Chapter : Ghost in My Blood

"My father?"

I gripped the edge of the payphone booth as if the glass walls could hold up the weight that had just collapsed onto my chest.

"Lucien, that's impossible," I whispered, heart racing.

"I thought so too," he said, voice tight over the crackling line. "But Brandy didn’t just take power—she's following orders. From someone who has access to classified dossiers only Syndicate founders had. Documents going back decades. Before you were born."

I swallowed. My throat felt like glass.

"You said my father died before I was adopted. That he wasn’t part of any of this."

"I said we didn’t have any...