?Chapter 1523:


    Although Erebus had already fallen, and although he would face the Briggs family’s interrogation — and likely further retaliation from William after his release — none of that had mattered to him. Freedom alone would have been enough for him to begin again. If necessary, he could leave the country, rebuild his influence, and return at ater time.


    Even confined behind bars, he had never beenpletely cut off from what was happening outside. He was well aware of how tangled things were between William and Ste, and with William’s focus divided, it would not have taken long for him to seize a chance to step back into the Briggs Group.


    What he never anticipated was that the personying the trap would be Amon.


    “After everything I did to raise you, this is what I get in return.” Unable to restrain himself any longer, Alonzo struck his palm against the ss, leaving a clear print behind. “If it were not for me, you would be nothing. You are my son — how can you help people outside our family?”


    Across from him, Amon remainedpletely unmoved. He sat back in his chair, the receiver still pressed to his ear, his expression calm.


    “What you call raising me was beating me and tearing me down every time I made a mistake. You told me that if I failed to meet your standards, I would be discarded and stripped of my ce in the Briggs family.” He paused. “In that case, I really should thank you. Everything I am doing now started because of you.”


    Amon had been shaped by the wounds of his early years. He had never felt affection for his father, and his mother had died suddenly when he was still young. As a child living with the Briggs family, William had yed with him for a time — but this fledgling friendship was swiftly met with Alonzo’s wrath, not in public, but in private, where Amon faced harsh words and physical discipline.


    From the time he was small, the belief that he had to outdo William was drilled into him. Because Alonzo could not inherit the Briggs Group himself, he poured that resentment onto his son and forced him to shoulder ambitions that were never meant to be his. ording to Alonzo, Amon was expected to carry the same desires and drive as his father — desires that had always been clear: control over the entire Briggs family.


    Even though Amon had not disliked William as a child, Alonzo forced him to stop seeing him as a cousin. Soon after, he was sent overseas, and the indoctrination never stopped. Hatred surrounded his life like a constant fog, yet he never truly understood where it came from.


    “Father, everything that went wrong in my life happened because of you — not William, not the Briggs family. You alone.” Under Alonzo’s arrangements, he had been pushed into Erebus without ever being given the chance to refuse. Later, when he set his sights on William, he could no longer tell whether he genuinely craved power or whether he was still carrying the weight of Alonzo’s bitterness.


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    That question lingered unanswered — until Erebus finally fell apart.


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