The Paralyzed Mafia Boss Thought She Was Just Another Caregiver / Chapter 50 / 60

Chapter 50 - The Iron Cradle

The eyes were not those of a dying, senile victim. They were sharp, piercing, and a startling, familiar shade of hazel-green.

Arthur’s gaze locked directly onto Sadi.

"Arthur..." Desmond choked out, pressing his hands against the glass. "Father..."

"Desmond," the old man's voice came through the synthetic speaker, weak but unmistakably commanded with the authority of an absolute monarch. "You should not have come back for me."

"Shut up! We're getting you out!" Desmond yelled. "Sadi, find the manual drainage valve!"

"There is no manual valve, Desmond," Arthur whispered. "The system is locked to the bloodline covenant. The secondary heir isn't Vivienne. And it isn't Liam."

Arthur turned his head slowly within the fluid, looking at Sadi with a mixture of profound sorrow and unbearable guilt.

"Sadi," Arthur said, the sound vibrating through the speakers. "Put your hand on the right scanner."

Sadi froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "What? No... Vivienne is my mother. I'm not a Gallagher."

"Your mother was Vivienne Sterling," Arthur said, a tear escaping his eye and dissolving into the suspension fluid. "And thirty years ago, before the Latitudes tried to butcher us all... before I locked myself in this tomb to keep the Ledger out of their hands... Vivienne was my wife."

The room seemed to tilt on its axis.

Desmond snapped his head toward Sadi, his eyes widening in pure, paralyzed shock.

"No," Sadi breathed, stumbling backward away from the console. "No, no, no... that's impossible. That would mean..."

"You are my daughter, Sadi," Arthur Gallagher spoke the terrible truth into the crimson-lit room. "And Desmond is your half-brother."

Before Sadi could scream, before Desmond’s shattered mind could process the horror of the revelation, the massive blast door behind them buckled under a colossal explosion.

Through the smoke and twisted metal stepped not Vivienne, but a squad of men wearing unfamiliar, stark white uniforms—bearing the sigil of a black sun over a broken crown.

At their head stood a man with Arthur Gallagher’s exact bone structure, holding a gold-plated revolver. He looked barely thirty-five years old, smiling with chilling serenity.

"Hello, brother. Hello, sister," the stranger purred, cocking the hammer of the gun and aiming it straight between Sadi’s eyes. "Thank you for unlocking the vault. Father... it's time to die."