The Fall and the Shadow of Power

The news exploded like a grenade in the feigned calm of the elite.

"The Carter family linked to human trafficking and genetic manipulation network."

"Leaked documents expose secrets of the Aurora Foundation."

"Victims speak out. Helena Blake, one of them."

Screens were burning. Social media was a battlefield. And amid the fire, the Carter family wasn't just trying to survive — they were planning a counterattack.

⸻

Victoria Carter watched the headlines with a glass of cognac in hand, impassive as if she had lived through it all before. In front of her, a team of lawyers, image consultants, and crisis specialists crafted a strategy to cleanse the family name before it sank with them.

"The first step is to discredit the files," she ordered without raising her voice. "Yes, they were leaked, but we can still sow doubt. Helena will be portrayed as a mentally unstable woman, a victim of paranoid delusions, fueled by Julián — a resentful, jealous son."

One advisor hesitated.

"What if the media doesn't cooperate?"

Victoria offered a chilling smile.

"Everyone has a price. Those who don't, have fear. And if they don't have it… they will."

⸻

Lauren, from the discretion of a downtown apartment, listened to the same news. But unlike the Carters, her plan wasn't to survive — it was to destroy.

She had seen the leak in real time. Part of her celebrated; another, darker part, knew her role was yet to come. The world still didn't know what Victoria had done to her. What Nathaniel had taken from her. What Helena had achieved… and what she would never have.

"Your turn, dear Victoria," she whispered, sliding a chip into a laptop. "I've learned to hurt you in your own language."

On the screen, the file name blinked: AURORA-ORIGINS-FINAL.docx

⸻

Nathaniel, for his part, neither slept nor ate nor thought clearly.

From his father's office — the very one that had witnessed so many lies — he watched the city burn from above. The lights seemed colder. More distant.

Everything he believed true had died with a confession.

His mother, that distant yet omnipresent beacon, had told him the truth. Not all of it, he knew, but enough to understand he had been shaped, manipulated, used as a weapon.

And at the center of it all… Helena.

She was the crack. The mirror reflecting what he had lost. Her light was unbearable. And at the same time, addictive.

It wasn't just love. It was a visceral craving to possess the only thing that made him feel human.

An alert vibrated on his phone.

Location: Confirmed. Helena and Julián in safe house. Communication intercepted.

Nathaniel smiled, but it was a twisted grin. A reflection of his father.

"I won't kill her," he murmured. "But I will make her come back. At any cost."

⸻

Julián slammed his laptop shut.

"They're tracking us," he said, his face pale. "They intercepted the signal. We have to move again."

Helena, sitting across from him, barely reacted. Her gaze was fixed on a photograph she had just enlarged. It was time to tell him everything.

An image of the underground lab. A face reflected on one of the steel surfaces.

It wasn't a scientist.

It wasn't a guard.

It was Victoria.

"She was there," Helena whispered, cold. "Not just an accomplice. One of the founders."

Julián approached slowly.

"Are you sure?"

Helena nodded, clenching her jaw.

"I'm going to get close to her. I'll pretend to know nothing. I need more. I need to understand how it all began."

Julián looked at her, heart in his throat.

"That's very dangerous, Helena."

"There's nothing safe anymore, Julián. If we want to end this… I have to get to the core. And no one is closer to the fire than Victoria Carter."

⸻

That night, while the Carter family negotiated their image like another property to save, while Lauren encoded files capable of breaking empires, and while Nathaniel mentally wrote his revenge in invisible ink, Helena took the first step toward the heart of the storm.