The monitors flat-lined with a shrill, endless tone that drilled into every skull in the room. Nurses shoved past, defibrillator paddles already charging, but Don Armando's chest stayed still. The old man was gone, and the envelope in Jamieson's hand felt heavier than the corpse.
Victor's face twisted first—shock, then something uglier. He lunged again, but the guards were faster this time, pinning his arms before he cleared two steps. His voice cracked open like a fault line.
"He's not even my son!"
The words detonated.
Elias staggered back a step, eyes wide, mouth working soundlessly. Valentina's manicured hand flew to her throat. Lourdes froze mid-reach toward Jamieson, her fingers curling into claws that never touched him.
Victor thrashed in the guards' grip, veins bulging at his temples. "Nineteen years ago, Lourdes fucked some shit fucker. Nine months later—boom—this bastard slides out. I raised him anyway, fed him, clothed him, made him scrub my floors like the help he is. And now you give him everything?"
Spit flew from his lips. The room's temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees.
Elias found his voice, high and incredulous. "You're telling me Jamie's a… a cuckoo's egg? And the old man hands him the keys to the kingdom?"
Valentina's laugh was brittle, hysterical. "Oh my God. All those years you made him kneel, Dad, and he wasn't even—"
"Shut your mouth," Victor snarled at her, then rounded on Jamieson. "You think paper makes you blood? You're a mistake, boy. A walking, talking infidelity. You don't get a dime. I'll burn every account before I let a bastard touch Castillo money."
Jamieson stood rooted, the envelope a molten weight against his ribs. The rage he'd nursed for years surged, but beneath it something colder cracked open—betrayal sharp as glass. All the chores, the humiliations, the kneel, boy—none of it had been about earning love. It had been punishment for existing.
Lourdes's face drained of color. She took one trembling step toward Victor. "You swore we'd never—"
"I swore I'd keep your secret if you kept your legs closed after," Victor spat. "Guess we both lied."
The doctor tried to intervene, voice shaking. "Señores, the patient—"
Don Armando's eyes snapped open.
The room went dead silent except for the hiss of oxygen and the paddles' whine. The old man's chest hitched once, twice—impossible, but there it was. His claw-like hand shot out, clamped Jamieson's wrist with a strength that belonged to a younger man.
"My word… is final," he rasped, each syllable scraped from his throat. Blood flecked his lips. "Jamieson is Castillo. My daughter's son. My blood. Doesn't matter whose seed. He is mine."
Victor roared, straining so hard the guards' boots skidded on marble. "He's a stranger's whelp!"
Armando's gaze cut to Victor like a machete. "You married into my name, cabró. You never earned it. Jamieson worked the docks at fourteen. Learned the routes. Carried crates while your soft son counted money on screens. He is the grandson I chose."
He turned to Jamieson, eyes fever-bright. "The will is iron. The men outside—my soldiers—answer to the envelope. Contest it, and they bury you in the jungle. All of you."
A wet cough wracked him. The monitors screamed again. This time the nurses didn't bother with paddles; they simply stepped back.
Armando's grip slackened, but his stare stayed locked on Jamieson. "Protect… her," he whispered. "And take… what's yours."
His hand fell. The line went flat for good.
Victor sagged in the guards' arms, face slack with defeat and hatred. Elias looked like he'd been gut-punched. Valentina's eyes glittered—calculating new odds. Lourdes reached for Jamieson again, tears cutting mascara rivers down her cheeks.
"Jamieson—"
He stepped back, out of her reach. The envelope burned. The betrayal burned hotter. He was nineteen, a bastard, and suddenly the richest, most dangerous man in the room.
Victor's voice came out broken, venomous. "Enjoy it while it lasts, *boy*. Blood always tells."
Jamieson met his eyes—Victor's, Elias's, Valentina's, finally Lourdes's. The alpha in him rose, no longer leashed.
"Blood?" he said, voice low, lethal. "I just became the only blood that matters."
He turned to the guards. "Take Mr. Hargrove to the guest wing. Lock the door. No phones. No visitors."
The men moved instantly. Victor's shouts echoed down the corridor as they dragged him away.
Jamieson looked at the envelope, then at the empire waiting beyond the villa walls. The shock still ricocheted through his bones, but the rage had shape now—cold, surgical, absolute.
Lourdes's lips trembled. "Mijo—"
"Don't," he said. The word cracked like a whip. "Not anymore."
He walked out of the death room, boots ringing on marble, every armed man in the villa falling in step behind him. The bastard had inherited the throne.