"You're late."Elinor Blackwood didn't look up from the magnifying glass. She hovered over my shoulder, the lens catching the clinical white light of the sterile room. I stood there, naked to the waist, shivering as the air conditioning licked the sweat off my skin."The traffic was""I don't pay for excuses, Kai. I pay for perfection." She pressed the glass against the fresh brand on my skin. The rejection mark. It burned like a lit cigar held against an open wound. My muscles seized."Don't flinch." Her voice was ice. "Alexander never flinched."I gritted my teeth until I tasted copper. On the monitor in the corner, Mei coughed. A spray of dark, wet crimson painted the inside of her oxygen mask. She looked small. Gray. The life was draining out of her, one expensive breath at a time. That monitor was the only thing keeping me in this room."The prosthetic graft is holding." Elinor pulled back, her eyes raking over my torso like she was inspecting cheap leather at a bazaar. "But you

Last Updated : 2026-03-18

"Where’s the will, you lying piece of shit?"The cold bite of steel pressed into my windpipe. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. My eyes snapped open to see a face I’d spent the last twelve hours hating, but the hands holding the blade were trembling. This wasn't the polished, icy Seraphina from the ballroom. Her hair was a bird's nest. Her silk robe was torn at the shoulder."I don't know what you're talking about."My voice was a raspy grating sound. I tried to swallow, but the knife dug in. A bead of blood blossomed and rolled down my neck."Don't lie to me. Alexander knew. He told me before he" She stopped. Her eyes were bloodshot. Desperate. "Before he left. Where did she put it?""She?" I shifted, my muscles coiling. "You mean Elinor? Or do you mean yourself, Seraphina?""Don't call me that." She spat the words. "Tell me where it is or I'll carve the truth out of your chest. I know you're not him. Alexander had a mole on his thigh. I checked while you were passed out. You're a fak

Last Updated : 2026-03-18

"Sign the transfer, Kai. Or the girl’s lungs stop working in three minutes."Marcus Blackwood leaned against the mahogany desk, spinning a silver fountain pen between his fingers. He looked at me with a lazy, heavy-lidded stare that made my skin crawl. On the tablet between us, the live feed of Mei’s isolation room showed a nurse checking the oxygen levels."I signed the confession," I snapped. My hand went to the back of my neck, where the dart had left a swollen, throbbing knot. "I gave you what you wanted.""You gave Elinor what she wanted. I'm different. I want the codes." Marcus stood up, his shadow stretching across the floor. "The Blackwood offshore accounts. Alexander had the primary key embedded in his biometric signature. Which means it’s in yours now.""I don't have them.""Then your sister doesn't have a heartbeat." He tapped the screen. The nurse in the video paused, her hand hovering over a red dial. "Choose, Kai. Be a ghost or be a brother."I lunged. My hands went for

Last Updated : 2026-03-18

"Who are you watching today, Marcus?"The voice cracked like a whip across the dark security hub. Marcus didn't turn. He didn't blink. On the wall of monitors, forty billion dollars worth of Blackwood legacy flickered in grainy grayscale. He adjusted the slide on his fly. His breath hitched. On Screen 4, Kai was pinning Evangeline against a mahogany bookshelf. On Screen 7, Elinor was drinking tea with a man whose face was a blurred smudge of legal NDAs."I'm watching the world burn, Mother," Marcus whispered to the empty air.He didn't care about the shares. He didn't care about the board seats. He tracked the movement of Kai’s hands on Evangeline’s throat with a clinical, sickening heat. He wanted them to feel it. The hope. The fake, shimmering lie of their "connection." He wanted them to believe they were outsmarting the house so it would hurt more when he leveled the building with them inside. Elinor had killed his mother for a rounding error in a quarterly report. Now, Marcus was

Last Updated : 2026-03-18

"Where the fuck is the knife?"I gritted my teeth. The bathroom tiles were cold against my bare knees. Evangeline stood by the tub, her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, tracking the silver blade in my hand."Kai, don't. Please. We can just""We can't do anything if she thinks I’m soft." I grabbed a towel. Folded it. Shoved it into my mouth. I didn't want to wake the guards. Or the house. Or the ghosts in the cellar. I positioned the tip of the blade against the meat of my thigh. Right where the Archive photo showed Subject 14’s jagged reminder of a hunting trip gone wrong.I pushed.The steel slid in. Hot. Electric. My vision sparked white. I bit down on the towel until my jaw groaned. Blood dark, thick, honest blood bloomed across my skin. It ran down my leg, staining the white grout of the Blackwood estate. I twisted the metal. Just a fraction."Go," I muffled through the cloth. I spat the towel out. My breath came in shallow, jagged stabs. "Call them. Scream. Tell them a m

Last Updated : 2026-03-18

All Chapters of THE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SUBSTITUTE: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5