Langdon stepped closer, “she’s a liability. Or an asset, depending on who gets to her first.”

Kim’s breath caught as his hand brushed her arm.

“You sent me to destroy them,” she whispered, “but you didn’t warn me it would feel like destroying myself.”

Langdon tilted her chin up with one finger. “Feelings are the tax you pay for playing human, Kimberly. You wanted power. Now you have it.”

She stared into his eyes—ice and ambition and something darker still.

“I didn’t think it would be this lonely,” she murmured.

Langdon leaned in, brushing his lips just above hers.

“It won’t be,” he said. “Not if you stay.”

She pulled away before he could close the space.

“I’ve already stayed too long.”

But she didn’t move. Not yet.

Langdon walked to the table and placed down a folder. Inside were surveillance photos—Travis at the Saaavedra estate. Kourtney. And the girl.

“They’ve uncovered the backup archives,” he said.

Kim stiffened.

Langdon opened a drawer and retrieved a flash drive. He held it out to her.

“This,” he said, “will overwrite the root memory of their servers. But it has to be done on-site. You’ll only have one chance.”

She stared at the drive in his hand. It felt heavier than any weapon.

“And if I fail?”

“You won’t.”

“And if I do?” she asked again.

Langdon’s expression didn’t change.

“Then you’ll be erased along with them.”

The air grew thick.

Kim reached out and took the drive, her fingers brushing his. A current sparked between them—old desire, old pain, old promises that still burned in secret places.

“I used to think you’d never hurt me,” she said quietly.

Langdon stepped closer, his voice a whisper against her skin.

“I still haven’t. Not the way I could.”

She exhaled shakily, caught between fury and longing.

He kissed her—rough and precise, like he was claiming something he already owned.

And for a moment, she let him.

Then she pulled away, breathless. “If I do this, I want out after. All of it. No more shadows. No more orders.”

Langdon studied her, and for a fleeting second, something like softness flickered in his eyes.

“If you succeed, Kimberly,” he said, “we could rule what’s left. Together.”

“But if I fail,” she repeated, “you’ll let them take me.”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

She walked out of the penthouse without looking back, the drive clenched in her hand like a shard of glass.

Back at the Saaavedra Estate

Kourtney jolted awake in the middle of the night. She couldn’t explain why—just that something was wrong. Deeply, urgently wrong.

She stepped into the hallway, heart racing, only to find Travis already awake, standing by the window.

“She’s coming,” he said.

Kourtney frowned. “Who?”

“Kim.”

Kourtney swallowed. “You’re sure?”

Travis turned to face her, his jaw tight. “I saw it in the footage. Her last look at the camera—she wasn’t running. She was walking toward something. Something she believes in.”

“She used to believe in us,” Kourtney whispered.

“And now?”

“Now she believes in something darker.”

Kourtney placed a hand on the cool glass, staring into the darkness beyond the estate.

“She knows where the servers are,” she said. “If she gets in—”

“She won’t,” Travis said firmly. “Not while I’m breathing.”

Kourtney turned to him. “We could lose everything.”

Travis stepped closer, brushing her hair back, his voice low and steady.

“Then we lose it together.”

To be continued...