Chapter Eleven

Michael’s POV

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” Chloe flinched. I saw the fear flash across her face, but I didn’t care. Not anymore. “Michael, what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Are you deaf? I said, ' Get out!” She stared at me for a moment, looking confused and hurt. “I was only trying to help you.” “I didn’t ask for your help!” Her lips parted, but no words came out. Then she slowly climbed off my bed. “Fine,” she whispered.

She walked toward the door, stopping briefly as though she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. The door clicked shut behind her. I stood there, breathing heavily, my phone trembling in my hand.

Seventeen years. Seventeen fucking years. I had spent seventeen years searching for answers. And now the truth was staring right at me. I slowly lowered myself onto the bed and replayed the video.

The footage was grainy, but the date displayed at the bottom was unmistakable.

October 17.

The night my parents died. Rain poured heavily onto the highway, making it difficult to see clearly. Then I saw it. My father’s black Mercedes moving carefully along the road. I recognized the car immediately. I had watched my father drive it countless times.

My throat tightened. “Dad…” The car approached a bend. Everything appeared normal. Until headlights suddenly appeared from the opposite direction. A large trailer. It was moving too fast. Far too fast.

“What the hell?” I whispered. The trailer swerved across the road. My father’s car tried to avoid it. But there was no time.

CRASH!

The impact sent the Mercedes spinning violently before it slammed into the roadside barrier. I stopped breathing. “No…” The trailer came to a halt several meters away. For a few seconds, nothing moved.

Then the driver’s door opened.

A man climbed down. He stood beside the trailer, staring at the wreckage. I leaned forward. “Who are you?” The man slowly walked toward my father’s car. He looked through the shattered window.

My hands curled into fists. “Help them,” I whispered. But he didn’t. Instead, he stepped backward. He looked around the deserted highway. Then he hurried back toward the trailer.

“No!” I shouted. “Go back! Help them!” But the man climbed into the driver’s seat. Seconds later, the trailer disappeared into the darkness. Leaving my parents to die. I sat frozen.

My entire body felt numb. That bastard. He had left them there. Without calling an ambulance. Without checking whether they were alive. Without doing anything.

My phone suddenly rang. Adrian. I answered immediately. “Did you see it?” he asked. “Who was driving that trailer?” My voice sounded strange, even to me.

“Michael—” “WHO WAS DRIVING IT?” Adrian exhaled.

“We enhanced the footage. The technician managed to recover a clearer image of the driver’s face.”

“Send it.” “I already did. Check the second file.” I ended the call and opened the attachment. A photograph appeared. The man’s face had been enlarged and sharpened.

I stared at it.

Once. Twice. Then my blood turned cold. “No…” I zoomed in. The familiar eyes. The shape of his face. The unmistakable features. Sebastian Blake. Chloe’s father. My phone slipped from my hand.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move. Then I picked it up and called Adrian again. “Tell me this isn’t real.” “I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” “We compared the image with photographs of Sebastian from seventeen years ago. It’s him.” I closed my eyes. “That bastard.” “There’s more,” Adrian continued. “What?”

“We discovered that the original accident report had been altered. The trailer wasn’t mentioned, and several surveillance records disappeared shortly after the crash.”

My breathing quickened.

“Sebastian?”

“Everything we’ve uncovered points toward someone deliberately covering up his involvement. We’re still tracing who handled the records.” I laughed bitterly.

Of course. Of fucking course. Sebastian Blake. The man who had once called himself my father’s friend. The man who had smiled at my family. The same man whose daughter was now living under my roof.

“Michael, listen to me,” Adrian said carefully.

“What?” “Don’t do anything reckless. We need to secure the original footage and gather enough evidence.” But I barely heard him. My mind had already traveled seventeen years into the past.

I remembered my mother’s smile. The way she kissed my forehead before leaving the house. My father’s laughter. His promise to teach me how to drive the following weekend. Promises that were never fulfilled.

I remembered standing outside the hospital, begging the doctors to let me see them. I remembered Grandmother collapsing when she heard the news. And the funerals. God. Those fucking funerals.

Two coffins. Two graves. Two people I would never see again. For seventeen years, I had woken up screaming. For seventeen years, I had heard my mother’s voice begging for help in nightmares.

Sometimes I dreamed about the accident. Other times, I dreamed about searching for them in a burning car. But the ending was always the same. I couldn’t save them. And now I knew why.

Sebastian Blake had taken them away from me. He had watched them lying inside that wrecked car and walked away. He had gone home. He had continued living.

While I spent seventeen years trying to survive the pain he caused. My chest tightened. I grabbed the glass sitting on my bedside table and hurled it against the wall.

CRASH! It shattered into pieces. “SEBASTIAN!” My voice echoed through the room. I stood there, trembling with rage. That man had stolen everything from me.

My childhood. My happiness. My parents. And he had spent seventeen years hiding the truth. I looked toward the bedroom door.

Chloe. His daughter. The woman who had held me through my nightmare last night.

For one brief moment, I remembered her frightened expression when I shouted at her. Then I forced the memory away. She was Sebastian Blake’s daughter. And Sebastian Blake was the reason my parents were dead.

I picked up my phone and opened Chloe’s photograph. Her innocent smile stared back at me. I laughed coldly. “You have no idea what your father has done, do you?”

I slowly tightened my grip around the phone. Sebastian had taken away the people I loved most. Now I wanted him to understand what that felt like.

He had handed his daughter to me, believing our marriage would save his company. What a foolish man. He had delivered her straight into the hands of the devil. .

I stared at Chloe’s photograph. “I’m going to make your father regret the day he crossed my family.” My jaw tightened. “And I’ll start with you, Chloe.”

I switched off my phone. For seventeen years, I had been the boy who lost everything. But that boy was gone. Sebastian Blake had created a monster.

And now his daughter was married to that monster. I was going to break Chloe Blake beyond repair.