Chapter 10: The Architect
---
Power changes you.
Not in the way people expect — not into something wicked, or cruel, or unrecognizable.
It sharpens you.
It peels back softness like armor that no longer fits.
You don't become something else.
You become what the world tried to bury.
I stood at the center of Grant Tower's war room — no longer a pawn or a stolen heiress.
No longer a victim of the mask they'd built me to wear.
I was Ava Grant.
Daughter of Sophia.
And I had one final name to uncover.
---
"The drive Mira gave us contained a buried string," Naomi explained. She pointed to the screen, where thousands of file trees glowed in digital blue.
"A master file nested beneath the Persephone data. Encrypted with a protocol even Lucian's team couldn't crack manually."
Lucian stood behind me, arms crossed, eyes locked on the screen.
"Whoever created it didn't want to be found," he said.
Naomi nodded. "But they left one breadcrumb. A transmission code registered to a personal server — not corporate."
She tapped in a command, and a name appeared on screen.
***
Errol Maddox
Lucian's jaw tightened. "He's supposed to be dead."
I turned slowly. "Who is he?"
Lucian's voice was low. "Sophia's mentor. The real founder of Cygna Labs. He vanished just after she did. Some say he fled to avoid prosecution. Others say… he was erased."
Naomi pulled up a second file — an obituary with no photo, no listed cause of death, and no funeral records.
"He faked it," she said.
Lucian stepped forward. "If he's alive, he's the Architect. The one who designed the Persephone trials."
---
It took Naomi and Lucian's combined networks twelve hours to find the location.
An old manor in the northern coast. Secluded. Remote. Purchased under a false name twenty years ago — and completely off-grid.
It had to be him.
I insisted on going alone.
Lucian fought me on it for six of those twelve hours.
"I won't let you walk into a trap," he said, voice sharp.
"I'm not asking for permission," I replied. "I'm telling you — this ends with me."
Naomi backed me.
"She has to look him in the eye," she told Lucian. "Just like Sophia did."
---
The manor was built on a cliffside.
Its windows overlooked the jagged rocks and churning sea below.
It was almost poetic — the perfect vantage point for a man who had built his legacy on controlling people's minds.
The sky was gray when I arrived.
Fog licked the trees as I stepped through the rusted gate.
The house itself was silent. Cold.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, it smelled of salt and dust and old books. The kind of place time forgot — or chose to avoid.
I found him in a study lined with oak panels and bookshelves filled with leather tomes.
He was sitting in a chair by the fireplace, a shawl wrapped around his shoulders, a glass of wine in hand.
Old. Pale. Eyes like pale marbles under thin lids.
He didn't turn when I entered.
"I wondered how long it would take you," he said.
---
"I expected something more dramatic," I said.
"No need," he replied calmly. "You've already burned down the stage."
I stepped closer. "Errol Maddox."
He smiled faintly. "That name hasn't mattered in years."
"It will now," I said. "Because I'm going to make sure the world remembers it."
He nodded. "Then sit. Hear the truth before you write the ending."
I stayed standing.
"Suit yourself," he said, sipping the wine. "They think I designed Persephone. But I didn't."
I frowned. "You're lying."
"No. I engineered the theory. The application — the testing, the manipulation, the control — that was your mother."
---
The words hit me like a slap.
I didn't believe him. I couldn't.
"My mother would never—"
"She was brilliant," he said. "Dangerously so. She wanted to create a psychological firewall — a program that could identify emotional corruption in early development. She wanted to create protectors, not pawns."
I stared at him.
"But as the board pressured her, as the stakes grew… she compromised. The first subject was you. When you resisted, she shut the program down."
I whispered, "She saved me."
He looked at me, gaze sharp. "She created you."
---
Silence stretched.
The fire crackled.
I reached into my coat and pulled out a small recorder.
"This goes public," I said. "Your name. The truth. Everything."
Errol chuckled. "Do you think I care? I'm already dead."
"No," I said. "You're not."
I stepped closer.
"You're still pulling strings. Still hiding in shadows. But I'm done hiding. You killed her."
His eyes flickered.
"You think you know the truth," he murmured. "But there's always one more mask."
He tossed something onto the table.
A photo.
It was of me.
But not just me.
Lucian stood beside me — younger. Dressed in a lab coat.
My blood ran cold.
---
"He was one of ours," Errol said softly. "Before the crash. Before the fire. Before he forgot who he was."
I shook my head. "No…"
"He loved her," Errol said. "Sophia. She trusted him. And he betrayed her — just like I did. That's why he tried to die with her."
---
I staggered back.
Lucian? Part of Persephone?
It didn't make sense. He had been my rock. My truth.
And yet… the way he knew things. The way he said "we designed it."
Had he always known?
Or had he forgotten?
Or worse — had he chosen not to remember?
---
"I should kill you," I said.
"You won't," he said. "Because you still want answers."
He wasn't wrong.
But that didn't make him safe.
I turned, leaving the recorder on the table.
"I'll let the world bury you," I said. "For good this time."
---
Outside, the wind had risen.
Lucian was waiting by the car.
His face was unreadable.
"I know," he said before I spoke. "I knew he'd tell you."
I stared at him.
"So it's true?"
"I was part of it once," he admitted. "But not like them. I believed in Sophia. I protected you when she disappeared."
"You never told me."
"I didn't remember — not fully. Until Mira. Until I saw the files. It came back in fragments. But I didn't want to be that man again."
I stepped closer.
"Then be this one," I said. "The one who helps me end it."
---
That night, we broadcast the final message.
The full files. The founding names. The programs. The crimes.
And the voice recording.
The world exploded.
Lawsuits. Arrests. Investigations.
The board collapsed.
The Dawsons disappeared.
And for the first time… silence.
---
A week later, I stood in front of Sophia's grave.
No flowers. No crowd.
Just me.
"I finished it," I said quietly. "They can't hurt anyone now."
Lucian stepped beside me, placing something on the headstone.
My mother's locket.
"I found it in Mira's vault," he said. "I think she wanted you to have it."
Inside the locket: a photo of me. A single strand of hair. And a message etched in gold.
"She was never a mistake. She was the cure."
---
We walked away in silence.
Not with victory.
But with something better.
Peace.