The boardroom air was still thick with the scent of our heated encounter when a notification flashed on the giant LED screen behind Kai's desk. It wasn't a stock update. It was a video file, encrypted with a code I recognized from my mother's old diary.
Kai froze, his hand still resting possessively on my thigh. He grabbed the remote, his eyes narrowing into lethal slits.
The screen flickered to life. It was low-quality, grainy footage from a dark, industrial room. In the center, tied to a chair, was Marcus. But he wasn't alone. Behind him stood a woman whose face was hidden in shadows, her voice distorted by a modulator.
"Hello, Subject Six," the woman's voice rasped. "Or should I call you Amara? The girl who thinks she's special."
I felt the blood drain from my face. Kai's grip on me became so tight it was painful.
"Who is this?" I whispered.
"Look closer, Little Bird," the woman on the screen laughed. She stepped into the light. She looked exactly like me—but older, her skin scarred with surgical lines. "I was Subject Five. The 'perfect vessel' before you were even a thought in a test tube."
My heart stopped. Subject Five? I thought my mother was the only one.
"Kai Fox didn't tell you the truth, did he?" the woman continued, stroking Marcus's trembling cheek with a jagged fingernail. "He didn't tell you what happened to the first four. He didn't tell you that once the 'vessel' delivers the heir, it's discarded. Burnt. Recycled."
Marcus looked into the camera, his eyes wide with terror. "Amara, run! He's not building an empire! He's building an army of—"
Crack.
The woman hit Marcus with the butt of a gun, silencing him. She looked directly into the camera, her eyes a haunting, familiar shade of hazel.
"Kai has ten minutes to find us before I start sending Marcus back to you in pieces. But remember, Amara... if he saves Marcus, he loses the Fox Tower. A choice between his heart and his throne. Let's see what the Monster chooses."
The screen went black.
Kai stood up, his face a mask of cold, calculating fury. He didn't look at me with love; he looked at me like a commander losing a battle.
"Stay here," he barked, reaching into his desk for a holster. "The building is on lockdown."
"No!" I jumped off the table, the silver chains of my dress clashing. "That woman... she looks like me. Kai, what is she talking about? What happened to Subject Five?"
Kai turned, pinning me against the wall with his body. He didn't use gentleness this time. He grabbed my throat, not to choke me, but to force me to see the absolute ruthlessness in his soul.
"Subject Five was a failure, Amara! She went insane because her blood wasn't pure enough to carry the weight!" he roared, his voice shaking the windows. "You are the only one who matters! And if you think for one second I'm going to let some ghost from the past take you from me, you don't know who the fuck I am."
He kissed me—a hard, bruising collision of teeth and tongue that tasted like copper and war. "I'm going to kill her. And then I'm going to kill Marcus for letting her use him. And when I come back, you're going to be waiting in that bed, ready to give me what I paid for."
He pushed me away and sprinted out of the room, the sounds of his guards' boots thundering in the hallway.
I stood in the silent boardroom, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. But as I looked at the black screen, I saw a reflection in the glass. A small, red light blinking under the boardroom table.
I reached under and pulled out a small, glass vial. It was filled with a glowing, violet liquid. Attached to it was a note in my mother's handwriting:
"The Fox's blood is the poison. Yours is the cure. Drink this when he tries to take the heir. - Subject Six (The Original)."
The realization hit me like a physical blow. My mother wasn't just a scientist. She was the original Subject Six. I wasn't the experiment... I was the second generation. And the violet liquid in my hand was the only way to kill Kai Fox's legacy before it even began.