Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Father's Rival Is My Lover : Kabanata 201 - Kabanata 210

The silence in the study was not peaceful, it was the kind that came before war.Roman stood with clenched fists, his jaw tight as Petra projected the decrypted files from Lucien’s hidden server onto the wall. Alma sat cradling Ezra, who was asleep against her chest, blissfully unaware that his very existence had been part of a twisted legacy.Delilah stood off to the side, arms folded across her chest, eyes narrowed at the projection. It felt too familiar, clinical reports, blood charts, behavioral logs, all things that had once defined her existence.“Athena Protocol,” Roman repeated, his voice a low growl. “Lucien designed it for my son? Why?”Petra adjusted the projection. “From what I can tell, Athena wasn’t just a continuation of the original mind-control program. It was an upgrade. Smarter. Faster. And more terrifying, it was designed not to break a mind but to build one from birth.”Alma’s grip on Ezra tightened. “You mean Lucien wanted to raise Ezra like he raised Delilah?”“

The sea was angry that morning.Waves crashed against the sides of the jet-black speedboat slicing toward a destination that had been erased from maps long ago, Lucien Vale’s hidden laboratory, known only as The Island of Bones.Roman stood at the helm, jaw clenched. Behind him, Petra checked her weapons while syncing the fragmented ORION data with a portable decryption node.“You sure this is the place?” she asked, her voice muffled under the howl of the ocean wind.Roman nodded. “Lucien brought me here once. When I was fifteen. Said it was where monsters were built.”Petra checked the location ping again. “Then it’s exactly where we need to go.”Meanwhile, In the SafehouseAlma hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours.Ezra, pale and restless, was slipping further from her. He talked in riddles. Drew stars in circles. Whispered names she didn’t recognize. The boy she had birthed was still there, but a piece of him was watching.Waiting.“Delilah,” she said quietly. “What if he becomes somet

It began with a flicker.Not on the outside, no, the villa remained peaceful, with sunlit mornings and calm nights. But within the walls of Petra’s encrypted lab, beneath layers of digital ice, a sequence had been triggered.Unstoppable.Untraceable.And as the “ECHO PROTOCOL STAGE TWO: INITIATED” message vanished from Petra’s screen, her heart slammed in her chest like a war drum.Someone or something, had made the first move.Villa Terrace, That MorningAlma brushed Ezra’s hair back as he devoured his cereal, his feet swinging from the barstool. He seemed like any other boy again. Sweet. Playful. Almost normal.“Can I go play outside?” he asked with wide eyes.Alma hesitated.“Just the front lawn. Nowhere else, okay?”He grinned. “Promise!”As he ran out the door, Alma’s smile faltered.Roman had been up since dawn, pacing like a man waiting for war. He approached her now, dropping a black folder on the table.“Read this.”She opened it, and her breath caught.Inside was a satellite

Snow whipped against the chopper's windows as it soared over the icy expanse. Inside, the air was thick with silence, relief, confusion, and unspoken questions swirling between every breath.Ezra sat quietly, head leaning on Alma’s shoulder. He hadn’t said a word since the facility imploded. Not out of fear, but something else.He was listening.To the silence inside himself.The storm in his mind had calmed, but in its place was something more unsettling: a new presence, like a flickering signal on a broken frequency.Roman turned from the cockpit. “We’re twenty minutes out from Helsinki. Once we’re in the safe zone, we can regroup, contact the UN, maybe even get asylum.”Petra didn’t respond. Her eyes stayed glued to her tablet, fingers dancing across it. She was tracing the satellite feed, backtracking the data from the ORION system collapse.Alma glanced over. “What are you looking for?”Petra’s brow furrowed. “Something odd. When Ezra collapsed the ORION mainframe, the wipe wasn’

The world was quieter now.Ezra hadn’t heard from SAPPHIRE in two weeks. No signals, no hacks, no intercepted transmissions. It was as if she’d dissolved into the wind.And yet, her absence felt louder than her presence.Alma noticed.She saw it in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking, how he would go still at a sudden sound, or pause when passing by news kiosks, scanning headlines for unspoken patterns. He was haunted by something deeper than fear.Responsibility.Love twisted into guilt.She brushed his knuckles gently as they sat on the rooftop terrace of the secluded Tuscany estate Roman had secured through one of his silent shell companies. No security cameras. No drones. Just vines, stars, and silence.“You’re thinking about her again,” Alma said, her voice quiet.Ezra didn’t deny it.“She was built to be more than human. But now she has to learn what it means to be one.”Alma sipped her wine. “Like you did.”He turned to her, surprised. “You think I’m human now?”She smi