The last time I saw my father, he looked like a ghost—a withered shell of the man who once ruled our world with the ease of someone who had long ago learned the price of power. I almost didn’t recognize him, but then again, who could blame me? It’s not like I’d spent the last few years getting Christmas cards or family photos. And yet, here he was—Anthony Rossi, my father, alive against all odds, and sitting in a safe house looking more like a worn-out book than the towering figure I’d remembered.
"You're late," he said, his voice weak, but there was still something in it that made me sit up straighter.
I had expected a lot of things from this reunion—tears, anger, confusion, the usual family drama—but what I wasn’t prepared for was the simple honesty in his eyes. He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time in years, and I realized I was doing the same thing.
"Don’t get any ideas," he added, chuckling weakly. "I'm not dead yet."
It was strange, seeing him like this. But the truth was stranger than the image of him. My father—my father—had faked his death, and he had done it for one reason: revenge. Or rather, to collect the evidence he needed to bring down Senator Richard Winslow, the man who had murdered my mother.
"Your mother didn’t die from some silly complication during childbirth," he said, his voice suddenly sharp. "She was murdered. Killed because she found out what Winslow was doing at Kingsley High."
I blinked, processing that. "Murdered? What are you talking about?"
"Your mother wasn’t just some housewife," he continued. "She was a scientist, a genius, and she found out about the illegal experiments Winslow was running at Kingsley. He was testing mind control drugs on students—children, Scarlett. And when she got too close, he had her silenced."
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, and yet I couldn’t look away. "Why didn’t you tell me?"
"Because I had to protect you," he said softly. "I made sure you were safe, away from all of this... until now. I had to pretend to work with Thorne. Pretend to be part of her game. But everything I’ve done was to protect you from the truth. From the monster that killed your mother."
It didn’t seem real. Nothing did anymore. My mother, a victim of a conspiracy I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest nightmares. And Winslow, the senator who was supposed to represent everything good and pure about this country, was nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer.
But as my father’s words started to sink in, something else occurred to me. If my mother had been right about everything, if Winslow was capable of such horrors... what did that make me? A part of this legacy? A piece of the puzzle?
Before I could formulate any of these thoughts, Liam entered the room, his face tense as ever. He handed me something—an old, grainy recording. I felt my blood run cold as he hit play.
"Scarlett," my mother’s voice crackled from the speakers, "protect Richard... he’s not... he wasn’t... he’s not evil, Scarlett. Not... not like them."
I felt my legs go weak. My mother, on her deathbed, had tried to protect Richard Winslow. The very man who had killed her. The man I had spent years hating.
Liam looked at me, his expression unreadable. "Winslow is my father, Scarlett."
The room spun. Winslow was his father? This was more than I could handle. Not only was my mother a victim of his, but now I was tangled up in a web of lies and blood that stretched back farther than I could ever have imagined.
“Your mother tried to protect him, Scarlett,” Liam said softly. “She didn’t know what Winslow would become. He didn’t kill her on purpose. It was an accident.”
I wanted to scream. This wasn’t supposed to be the truth. This was impossible.
But there it was.
"Thorne—she manipulated all of us," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "She was using Winslow’s guilt against him. All these years."
Liam nodded slowly. "And she used me to keep him under control."
I wanted to collapse. But I had no time for that. There was no time for grief or self-pity. Not now.
The rest of the team had been busy with their own discoveries. Chloe, with her sharp mind and uncanny ability to dig through pharmaceutical data, had uncovered something else entirely. "Scarlett," she said, walking in, looking more solemn than I’d ever seen her. "The drugs... the ones that caused your mother’s death—they weren’t just being tested on students. They were being mass-produced. And guess where they came from?"
I knew the answer before she even spoke. "Your family’s lab."
Her eyes hardened. "The same lab that’s been supplying these chemicals for years."
Suddenly, everything was connected in a way that felt like a bad dream. The drugs, the conspiracy, my family—Chloe’s family—Winslow, Thorne... and now, Liam and I caught in the middle of it all.
And then the real kicker came.
We had a plan, a dangerous plan that would change everything.
We would confront Winslow, right in front of the whole world, at his campaign rally. We would expose him for the monster he was. And this time, no one would be able to hide the truth.
As we walked toward the stage, the cameras flashing, Scarlett Rossi—the black sheep, the daughter of a dead man—took her stand. This was the moment. Winslow would either fall, or we would. But no matter what, we would finally get the answers we’d been searching for.
The truth was out there, but it wasn’t going to be easy to swallow.
And I had a feeling we were all about to choke on it.
But I wasn’t backing down.
Not this time.
This time, I was going to make sure everyone knew what happened.