Chapter 18: Unseen Threats and Deepening Shadows

The message arrived in the quiet before dawn. A single photo. Grainy. Unsettling. His parents' house—taken from an angle only a stalker or a drone could manage. The caption chilled him more than the image itself:

"Some ties run deeper than you know. Be careful who you trust."

Yuhan sat frozen for a full minute, the glow of his phone screen washing over his face in eerie silence. His mind raced—not with panic, but with something heavier, older. Fear. Not for himself. For them.

His parents were his anchor. The only people he had never lied to, never manipulated. In all the games he played, all the personas he wore, they were the one truth he still believed in.

He had fought so hard to keep them out of it all. Shielded them from Mochen's obsession, from Meili's chaos, from the ghosts of his first life. But now, somehow, someone had found their way to that fragile thread—and pulled.

He wanted to call his head of security. Immediately. But he didn't. Not yet. Whoever sent this wasn't just watching—they were warning. Or taunting. Maybe both. He needed to understand why. He needed to think.

He placed the phone on the table carefully, like it might explode.

"Not Mochen," he muttered to himself. It didn't fit his style. Mochen's threats were never this raw, this sloppy. Meili? She was too broken to orchestrate something this precise. That left someone else. Someone he hadn't accounted for.

He ran a trace, knowing it would lead nowhere. Burners were almost impossible to track. But even dead ends had a shape.

Downstairs, the estate was quiet. The silence weighed on him. He poured a glass of water but didn't drink. Instead, he stared at the reflection in the window. His own eyes stared back—sharper now, but tired. How long had it been since he truly slept?

Meanwhile, across town, Mochen sat alone in his penthouse office, hands clenched on the glass desk. The press conference replayed in his mind—Yuhan's veiled speech, the camera flashes, the heat of a hundred eyes turning in his direction when the words "hidden agendas" were spoken.

Yuhan had spoken calmly, like a man in control. Like a man who knew something no one else did.

Mochen hated that.

He had built his empire on always knowing more than everyone in the room. But Yuhan—Yuhan saw straight through him. And worse, he was using that knowledge like a scalpel, not a sword. Slowly. Painfully.

And yet, Mochen couldn't stay away.

He showed up at every event Yuhan attended—not to fight, but to observe. To stay close. Yuhan always noticed. Always kept his distance.

At an art exhibition, they crossed paths again. Mochen didn't speak at first. Just stood beside him, quietly.

"The painting on your left," Mochen said finally, his voice low, "You once said the roots reminded you of loyalty. Intertwined. Unbreakable."

Yuhan didn't turn. "Some roots rot from the inside."

A pause. Sharp. Icy.

When he did glance at Mochen, it was like looking at a stranger.

Mochen tried to recover. "Or they grow back stronger. After the rot is cut away. Like you did."

Yuhan's smile was thin. Tired. "You keep trying to make this a story of rebirth, Mochen. It's not. This is what happens when you burn everything and expect the ashes to love you back."

Mochen didn't answer. He didn't know how. For the first time, he wasn't sure what Yuhan wanted. And that terrified him more than any threat.

Back in her cell, Li Meili was unraveling. The woman who once used charm like currency now screamed at shadows. The prison walls closed in tighter with each passing hour. She had no more allies. No more favors. Only silence.

"He promised me," she sobbed to her public defender. "Mochen promised. He said he'd help. He used me—used me and left me to die."

The lawyer didn't respond. He'd heard it all before. She sounded mad. Maybe she was. But she wasn't wrong. Mochen had buried her—quietly, efficiently. Yuhan had done the rest.

And Yuhan?

He was alone in his study, eyes scanning the screen as data came in. As expected, the number was useless. But the message origin was traced—barely. A gated neighborhood. Discreet. The kind of place where secrets were protected behind perfectly manicured lawns.

Not one of Chief Adekunle's usual spots.

A chill slid down his spine.

That's when the second notification came.

A secure email.

Subject: Your Father's Business

Yuhan hesitated. His father, Chief Li, had always been careful. His businesses were clean—or so Yuhan believed. He'd never once interfered in Yuhan's affairs, nor Mochen's. He was the last man Yuhan thought needed watching.

The email contained one thing.

A photo.

Old. Sepia-toned. His father, young, vibrant, laughing with another man.

Yuhan's chest tightened.

The other man was Chief Adekunle.

They were standing in front of a building Yuhan half-remembered from childhood—one his father had abruptly divested from, never explaining why.

He stared at the photo for a long time.

His thoughts were loud. Scattered.

Did he know? Did he lie? Did he protect me… or protect himself?

Everything inside him warred—the son who believed in his father, and the man who had learned to doubt everyone.

The message sender had chosen well. They hadn't threatened him. They had done something far worse.

They'd made him question the one person he'd never questioned before.

Yuhan closed the laptop slowly.

The game had changed again.

And this time, the enemy wasn't in some rival firm or back alley political office.

This time, it was in his blood.