Chapter 16: The Final Game Begins
Chapter 16: The Final Game Begins
The security system locked down the entire building.
Nobody could leave.
Ryan stared at the screen.
“Victor.”
The billionaire smiled.
“You disappoint me.”
“You used me.”
“No.”
Victor corrected him.
“I invested in you.”
Ryan’s anger exploded.
“You destroyed my entire life.”
Victor laughed.
“Your life existed because of me.”
The words hurt because they were partly true.
Victor had built Ryan’s empire.
But he had also controlled every piece of it.
Leah watched silently.
She understood something.
Victor’s greatest weapon was not money.
It was making people believe they needed him.
“You always do this,” Leah said.
Victor looked at her.
“What?”
“You convince people they are powerless without you.”
A smile disappeared from Victor’s face.
Because she was right.
For the first time, someone understood him.
“You’re exactly like your father.”
Leah stepped closer.
“No.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“I’m nothing like him.”
Victor smiled.
“Then prove it.”
The screen changed.
A live broadcast appeared.
Millions of people were watching.
Victor had taken control of every major media platform.
“This is your chance, Leah.”
Her expression hardened.
“What?”
“Tell the world the truth.”
She frowned.
“You want that?”
Victor smiled.
“Because the truth will destroy you.”
The broadcast began.
Victor released documents.
Old records.
Photographs.
Everything designed to make Leah look guilty.
The public watched.
The world turned against her again.
But Victor made one mistake.
He underestimated the people who had been preparing for this moment.
Ethan smiled slightly.
“What?”
Leah looked at him.
He held up a device.
“The evidence.”
“What about the broadcast?”
Ethan connected the device.
“We’re not fighting his story.”
“We’re replacing it.”
Suddenly, the screen changed.
Victor’s documents disappeared.
A new video appeared.
Robert Whitmore.
Victor Hale.
Private meetings.
Financial crimes.
Confessions.
Everything.
Victor’s face changed.
Impossible.
“You couldn’t have.”
Leah looked at the screen.
“My father recorded everything.”
Victor stepped back.
For the first time in decades…
Victor Hale was afraid.
But then he smiled.
Because he still had one final card.
A card Leah didn’t know existed.
He pressed a button.
A door opened beneath the estate.
And a man walked out.
Older.
Weak.
But alive.
Daniel Hale.
Leah stopped breathing.
Her biological father looked at her.
And whispered:
“Leah…”
A tear fell from his eyes.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner.”
The entire world watched.
The daughter.
The father.
May you like
And the secret that Victor Hale had buried for twenty-five years.
The final battle had begun.
