Some inherit crowns. Others inherit ruin.
The city was a glittering lie at night—bright on the surface, hollow underneath. Nathan Voss sat in the back of a sleek black car, unmoving as the skyline slid past his window. The towers of Vosstech glowed in the distance like the throne of a kingdom he never asked to rule.
It had been eighteen years since the fire. Since the crash that silenced two lives and buried the truth under twisted metal. The world called it a tragedy. He called it a warning.
He was ten when it happened.
Ten when everything was stolen from him.
Now he was twenty-eight—older, colder, and returning with only one goal: take back what's his… and uncover who tried to bury him along with his parents.
His fingers drummed softly against the leather seat. No hesitation. No fear. The boy who screamed in the flames was long gone.
The man who rose from them was made of ash and vengeance.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Quinn stood in the corner of a buzzing art studio, her arms crossed as she studied her own painting under the track lights. The piece was bold—streaks of orange and crimson curling like smoke over shadowed steel. It didn't need a title. It was a memory.
And a warning.
Her heart thudded as she looked at it. This was the first time she'd shown it publicly. The first time she'd let that night out of her mind and onto a canvas. The night her father had come home shaking, carrying a boy whose name he never revealed. The boy she'd never forgotten.
Her fingers itched. Her chest felt too tight.
"I see it in flashes," she'd told her brother weeks ago. "I wasn't supposed to remember—but I do. I see it in dreams. I felt it. That night… it changed everything."
"Then paint it," he said. "Tell the truth, even if no one else understands it."
So she did.
Now, people walked by her vision, sipping champagne and murmuring. They saw art.
But Stephanie saw him.
Somewhere out there, that boy was a man now. Alive. Lost. Or maybe worse—controlled by the same power that tried to destroy him.
She didn't expect him to ever see this painting.
She didn't expect the ghost from that night to walk into this very gallery.
But fate never cared about timing.
It only cared about collisions.