Inheritance ✔

Chapter 28 - Genesis

Laurier Ashford's POV

The compound was sealed by dawn.

Dagon's body was in custody, Clara was being treated, and Rosette—whatever she was—slept peacefully in the infirmary, unaware of the war she'd nearly been the centerpiece of.

I stood on the ridge where it ended, hair swept back by the mountain winds, coat fluttering behind me like a banner.

It didn't feel like victory.

It felt like the beginning of something new.

And terrifying.

Back in the safehouse, I sat in my father's old chair—this time not in his office, but in the cold room beneath it. The vault he built. The one only I could open, using the biometric access encoded to my name.

The red light turned green with a soft beep.

Inside the final drawer, hidden under old blueprints and sealed ledgers, was a folder with one word stamped in gold across the front:

GENESIS.

I opened it slowly.

Inside were medical charts. Birth records. Coded messages. Letters written in my father's distinct, clinical hand. But it wasn't about me.

It was about Project Genesis.

Not a financial endeavor. Not a technology firm.
A lineage program.

The Ashfords—my family—weren't just building a business empire.

They were building something else.

We weren't chosen for our minds, or talents.

We were bred for what we carried inside our blood.

The notes detailed sequences—genetic chains passed down deliberately, filtered, refined. A process spanning decades. Measurable intelligence markers. Emotional inhibition. Selective empathy.

My entire existence had been... calculated.

I wasn't born.

I was manufactured.

A weapon in a silk dress.

Renzo entered quietly.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze unreadable.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said softly.

"I think I am one."

I handed him the file.

He didn't flinch as he read.

When he finished, he sat down across from me.

"So what now?"

"I dismantle it," I said. "All of it. This legacy. This lie. I burn it down and build something real from the ashes."

He was quiet for a long beat.

Then he said, "Do you still want it?"

I blinked.

"What?"

"The name. The power. The empire. If you weren't meant to have it—but chose to... would you still want it?"

I thought about it.

The long nights. The weight of expectation. The loneliness. The rage. The bloodshed.

And the people I'd fought to protect. The girl now sleeping under my roof who had my eyes. The sister who betrayed me and begged for another chance. The man in front of me who would die before letting me fall.

"Yes," I said.

Not because it was mine.

But because I would make it mine.

Differently.

Deliberately.

Better.

Clara walked into the room an hour later.

She looked different. Lighter. Like the burden had finally cracked off her chest and dissolved into something forgivable.

She didn't ask for permission to speak.

"I've booked a flight," she said. "Tomorrow night. I'm going to Geneva."

"Geneva?"

"An old scientist from Project Leda reached out after the raid. She's working on a reversal protocol. Something that undoes what they did to Rosette."

I straightened. "You're going to protect her."

"I owe her that," Clara said.

"And me?"

Clara's eyes softened. "You deserve the truth. But you don't owe me forgiveness."

I stood. Walked to her. Looked her in the eyes.

"No. But I choose to try."

We stood there in silence for a few seconds.

Then I pulled her into a hug.

And for the first time, it didn't feel like betrayal.

It felt like family.

That night, Renzo and I sat on the balcony, city lights blinking beneath us, the world finally quiet.

"Would you believe me if I told you I still see the girl from taekwondo class?" he said.

I glanced at him. "The one who stole your snack box?"

"The one who elbowed me in the ribs on the first day."

I laughed. "She had no idea what she was doing."

He leaned closer. "She does now."

Then he kissed me.

And I kissed him back.

No walls. No pretense.

No legacy weighing between us.

Just heat, and salt, and something that tasted like peace.