Chapter 5

Jackson POV

"She is free."

The words echoed in my skull, reverberating louder than the gunshot that had taken my father's life years ago.

Hamilton Nixon. That quiet, tech-obsessed nobody who used to hang around the periphery of our social circles like a shadow. I had dismissed him as a harmless intellectual. A coward.

But shadows are where secrets hide.

"Get in here!" I roared, the sound tearing at my throat.

My Consigliere, Marco, burst into the room, his hand instinctively flying to his holster. "Don? What is it? An attack?"

"Hamilton Nixon," I spat the name out like poison. "I want everything on him. Now. Bank accounts, properties, travel records, who he sleeps with. Burn his life to the ground until we find something."

"Nixon?" Marco looked bewildered, his hand dropping. "The software developer? Boss, he's clean. He's legitimate."

"He has her," I said, my voice trembling with a fury that felt cold, precise, and deadly. "She's not dead. It was a setup. Find him."

Marco paled. He didn't ask questions. He nodded once and bolted.

I paced the room like a caged tiger. My wife. My Elena.

She had faked her death to get away from me. The betrayal cut deeper than any blade. She preferred to be dead to the world than be alive as my wife.

Hours bled into one another. When Marco finally returned, he looked terrified.

He placed a thick, heavy file on my desk.

"Boss... you need to see this."

I ripped the file open, paper tearing under my grip.

Hamilton Nixon wasn't just a developer. He was 'Ghost'.

A broker. Arms, intelligence, high-tech security. He supplied encryption software to half the warlords in Eastern Europe. He had more money than God and more connections than the President.

And there, buried in the encrypted travel logs: A private jet. Departure time: Two hours after the 'crash'. Destination: Nice, France.

"France," I whispered, the word tasting like ash.

"There's more," Marco said, his voice dropping to a grave whisper. "While we were digging into Nixon's secure servers... we found some files. Files he wanted us to find."

He slid a tablet across the mahogany desk.

"What is this?"

"It's... it's about Candida. And the boy."

I frowned, my blood running cold. "What about them?"

"Just listen."

He pressed play on an audio file.

It was a recording. The low hum of an engine, the sound of tires on asphalt.

*"Leo, honey, are we there yet?"* That was Joey's voice. Impatient. Whiny.

*"Almost, champ,"* a man's voice replied. Leo. My driver. A man I trusted with my life.

*"Uncle Leo,"* Joey said, his voice innocent and piercingly clear. *"Daddy Jackson said I'm his little hero today. But I know the secret. Mommy said you're my real dad. That's why we have the same nose."*

The world stopped.

The air left the room, leaving a vacuum that crushed my lungs.

*"Hush, Joey,"* Leo laughed, a sound of easy familiarity. *"That's our secret, remember? Until Mommy gets the money. Then we go away."*

I stared at the tablet. My hands were numb. I couldn't breathe.

"It's a fake," I croaked, denial clawing at my throat. "Hamilton faked it."

"Boss..." Marco slid a single piece of paper forward. "We ran a DNA test on the hair sample from Joey's brush this morning. Just to be sure. We compared it to yours."

Probability of Paternity: 0.00%

I looked at the paper. The numbers were black, stark, and final.

Zero.

I had broken my wife's heart for zero.

I had forced Elena into submission for zero.

I had lost the only woman who ever truly loved me for a bastard child and a whore who was plotting my murder.

"There's one more thing," Marco said softly. He pushed a final document forward. It was a medical report. My medical report. From a doctor I didn't know.

Subject: Jackson Parks.

Toxicology: Positive for Neurotoxin-B.

Symptoms: Aggression, Paranoia, Suggestibility, Memory Loss.

Source: Ingested via herbal supplements.

The aromatherapy. The tea Candida made me every night. The 'stress relief' pills.

She had been drugging me. She had been methodically turning me into a monster.

I remembered the way I looked at Elena in the bathroom. The way I grabbed her. The hate in my own heart that felt so foreign, yet so uncontrollable.

It wasn't me.

But it *was* me. I let it happen. I let the devil in the front door.

A scream tore from my throat. A primal, agonizing sound of a man who realizes he has burned down his own heaven to live in hell.

I swept everything off the desk. The lamp, the computer, the crystal whiskey decanter. They crashed to the floor, shattering into a million glittering shards.

"Kill them," I whispered, falling to my knees amidst the broken glass, indifferent to the shards biting into my skin.

"Bring them to me. Candida. Leo. All of them."

I picked up the blank piece of paper Elena had left behind. I pressed it to my forehead, sobbing dry, hacking sobs that racked my entire body.

"Elena," I moaned into the silence.

"God, Elena... what have I done?"