Bloodlines
Two days later.
Hospital lights. The faint beep of machines.
Luther opened his eyes to find a wall of suited men and women standing before his bed.
At their center...Victor Cain.
"You've caused quite the stir, Mr. Vale," Victor said smoothly.
"The media's calling you a hero. I prefer… anomaly."
Luther frowned. "Anomaly?"
A woman stepped forward, holding a tablet.
"Sir, during surgery, we ran a standard genetic scan. Your blood didn't match any registry...except one."
She turned the screen toward him.
DNA MATCH: 99.97% LUTHER CAIN JR.
STATUS: DECEASED (PLANE CRASH – 18 YEARS AGO)
Luther froze. His throat closed.
He remembered the flames. His mother's scream. The man in the air.
"This is a mistake," he muttered. "That boy died."
Victor smiled thinly.
"Then tell me, Mr. Vale… why does his blood run in your veins?"
Silence.
Every instinct screamed at Luther to run, but his legs wouldn't move.
"You're coming home," Victor said.
"We've waited a long time for the Cain heir to return."
Outside the window, thunder rolled across the city, and for a second, Luther saw faint silver threads rippling in the reflection, connecting everyone in the room.
He blinked...
and the threads vanished.
Rain beat against the hospital windows like impatient fingers.
Inside the private recovery room, silence wrapped itself around the two men: the billionaire and the ghost who shouldn't exist.
Victor Cain stood at the foot of the bed, posture perfect, hands folded behind his back. The man looked carved from ambition, every wrinkle a signature of power.
Luther stared at the floor, jaw tight.
His pulse was still erratic from the news. A DNA match. A dead boy's blood. His blood.
"You're wrong," he said finally.
"You've mistaken me for someone else."
Victor's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"I don't make mistakes, Mr. Vale or should I call you Luther?"
The name landed like a hammer to the chest.
Images slammed into him: his mother's laugh, the white glare of the plane's cabin, the sound of tearing metal. Then the shadowed man outside the window.
His vision swam.
He clutched the bedsheets. "That boy died."
"So the records say." Victor's tone was almost gentle. "But records can be… rewritten."
Luther looked up sharply. "Why would you lie about this?"
Victor circled the bed slowly, the way a shark circles bleeding prey.
"Eighteen years ago, my brother's jet went down over the Atlantic. No survivors were recovered. I mourned you, buried an empty casket, and inherited a company teetering on collapse. And now..." he gestured to Luther "you appear out of nowhere and take a bullet for me. Fate doesn't play games that obvious without reason."
Luther forced a hollow laugh. "So what now? You adopt me? Put me in a suit?"
"You misunderstand. I don't need an heir." Victor's eyes gleamed. "I need to know what survived that crash."
That sent a chill crawling down Luther's spine.
Before he could answer, the door opened.
A young doctor stepped in, clearly nervous. "Mr. Cain, I..I've completed the secondary scan."
"And?"
"Sir… his cells show residual markers. Energy readings we've only seen in Echelon carriers."
Luther frowned. "Echelon?"
Victor turned toward him.
"A family inheritance," he said softly. "A rare gene. We used to think it was a myth until my brother's experiments proved otherwise."
"Experiments?"
"He believed human blood could bend probability itself." Victor's tone hardened. "Your father was brilliant…and reckless."
Luther's hands clenched. "You're saying my father turned me into some kind of weapon?"
Victor didn't answer. He simply handed the doctor a look that said Leave.
The door clicked shut behind them.
Victor leaned closer, voice low.
"You don't remember what happened that night, do you?"
"Only fire," Luther said. "And someone watching."
Victor's smile faltered for the first time.
"Then we're both haunted by the same ghost."
He turned toward the window, city lights flashing across his reflection. "You've been living as a janitor, scraping floors while power slept in your veins. That ends now. You'll come with me to the Cain estate. There's a place for you if you're smart enough to keep it."
Luther's voice was ice.
"And if I'm not?"
"Then I'll find out what you really are," Victor said softly, "and bury you a second time."
He left without another word.
For a long time, Luther sat motionless, listening to the echo of his own heartbeat.
The city hummed beyond the glass wall..sirens, rain, neon light.
He looked down at his hands. Faint threads of silver light shimmered between his fingers, pulsing like veins made of electricity.
He blinked, and they vanished.
But the warmth they left behind lingered like something had finally woken inside him.
A nurse peeked in. "You all right, Mr. Vale?"
"No," he said quietly. "But I think I finally know who I need to be."
He swung his legs off the bed. The movement pulled at his stitches, but he didn't care.
Pain meant he was alive.
He stared once more at the rain streaking the window, every droplet tracing its own invisible path.
For the first time, he could almost see which one would reach the bottom first.
At that exact moment, across town…
Celeste Cain, Victor's only acknowledged heir watched a news feed on her tablet:
"Unknown hero saves Cain Global CEO!"
She zoomed in on the blurry security photo of Luther being carried into an ambulance.
Her blue eyes narrowed.
"He looks familiar."
Back in the hospital, Luther lay awake as thunder rolled over the city.
He whispered to the ceiling, to the ghosts he couldn't name.
"If fate wants to drag me back into that world…"
"…then fate's going to regret it."
Luther exhaled slowly, the storm echoing his thoughts. He'd spent years hiding, pretending the Cain name meant nothing. But fate had a cruel sense of humor, and if it wanted him back, it would have to face what it created.
Lightning flared white, sharp, silent and for a heartbeat, the silver threads danced again, weaving patterns above his bed like a constellation only he could see.