THE BILLIONAIRE'S CURSE
Episode 7: Echoes of Genesis
Chapter 1: The Woman in White
Celeste Monroe stood by the edge of the old warehouse, her white coat brushing against her boots, eyes fixed on Aiden. For a long time, neither of them spoke. She was older now, but her features echoed the child Aiden saw in flashes—fragments of a past long buried.
"You remember, don't you?" Celeste said quietly.
"Pieces," Aiden admitted.
"You were the only one who made it through Stage Four. That made you their obsession. And me? Their warning."
Elena watched from a distance, unsure whether to trust this woman. Celeste's presence felt like a collision, the meeting point of two traumas, crashing against one another after years of haunting silence. Aiden's heart thudded. Each second in Celeste's presence peeled back layers he had spent decades burying.
Chapter 2: Beneath the Surface
Celeste led them down into the underbelly of a derelict property owned by Wolf Enterprises. Beneath the concrete and rusted steel was a sublevel, untouched for decades. Inside, faded documents, sealed vials, and genetic logs were preserved in glass cases like exhibits of horror.
Aiden picked up a folder labeled Project Genesis. It contained his name. Elena's breath caught when she saw hers.
"What is this?" she asked, voice trembling.
Celeste looked away. "You weren't part of the trials, but your family line intersects. Grathmore tracked genetic predispositions. You were supposed to be monitored, not involved. Until now."
Elena's mind reeled. Her past, always a blur of mystery, was now interlaced with something darker. She stared at her name, inked beside data she never understood.
Chapter 3: The Genome Key
They discovered that Project Genesis was more than a behavioral experiment. It was the blueprint for building controllable human assets—emotionally volatile, physically enhanced, neurologically bound to impulses. Aiden wasn't born with the curse. He was bred for it.
Celeste handed over a chip. "This is the master log. Everything they did to you. Everyone who funded it."
Elena looked at Aiden, his face unreadable. Behind that quiet exterior, his mind reeled with memories he never knew he had. Training, monitoring, loss. They weren't symptoms. They were side effects.
"I thought I was sick," he said. "But I was made."
Chapter 4: Dangerous Offerings
News of the Genesis chip spread fast. Aiden's corporate rivals began to circle like vultures. Offers came in for the chip, masked as merger deals, private acquisitions, and false partnerships. One came from Morgan Vale, a polished venture capitalist known for ruthlessness wrapped in charm.
Morgan met Aiden on neutral ground.
"You're holding a key to the future," she said. "Sell it to someone who knows how to use it. Before someone else takes it."
Aiden refused. Within hours, there was an attempt on Elena's life.
Chapter 5: The Pulse
Elena survived, but barely. The bullet had missed her by inches. Aiden doubled security and sent her into hiding, but she refused to disappear.
"If I vanish, they win," she said. "And you lose me."
Her bravery made him ache. She wore her wounds with steel in her spine. Every time she touched his hand, she anchored him to a reality worth fighting for. But the guilt gnawed at him. This war was his legacy. And now it had a body count.
Celeste warned them the worst was still coming. "Genesis was only the prototype. They've already started the second phase."
Chapter 6: Origins of the Machine
The team traced the next phase of Genesis to a private research facility in Iceland, owned by a shell corporation. Aiden assembled a trusted group—his old military advisor Nolan, Celeste, and Elena.
The facility wasn't abandoned. It was operational, masked as a climate tech site. Inside, rows of cryogenic tanks held failed subjects, some still alive, suspended in chemically-induced nightmares.
The air inside was cold, sterile, but saturated with the scent of forgotten agony. One tank bore the label: Subject Zero.
Aiden's heart stopped. The man inside had his face.
Chapter 7: Reflections in Glass
Subject Zero wasn't Aiden's clone. He was his twin. Born minutes apart. But only Aiden had survived the public life. The other had been kept underground, studied, broken, and reforged.
Celeste was horrified. "He's not stable. If they wake him, they'll unleash something you can't contain."
Aiden stood at the tank, watching his mirror image twitch under sedation. The reflection stared back with unknowable rage.
"Then we make sure they never wake him."
Chapter 8: Lines in Blood
As they prepared to destroy the facility, Celeste hesitated. She believed they could still save Subject Zero. Aiden disagreed.
"If he's a weapon, they'll come for him. We either save him now or stop him forever."
The team split. Celeste stayed behind. Aiden and Elena rigged the core. She held his hand as the countdown began.
Explosions rocked the icy cliffs as fire devoured the lab. Whether Subject Zero survived, no one knew.
Chapter 9: The Return to Ashes
Back in New York, the world began to shift. The media broke stories about genetic trials, private experiments, and Aiden's connection to a shadow industry. Protesters lined outside Wolf Enterprises. Investors pulled out.
But Aiden didn't waver. He gave a press conference and told the world everything. About Genesis. About Grathmore. About himself.
Elena stood beside him, her hand in his. Her eyes didn't blink through the camera flashes.
"I was born from a lie," he said. "But I choose truth. Even if it costs me everything."
Chapter 10: The Offer
The government wanted the Genesis chip. Not to destroy it, but to study it. Enhance it.
Aiden refused.
That night, someone broke into their penthouse. Not to steal, but to deliver a message: a box containing Celeste's necklace and a single word etched in blood-red ink.
Awakened.
Subject Zero was alive.
[To be continued in Episode 8: Shadows Divide]