Chapter 13 - Sebastian Became the Cure Everyone Wanted to OwnThe news leaked.
Sebastian's blood could potentially regenerate damaged nerves.
Hospitals wanted samples.
Pharmaceutical companies wanted rights.
Governments wanted control.
Criminal organizations wanted the formula.
And suddenly, surrendering the empire had made Sebastian more valuable than ever.
People began hunting us.
We went into hiding.
Oliver stayed with my mother.
Sebastian and I moved between safe houses.
Gabriel remained by our side.
One night, Sebastian looked at me.
“I should leave.”
“No.”
“They'll keep coming.”
“Then we'll keep moving.”
“I could hurt you.”
“You're not the one hunting us.”
“I am the reason.”
“So am I.”
He stared.
“You didn't choose this.”
“Neither did you.”
I reached for his hand.
“We're in this together.”
He smiled.
“That sounds dangerously like a marriage proposal.”
I laughed.
“You're jumping ahead.”
“I have experience with impossible goals.”
That night, someone attacked the house.
We escaped through the basement.
Gabriel fought them off.
But he was wounded.
Before collapsing, he handed me a drive.
“Your father.”
“What?”
“It's everything.”
My father had been dead for fifteen years.
But the drive contained his research.
He had discovered the truth before anyone else.
The regenerative compound wasn't creating healing.
It was activating dormant genetic pathways.
The reason Sebastian responded was because he carried a rare inherited mutation.
The reason Oliver responded differently was because he inherited the same mutation in a more stable form.
And the reason I could activate Sebastian's nerves?
My mother had trained me to recognize and trigger the pathway.
The entire story began before I was born.
Our families had been part of the same project.
Then came the betrayal.
I read the final document.
My father's words:
If anyone finds this, protect Claire.
Then another line.
She is the only person I trust with Sebastian's life.
I stared.
My father had known.
Years before I met Sebastian.
He had believed one day we would find each other.
I looked at Sebastian.
“My father knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That we'd meet.”
He smiled.
“Your father had good instincts.”
The next file broke my heart.
A video.
My father speaking directly to the camera.
“Claire, if you're watching this, I'm probably dead.”
I covered my mouth.
“You'll think I abandoned you.”
“I didn't.”
“I was trying to make sure you survived.”
“I trusted the wrong people.”
“But I never stopped loving you.”
He looked down.
Then said:
“There will come a time when the Lombardi family needs someone who understands the difference between power and protection.”
My father looked directly into the camera.
“That person is you.”
I cried.
Sebastian wrapped his arms around me.
The next morning, we made a decision.
We would release everything.
No ownership.
No secret research.
No private control.
Every medical record.
Every formula.
Every crime.
Everything.
Let the world decide what to do with it.
Victor attacked before we could.
He kidnapped Gabriel.
Then sent us a message.
BRING SEBASTIAN.
We went.
The final confrontation happened at the old Lombardi estate.
The place where Sebastian had first been taken from me.
The same room where I had touched his foot.
Victor waited by the fireplace.
Gabriel was tied to a chair.
Oliver was safely hidden elsewhere.
Victor smiled.
“This is where everything began.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“No.”
He took one step.
“This is where it ends.”
Victor fired.
Sebastian moved.
The bullet missed.
For the first time, he moved faster than the man who had spent twenty years believing him broken.
Sebastian tackled Victor.
Gabriel freed himself.
I grabbed the evidence drive.
Victor shouted:
“Stop!”
I looked at him.
“You were never afraid of Sebastian.”
“What?”
“You were afraid of what he'd become without you.”
Victor's face hardened.
I continued:
“And you were terrified of what I'd remember.”
He stared at me.
Because I was right.
The entire empire had depended on forgetting.
But I remembered now.
May you like
Everything.
And that was the end.
Related Stories
