Keifer's PoV
Night draped itself over the Watson estate like a velvet shroud, thick enough to smother the moonlight and heavy enough to press on my lungs. Perfect. Kaizer liked darkness — thrived in it — but he also believed it obeyed him. He forgot that shadows belong to anyone willing to step into them.
I moved silently through the east wing corridor, every footfall measured, every breath shallow. The servants' quarters had long been abandoned, their windows boarded over, their carpets rotting into moth-eaten strips. But beneath the decay, beneath the dust and disuse, lay the archive.
Mom used to call it the heart of the old house. A place where the Watson family stored its secrets before digital servers existed. A place Kaizer pretended no longer mattered.
He should've burned it.
My fingers found the hidden panel behind a cracked portrait of my great-grandfather — a man whose scowl looked eerily like Kaizer's. I pushed the panel inward. The wood groaned, protesting decades of stillness.
A cold draft kissed my face.
I stepped inside.
The room smelled of old paper and older guilt. Metal drawers lined the walls, each labeled in faded ink. Ledgers. Receipts. Contracts. Correspondence. But Mom once told me the most dangerous truths are never written plainly. They're buried in footnotes, coded phrases, misfiled documents.
I closed the door behind me and flicked on my phone's flashlight. Rows of cabinets glimmered weakly under the beam. Okay, Mom. What were you trying to show me?
I headed for the farthest corner — the section marked Financial — 1998-2015. That was the period she'd been investigating before Manila, before she started locking her office door, before she began glancing over her shoulder like every hallway was a threat.
I pulled open a drawer. Bank statements. Charitable fund allocations. Offshore transfers.
Normal at a glance. Rotten when examined closely.
A pattern emerged — one I'd seen in her journal sketches. Money routed through shell organizations. Some that didn't exist on paper. Some that traced back to names I recognized from Kaizer's "charity partners."
And one name that chilled the blood in my veins:
Argent Meridian Group.
I froze, heart punching against my ribs.
Mom had whispered that name to me once — not meaning to, fever-dazed and half-asleep near the end. I'd thought it was nonsense.
But it was here. On the documents. Dozens of times. A financial ghost.
A puppet master behind Kaizer's most "philanthropic" ventures. I sifted deeper, faster, my pulse thrumming with urgency.
Then my hand brushed something thin and stiff — a sealed envelope tucked where it shouldn't be. No label. No date. My mother's handwriting on the flap.
To be opened only by Keifer.
My throat tightened.
I slid a fingernail under the seal — but footsteps echoed in the hallway.
I snapped off my flashlight and dropped into a crouch, breath locked in my chest.
Heavy footsteps.
Too heavy for Lizbeth. Too soft for Kaizer.
Security…..Yes
"East wing cleared," a voice murmured through a radio. "Nothing unusual."
They were close. Too close.
I clutched the envelope, tucking it inside my coat. The documents would have to wait. The truth inside them would have to wait.
But the letter?
That was coming with me. A shadow crossed the panel door. Whoever it was lingered — listening. My hand hovered over the nearest cabinet handle, ready to rip it open and cause a distraction if I needed to bolt.
Then a voice spoke — low, uncertain.
Jay?
No.
Not Jay. How can it be jay?
But someone I didn't expect.
"Sir Keifer?" a whisper slipped through the crack of the door. "It's me. Lizbeth."
I exhaled shakily. The footsteps faded. I stood and opened the panel just enough to see her terrified eyes. She clasped her hands together as though praying I wasn't angry.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered urgently. "Not tonight."
"I have to be," I said. "I found something—"
"No." Her voice broke. "Not this way. He's preparing something. A meeting. With people who don't appear on the estate records."
Argent Meridian.
Had to be. I stepped fully out of the archive.
"Lizbeth… you knew, didn't you?"
Her silence was answer enough.
She closed her eyes.
"Your mother trusted me. She said if you ever went to the archives, it would mean Kaizer forced your hand. She asked me to protect you."
My grip tightened around the envelope. "Then help me. Tell me what's going on."
She shook her head, trembling. "I can't. But… someone else can."
"Who?"
Lizbeth swallowed hard. "Your uncle."
"My… what?"
"You think Kaizer is the only Watson with power?" she whispered. "You've never met the one who walked away."
Before I could speak, she pressed something cold into my palm — a key, old and iron, carved with an insignia I didn't recognize.
"Midnight," she said. "Greenhouse No. 3. Come alone."
The hallway lights flickered. We both froze.
Lizbeth stepped back, masking her panic with the composure of someone who'd learned to survive under Kaizer's roof.
"Good night, Sir Keifer," she said loudly, for the cameras.
Then she disappeared into the dark. I stood there, heart pounding, envelope burning like a coal against my chest.
An uncle I'd never met. A secret organization tied to my mother's death. An estate crawling with surveillance.
Midnight. Greenhouse No. 3.
The next move was mine.
And this time, I wasn't just going to uncover the past.
I was going to confront it.
End of Chapter 40
Hi guys….I'm so sorry I didn't post for soo long…..I lost my acc and just got it back today