It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck him. A blinding, searing white light exploded in the chaotic darkness of Hans''s mind!


    Fragmented memories, like jagged shards of shattered ss, sliced through the thick, imprable fog that had smothered his heart for so long.


    The handsome and beautiful faces of the Ashbourne family flooded his mind like a fast-forwarding film.


    He heard Cassius calling him ''Hubery''. He saw a teenage Evadne sitting on a sun- drenched garden bench, holding a fluffy white puppy and sweetly calling him ''Hubery''.


    Finally, the reel stopped dead on Suri''s gentle, loving face.


    "Hubery..."


    Hans''s chest heaved violently. He braced one hand heavily against the console to keep from copsing, his other hand clutching the fabric over his heart. Huge beads of cold sweat rolled down his sharp, clenched jawline.


    Hubery. Hubery...


    Was his real name Hans, or... Hubery?


    Hans didn''t dare look at the horrific, bloody carnage on the main monitor.


    He was terrified that if he looked even for a second, his tightly coiled heart wouldpletely detonate inside his chest.


    "Boss? Boss? Are you okay?!"


    Seeing Hans''s deathly pale face, one of the guards asked with genuine concern, "Is your headache acting up again? Ms. Alexia said you absolutely have to take your meds when this happens! We''ll go get them right now!"


    "Don''t!"


    Hans forcefully shut his eyes. Suri''s warm, smiling face vanished into thin air, leaving his chestpletely hollowed out, reced only by a bone-deep, agonizing pain. "I''m fine. I don''t need the pills. Keep that trash away from me!"


    The guards exchanged hesitant looks. "But Ms. Alexia said....."


    Hans''s eyes turned terrifyingly lethal. "What? Does my word mean less than hers?" The guards shivered. "..."


    He finally realized it. The medicine Chad Abernathy had been forcing Alexia to feed him for years was practically poison. Every time a migraine hit the pills would suppress the pain, but they would also systematically wipe out his emotions and memories


    Every single time familiar yet foreign faces flickered in his mind, the drugs would short-circuit his brain, erasing those ghosts like they were nothing more than a vivid hallucination.


    Worse yet, the constant suppression killed his ability to care about anything or anyone. He was incapable of making emotional connections.


    He was reduced to a machine, mindlessly executing Chad''s orders over and over again.


    That bastard had been pulling his strings like a mindless puppet, entirely controlling his existence.


    He refused to live like this anymore. He wasn''t going to be a ghost trapped in a monster''s body for another second!


    His phone suddenly buzzed.


    Hans took a ragged breath and shakily pulled it from his pocket. The screen shed with Alexia''s name.


    He locked his trembling jaw, using


    every ounce of willpower to force his


    emotions down He answered the phone with dark, dead eyes the muscles across his shoulders bunching with suppressed rage.


    "What is it?"


    "I hear the Bright Group problem has been handled?"


    Alexia''s voice waszy and arrogant, like she was discussing taking out the trash. "Sir wants you to


    personally go down there and Verify. If they aren''tpletely dead end them yourself."


    Hans clenched his fist. "I have other things to deal with. I can''t leave."


    "What could possibly be more important than this?"


    Alexia sneered. "Just go. You know exactly what happens when you defy Sir."