CHAPTER 48

The Ultimate Question

Julian watches me, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. He knows he has me cornered. I can feel the weight of his presence pressing against my skin, his patience coiling like a predator waiting to strike.

"You've been searching for the truth, haven't you?" he muses, stepping closer. "Desperate to understand why things never quite added up. Why your past feels like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces."

I keep my face blank, but my pulse betrays me, thudding against my ribs. I don't trust Julian—not for a damn second—but he's not wrong. The gaps in my memory, the whispers of something lost, the questions that claw at me in the dead of night... they've haunted me for too long.

Julian smiles like he can hear my thoughts. "What if I told you the person responsible for all of that… was you?"

My stomach tightens. "You're lying."

He laughs softly, shaking his head. "Nathan, Nathan… I never lie. You, on the other hand? You were a master of deception. Even to yourself."

I grit my teeth. "If this is some kind of mind game—"

Julian lifts a hand. "No games. Just truth." He gestures toward the guards. "Uncuff him."

The click of the restraints unlocking sends a rush of blood back into my wrists. I flex my fingers, resisting the urge to lunge. I need answers before I act.

Julian clasps his hands behind his back. "You erased your own past, Nathan. Not because you were forced to, not because someone made you—but because you chose to. You wanted to forget."

A cold ripple runs through me. "That's impossible."

Julian tilts his head. "Is it?"

I exhale slowly, forcing my breathing to steady. "Why would I do that?"

His smirk fades, replaced by something deeper. Calculating. "To protect someone."

The words slam into me like a freight train.

I don't move. Don't breathe.

"Who?" My voice is barely above a whisper.

Julian studies me, eyes unreadable. "That… is the question, isn't it?"

The room is too quiet. My heart is too loud.

I search his expression for a crack, a sign of deception, but Julian is a fortress. He feeds on control, and right now, I'm playing his game.

"You're telling me," I say slowly, testing the words, "that I willingly erased my own past. That I did this to myself?"

Julian nods.

"And the reason was to protect someone?"

Another nod.

I exhale, shaking my head. "That makes no sense. If I wanted to protect them, I should have remembered. I should have stayed one step ahead, not—"

"Not if the truth put them in danger," Julian cuts in. "Not if your past was the weapon that could destroy them."

The air in the room thickens.

It's a lie. It has to be.

But deep down, in the marrow of my bones, something shifts. A whisper of recognition, too faint to grasp but too strong to ignore.

A memory. Or the ghost of one.

I close my eyes for half a second—

Flashes. Blurred edges. Laughter in the distance. The warmth of a hand gripping mine. A voice—soft, urgent.

"Promise me, Nathan."

A sharp inhale drags me back to the present. My fingers curl into fists.

Julian watches me like a cat watching a wounded bird. "You feel it, don't you? The truth clawing its way back up."

I don't answer.

Because he's right.

There's something buried. Something I locked away.

Julian steps closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "Do you want to remember?"

I lift my chin. "And what happens if I do?"

A smirk plays at his lips. "Then everything changes."

I don't like the way he says it. Like it's not just my past at stake, but something bigger.

Something irreversible.

Julian exhales dramatically, stepping back. "I'm feeling generous tonight, Nathan, so I'll give you a choice. You can walk away right now, stay in the dark forever. Live your life without knowing who you were… or who you were trying to save."

He pauses. "Or—"

A slow, deliberate smile.

"I can give you back everything."

The words hit me harder than any punch.

Silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken consequences.

I glance at the door, knowing damn well it isn't really an exit. Julian doesn't give choices unless he's already decided the outcome.

And yet…

I swallow hard. My past. My real past. Not the fractured, half-remembered pieces I've been chasing, but the full, unfiltered truth.

Would I still be the same person after?

Or would remembering destroy me?

Julian waits, patient. Knowing.

The ultimate question lingers in the air between us.

And for the first time in my life, I don't know what to do.