Harrison leaned back against the kitchen chair, his dark eyes fixed on Julius. The room was totally quiet now, save for the sound of their steady breathing. Harrison opened his mouth, his jaw tightening as he prepared to finally give Julius a piece of the truth, just to break the heavy boundary Julius had set between them.

But before a single word could leave Harrison’s lips, a loud vibration shattered the silence. Julius reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen flashed with his mother’s name. He looked at Harrison for a brief second before sliding the screen and putting the call on speaker.

"Mom?" Julius said.

"Julius, where are you?" Her voice came through the speaker, but the calm, collected tone from earlier was entirely gone. She sounded breathless, her voice trembling with an emotion Julius had never heard from her before. "They came to the house, Julius. They raided the estate."

Julius went completely stiff, his fingers tightening around the phone. "What do you mean? Who came?"

"Armed men," she said, and Julius could hear the distant sound of glass breaking in the background. "They hit the main gates first. They broke into my private office and tore everything apart. They were looking for something. They’ve destroyed the whole place."

Harrison stood up from the chair so fast it rattled against the floor. He ignored the fresh line of blood that started to seep through his shoulder bandage again. His face went dead cold, his protective instincts taking over his entire body.

"We are coming right now," Harrison said toward the phone, his voice a dark, heavy command. "Get your guards to secure the inner perimeter. I will have my team meet us at the gates."

Julius turned around and put a firm hand on Harrison’s uninjured shoulder, pushing him back toward the chair. He looked down at the fresh blood staining the white bandage on Harrison’s skin and shook his head.

"No," Julius said firmly. "You are staying right here."

"Julius, I am not letting you go out there alone after what just happened on the road," Harrison growled, his eyes flashing with a dangerous light. "Those men are looking for you. If they are at your house, you are walking straight into a trap."

"Let me handle my family for once," Julius said, his voice dropping into a quiet but absolute tone. He looked straight into Harrison’s dark eyes, refusing to back down. "Look at your shoulder. You’ve bled enough today, Harrison. You can barely move your right arm without flinching. Stay at the penthouse, rest, and let Daniel’s team monitor the grid from here. I am taking three of your main security guards with me."

Harrison opened his mouth to argue, a low growl forming in his throat, but Julius didn’t give him the chance. He swiped the phone off the counter and walked straight toward the private elevator.

"I will call you the second I get there," Julius said as the elevator doors began to slide shut, leaving Harrison standing alone in the kitchen, his fists clenched in pure frustration.

The drive to the Vane estate was a blur. Julius sat in the back of another armored vehicle, his mind racing as the three security guards kept their eyes on the road. When the car finally pulled through the iron gates of his family home, Julius felt a heavy lump form in his throat.

The front doors of the grand house were kicked off their hinges, lying broken on the gravel driveway. Julius hurried inside, stepping over shattered vases, overturned tables, and papers that were scattered across the floor like snow. He walked straight up the stairs toward his mother’s private wing. The door to her personal office was wide open.

His mother was sitting on a lone leather chair in the center of the room. The large desk had been flipped over, and her filing cabinets were emptied onto the ground. She was holding a small glass of amber liquid, her face pale but her eyes remarkably focused.

"Mom," Julius said, stepping into the mess. "Are you hurt?"

She looked up, taking a slow sip from her glass. "Physically? No. My personal guards managed to hold them off from the residential quarters, but they weren’t trying to kill me, Julius. They wanted information. They wanted to find the location of the old archives."

Julius pulled a small stool over and sat down directly in front of her, his hands resting on his knees. "Mom, you need to tell me everything now. I know you know about everything. Harrison’s car was ambushed on the way to his penthouse. We barely made it out alive, and then this letter arrived at the office. Who are these people?"

His mother set her glass down on the floor next to her chair and looked at him for a long time. She reached out, her fingers lightly touching the dark marks on Julius’s neck that Harrison had left there. A small, sad smile touched her lips.

"Twenty-five years ago," she began, her voice dropping into a quiet rhythm, "our families weren’t hiding in the dark. Your father, Harrison’s father, and a few others were part of a very tight-knit, solid group of friends. They built their businesses together from nothing. They trusted each other with their lives. But then, greed chipped in."

"Greed about what?" Julius asked.

"About power," she said, her eyes darkening. "The group started to expand into areas they shouldn’t have touched. Two men inside that circle wanted more than just financial success. Their names were Arthur Vance and Victor Sterling. Have you ever heard those names, Julius?"

Julius shook his head. "No. They aren’t on any of our corporate boards."

"Of course they aren’t," his mother said with a bitter laugh. "They operate entirely in the shadows now. They are the true faces backing up the Millers. Helen’s family, the Millers... they were never the main villains in this story. They were just a small tool that Vance and Sterling added to the circle later. They used the Millers to destabilize our family from the inside, to keep us distracted while the real players made their moves."

"What were they trying to get from us?" Julius asked, his mind trying to process the names. "Why kill our fathers if it was just about money?"

"It wasn’t just about money," his mother said, leaning forward so her face was inches from his. "Your father and Harrison’s father were brilliant men. Together, they created a highly advanced digital drive. It was a piece of technology that was decades ahead of its time. It was the key to everything, Julius. It was powerful enough to bring down any major politician in the country, and it could even bypass security networks to control global satellites. It was absolute leverage over the entire world."

Julius felt a cold sweat break out across his back. "And the group wanted it."

"Vance and Sterling wanted to use it to control the market and the government," she explained. "But your father and Harrison’s father realized how dangerous it was. They knew that much power shouldn’t exist in human hands, so they planned to destroy it completely. The other men disagreed violently. That is why the accident was ordered. They killed them to stop the drive from being wiped out."

"But if they killed them, where is the drive now?" Julius asked.

"It was hidden far away before the crash," his mother said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Vance and Sterling have spent twenty-five years searching for it, but they can’t find it. And even if they do, they face a massive problem. I don’t have the code to open it, Julius. No one does."

"Then how can anyone get inside it?"

His mother reached out and took both of Julius’s hands in hers, her grip surprisingly tight. "The key to unlocking that drive is you, Julius. Only you."

Julius stared at her, completely stunned. "How? I don’t know any codes. I don’t even remember my childhood before the crash."

"Because your father coded the security system specifically to your biometrics," his mother revealed, her eyes locked onto his. "The drive requires your facial recognition, your specific DNA, and a phrase that your father imprinted deep into your memory when you were a little boy. It is buried somewhere in that locked part of your mind."

Julius felt the room tilt slightly. The weight of his entire existence suddenly shifted.

"That is why these men needs you alive," his mother whispered, her voice heavy with a long-buried truth. "They don’t want to kill you, Julius. They want to capture you. They raided this house to find any clues about your father’s old laboratory, but they found nothing. They are getting desperate because the Miller plan failed. They are going to use everything they have to take you."

Julius sat in the middle of the ruined office, the silence of the broken house pressing in around him.