PART 2.
The little boy had looked me straight in the eye and told me he was stealing my soil because he needed to bury his mother and his sister.
His name was Tommy Martinez, and death had become so ordinary to him that he could measure grief in buckets of dirt.
Then I learned that strange men had come looking for papers his mother had hidden before she died.
My assistant, Maria, searched the records and discovered that Tommy’s home in the Shadows belonged to one of my own subsidiaries.
A relocation order carried my company logo—and the words: OCCUPANTS TO BE REMOVED BEFORE FINAL MEDICAL REVIEW.
Then we found Tommy’s mother’s name beside an even darker instruction: PRIOR CONTACT — DO NOT DISCLOSE.
For a long moment, I simply stared at the screen.
Lucia Martinez.
Prior contact.
Do not disclose.
The words seemed to glow against the white background of Maria’s monitor.
“Who authorized this?”
I asked.
Maria was already typing.
“I’m checking.”
“Not the subsidiary.
Not the department.
A name.”
Her fingers moved faster.
I turned toward the glass wall overlooking the garden.
Tommy was sitting alone at one of the marble tables, wrapped in a blanket one of the staff had brought him.
A bowl of soup sat untouched in front of him.
The bucket was still beside his feet.
He had refused to let anyone take it.
Something about that rusted bucket made my stomach twist.
He had carried it through a hole in my security fence because he believed dirt was the only thing standing between his dead family and dignity.
And somehow, my company was involved.
“Alexander.”
Maria’s voice changed.
I turned.
She was no longer typing.
“What?”
“I found the authorization chain.”
She rotated the monitor.
There were six names.
I recognized five.
The sixth stopped me cold.
Victor Hale.
Executive Vice President of Strategic Development.
My oldest business partner.
The man who had helped me build Morgan Consolidated from three failing warehouses into an empire worth billions.
Victor had stood beside me at my father’s funeral.
He had been godfather to my daughter before she died.
He had keys to my homes.
He had access to almost everything.
“What exactly did he authorize?”
I asked.
Maria opened another file.
“Acquisition of the eastern rail corridor.
Emergency displacement authority.
Environmental containment.
Confidential settlement procedures.”
“Environmental containment?”
She nodded slowly.
“There are dozens of sealed attachments.”
“Open them.”
“I can’t.”
I looked at her.
“You can’t?”
“They require Hale-level clearance.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the absurdity was overwhelming.
“This is my company.”
Maria said nothing.
I took out my phone and called Victor.
He answered on the second ring.
“Alexander.”
His voice was relaxed.
Almost cheerful.
“I heard you canceled Hawthorne.
Should I assume the old man finally grew a spine and walked?”
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“My office.”
“Stay there.”
Another pause.
“Why?”
“I’m coming to see you.”
“Alexander—”
I ended the call.
Maria stood.
“That may not be wise.”
“Why?”
“Because if he’s involved, you just warned him.”
I stared at her.
She was right.
And I hated that she was right.
“Lock his access.”
“I already tried.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What happened?”
Maria’s face had gone pale again.
“He locked ours first.”
Before I could answer, my phone vibrated.
A message.
Unknown number.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
I opened it.
Tommy’s grandmother was standing beside the window of a decaying apartment.
Someone had taken the picture from outside.
Beneath it came a second message.
DON’T BRING THE BOY HOME.
My blood went cold.
I looked through the glass wall.
Tommy was still sitting in the garden.
I immediately called security.
“Seal the building.
Nobody enters or leaves without my authorization.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get Tommy inside.”
The security chief hesitated.
“Sir?”
“Now.”
Thirty seconds later, two guards approached the garden.
Tommy saw them.
His reaction was instant.
He grabbed the bucket and ran.
I rushed from the office.
“Tommy!”
He was halfway toward the hedge when one of the guards blocked him.
The boy swung the bucket like a weapon.
“Don’t touch me!”
The guard backed away.
“Tommy.”
He turned toward me.
His face was wild with fear.
“You lied!”
“I didn’t.”
“You said no police!”
“They’re not police.”
“You called people!”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“That’s what they said!”
The words stopped me.
I approached slowly.
“Who?”
Tommy’s breathing came fast.
“The men.”
“What men?”
“The ones who came for Grandma.”
I crouched in front of him.
“What did they say?”
His hands shook around the bucket handle.
“They said Mom had gotten involved with bad people.
They said they were protecting us.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else?”
“They said we should leave.”
“Leave where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Did your mother ever mention Morgan Consolidated?”
Tommy stared at me.
Then his expression changed.
Recognition.
Not of the company.
Of the name.
“Morgan?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the tower behind me.
Then back at my face.
“My mom knew a Morgan.”
The world seemed to narrow around us.
“What do you mean?”
“She said that name sometimes.”
“What exactly did she say?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember.
“She said… if something happened, Grandma should find Morgan.”
I barely breathed.
“Alexander Morgan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever say Alexander?”
Tommy shook his head.
Then suddenly he froze.
“No.”
“What?”
“She said Mr.
Morgan.”
My pulse slowed.
“Tommy, listen carefully.
Did your mother ever meet me?”
He studied my face.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did she ever show you a photograph?”
He looked down.
Then whispered, “Maybe.”
“Of who?”
“She had an old picture.”
“What picture?”
“She kept it with the papers.”
Maria stepped closer.
“What was in it?”
Tommy looked at her, then at me.
“Some men standing near machines.”
“How many men?”
“Four, maybe.”
“Was your mother in it?”
“No.”
“Did you recognize anyone?”
He hesitated.
“One man looked like you.”
A chill crawled along my spine.
“How old was the photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I look younger?”
He nodded.
Behind me, Maria whispered, “Alexander.”
I stood.
Something I had buried beneath thirty years of acquisitions, board meetings, funerals, marriages, lawsuits, and expansion suddenly resurfaced.
The eastern rail yard.
I had been there before.
Not two years ago.
Thirty-one years ago.
When Morgan Consolidated did not exist.
When Victor Hale and I were still young men desperate enough to buy anything banks considered worthless.
Our first serious investment had been an abandoned chemical-processing facility on the eastern side of the city.
Near the Shadows.
I had forgotten the name.
Or convinced myself I had.
Marrow Chemical.
The company collapsed after an industrial accident.
We purchased several of its assets through bankruptcy.
Then sold them.
At least, I thought we had.
“Maria.”
“Yes?”
“Find everything from our first five years.
Before digitization.”
“That could take—”
“Start with Marrow Chemical.”
Her face changed.
“You remember something?”
“Not enough.”
I looked at Tommy.
“We’re going to your grandmother.”
His eyes widened.
“No.”
“She may be in danger.”
“She said not to bring anybody!”
“I know.”
“Then listen to her!”
His anger was fierce.
For a second, I saw Lucia in him without ever having met her.
A woman who had apparently hidden documents powerful men wanted badly enough to terrorize her grieving mother.
“Tommy,” I said, “the people threatening your grandmother may work for me.”
His face went blank.
Children understand betrayal differently from adults.
Adults look for motives.
Children look for villains.
And in that moment, I saw him trying to decide whether I was one.
“Then why should I go with you?”
Because I own the company?
Because I have armed security?
Because I can destroy the careers of everyone involved?
All of those answers sounded weak.
So I told him the truth.
“You shouldn’t trust me.”
Maria looked at me.
Tommy did too.
“But your mother may have been trying to reach someone named Morgan.
If that was me, I need to know why.
If it wasn’t me, we need to find out who it was.”
He said nothing.
“And if my company hurt your family,” I continued, “I need to see it with my own eyes.”
Ten minutes later, we were in an armored SUV heading east.
The city changed outside the windows.
Glass towers became brick apartment blocks.
Brick became concrete.
Concrete became rusted fencing and abandoned warehouses.
The farther east we traveled, the less familiar everything became.
Which was ridiculous.
I owned property here.
That realization sat heavily in my chest.
I owned places I had never bothered to see.
Tommy watched the streets carefully.
At one intersection, he leaned forward.
“Turn there.”
My driver glanced at me.
“Do it.”
We passed beneath a railway bridge blackened by decades of smoke.
Beyond it, the Shadows appeared.
I understood the name immediately.
The neighborhood existed beneath elevated tracks and between dead factories.
Even in daylight, sunlight arrived only in thin gray strips.
Children played beside broken concrete barriers.
Laundry hung between buildings that looked structurally impossible.
A woman pushed a shopping cart full of water containers.
Two men stood around an oil-drum fire.
Everywhere I looked, I saw notices pasted onto walls.
REDEVELOPMENT ZONE.
UNSAFE FOR OCCUPANCY.
FINAL VACATE ORDER.
At the bottom of every notice was a familiar logo.
Mine.
Tommy pointed.
“There.”
The SUV stopped beside a narrow building with plywood over half its windows.
Before the driver could open my door, Tommy jumped out.
“Grandma!”
He ran inside.
I followed.
The smell hit me first.
Mold.
Kerosene.
Damp wood.
And something else.
Something faintly metallic.
We climbed two flights of stairs.
Tommy reached a door that was hanging slightly open.
He stopped.
“Grandma?”
No answer.
He pushed it.
The apartment was nearly empty.
A mattress.
A small table.
Three chairs.
Plastic sheeting over a broken window.
Then I saw the two shapes on the floor.
One adult.
One child.
Covered carefully with white sheets.
Lucia and her daughter.
My breath caught.
Tommy did not look at them.
He was looking toward the kitchen.
“Grandma?”
I heard a sound.
A scrape.
We moved toward it.
An elderly woman was sitting on the floor behind the kitchen counter.
Blood stained one side of her face.
Tommy screamed.
“Grandma!”
He dropped beside her.
She opened her eyes.
“Tommy?”
“I’m here!”
Her hands grabbed him immediately.
Then she saw me.
Fear flooded her face.
“No.”
She tried to stand.
“No, no, no.”
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“Get out.”
“Mrs.
Martinez—”
“GET OUT!”
Tommy flinched.
I stopped moving.
The old woman pressed Tommy against her chest.
Her eyes stayed fixed on me.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“I didn’t bring him.
He brought me.”
She looked at Tommy.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Tommy!”
“He said he wanted to help.”
Her expression twisted with bitterness.
“They always want to help after.”
The phrase struck me.
“After what?”
She laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“After people die.”
I lowered myself slowly.
“My name is Alexander Morgan.”
“I know who you are.”
That frightened me more than if she had not.
“You know me?”
“I know your face.”
“From where?”
Her gaze shifted toward Lucia’s covered body.
“My daughter kept your photograph for twenty-two years.”
Tommy looked between us.
I could barely speak.
“Why?”
Mrs.
Martinez stared at me.
“Because she thought one day you might save her.”
I felt the floor disappear beneath me.
“From what?”
She did not answer.
Instead, she pushed herself upright.
Maria helped her into a chair.
The woman resisted at first, then gave in.
Her hands were trembling.
“What happened here?”
I asked.
“They came back.”
“The men?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Before Tommy left?”
“After.”
“What did they want?”
“You already know.”
“I don’t.”
For the first time, anger cracked through her fear.
“You expect me to believe the owner of Morgan Consolidated doesn’t know what his company buried beneath this neighborhood?”
Silence.
Even Tommy stopped moving.
“What was buried?”
I asked.
Her eyes searched my face.
And slowly, her anger changed.
Not disappeared.
Changed.
“You really don’t know.”
“No.”
She stared at me for several seconds.
Then whispered, “God help us.”
I stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
Mrs.
Martinez looked toward the covered bodies.
“My daughter worked nights cleaning offices.
Hotels.
Private homes.
Wherever she could get hours.”
I remembered Tommy telling me that.
“Six months ago, she started cleaning offices at the Eastbridge Medical Center.”
I knew Eastbridge.
Morgan Consolidated had invested in its expansion.
“She was assigned to the research floor,” Mrs.
Martinez continued.
“One night she found documents in a trash container.
Patient files.
Environmental reports.
Internal emails.”
“What kind of environmental reports?”
“She brought them home because she saw our address.”
My skin prickled.
“What did they say?”
Mrs.
Martinez swallowed.
“That people living in the Shadows had been exposed to something underground.”
“What?”
“She called it Compound Seventeen.”
I had never heard the name.
“The documents said the contamination came from an old chemical facility.
It entered the groundwater decades ago.
Slowly.
Nobody noticed at first.”
She looked at Lucia.
“Then children started getting sick.”
I thought about the woman outside carrying water containers.
“The city knew?”
“Some people knew.”
“My company?”
Her eyes hardened.
“Your company owned the land.”
“Ownership doesn’t mean we knew.”
“No.”
She leaned forward.
“But payments do.”
My mouth went dry.
“What payments?”
“Your people paid families to leave.”
“Relocation settlements?”
“They called them that.”
Something about her tone made my stomach turn.
“What were they really?”
“Silence.”
She pointed toward Lucia.
“My daughter copied everything.”
Of course she had.
“And then?”
“She tried contacting reporters.
Lawyers.
Government offices.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“The messages disappeared.
Meetings were canceled.
One reporter told her he had never spoken to her before.”
Mrs.
Martinez’s voice dropped.
“Then someone started following her.”
I glanced at Maria.
“Why didn’t she go public online?”
“She tried.”
“And?”
“Her account disappeared.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
I ignored it.
“Where are the documents?”
Mrs.
Martinez looked at Tommy.
The boy immediately understood.
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Good.”
“Where are they?”
I asked.
She shook her head.
“Not until I know which Morgan you are.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Before she could answer, Maria stepped toward the window.
“Alexander.”
Her voice was quiet.
I turned.
Three black SUVs had entered the street.
No license plates.
My security chief touched his earpiece.
“We have company.”
“How many?”
“At least twelve.”
Tommy grabbed his grandmother.
Mrs.
Martinez closed her eyes.
“They found us.”
I looked at my security chief.
“Get them out through the rear.”
He checked the window.
“No clean exit.”
The front door downstairs slammed.
Footsteps.
Many.
Fast.
Mrs.
Martinez grabbed my sleeve.
“There’s another way.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward the bedroom.
We moved.
Behind the mattress was a narrow door that I had assumed was a closet.
Tommy opened it.
A passage led into the neighboring building.
“Go,” I told him.
“What about you?”
“I’m behind you.”
Mrs.
Martinez stopped me.
“No.”
“What?”
She stared into my eyes.
“If they see you helping us, everything changes.”
“It already has.”
“You don’t understand.”
The footsteps were climbing.
“What don’t I understand?”
She reached inside her coat.
For one insane second, I thought she had a weapon.
Instead she handed me a small brass key.
There was a number engraved into it.
“Lucia said if Alexander Morgan ever came himself, give him this.”
I stared at the key.
“You said she kept my photograph.”
“Yes.”
“How did she know me?”
Mrs.
Martinez looked toward the doorway.
Then back at me.
“Because her father worked for you.”
I froze.
“What was his name?”
Before she could answer, the front door exploded inward.
My security team raised their weapons.
Someone shouted from the hallway.
“Mr.
Morgan!
Step away from the Martinez family!”
The voice was familiar.
I knew that voice.
I moved into the living room.
Victor Hale stood in the doorway.
Behind him were armed men in black tactical uniforms.
He looked older than he had that morning.
Tired.
Almost sad.
“Victor.”
He exhaled.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Neither should you.”
“This isn’t what you think.”
I laughed.
“That sentence has never once preceded good news.”
His eyes moved toward the bodies beneath the sheets.
Something flickered across his face.
Regret?
Fear?
“Alexander,” he said quietly, “I need you to come with me.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Did you order Lucia Martinez removed?”
“No.”
“Did you authorize the relocation?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about Compound Seventeen?”
Silence.
That was enough.
I stepped toward him.
“How long?”
“Not here.”
“How long, Victor?”
His jaw tightened.
“Thirty years.”
The room went completely still.
Even the armed men seemed to disappear.
“You knew?”
“We both knew.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Alexander—”
“I would remember poisoning an entire neighborhood.”
“You didn’t know people were living here then.”
My chest tightened.
“What are you talking about?”
Victor slowly lowered his weapon.
“Marrow Chemical.”
The name returned like an echo.
“We bought the assets.”
“We bought everything.”
“No.
We specifically excluded environmental liabilities.”
Victor gave me a broken smile.
“That’s what the public documents said.”
Maria whispered behind me.
“Oh my God.”
I turned.
She was holding her tablet.
“What?”
“I found the original purchase agreement.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Maria, don’t.”
She stared at me.
“There’s a handwritten amendment.”
“Signed by whom?”
Her face went white.
“By you.”
The words landed softly.
Too softly.
I took the tablet.
There it was.
My signature.
Alexander Morgan.
Beneath language transferring ownership of the eastern containment site.
I stared at it.
“I never signed this.”
Victor looked at me with something close to pity.
“Yes, you did.”
“I would remember.”
“You were twenty-nine.
Your daughter had just died.
You were drinking.
You barely slept for six months.”
“Shut up.”
“You signed whatever I put in front of you.”
“SHUT UP!”
Tommy flinched.
I lowered my voice.
Victor continued quietly.
“We thought the containment system would hold.”
“Thought?”
“Marrow lied about the levels.
By the time we discovered the truth, Morgan Consolidated had expanded.
Banks were exposed.
Pension funds were exposed.
Thousands of employees were exposed.”
“So you covered it up.”
“I contained it.”
“People died.”
“I know.”
“You knew Lucia was sick.”
“I knew she had the files.”
“You let her die.”
“No.”
For the first time, Victor shouted.
“No, damn you!
I tried to move them out!”
“By threatening them?”
“Because they wouldn’t leave!”
“Maybe because this was their home!”
“This place was killing them!”
Tommy was crying now.
Silently.
His grandmother held him.
I looked at Victor.
“And the medical review?”
His expression changed.
That was when I understood there was still something worse.
“What was it?”
I asked.
He said nothing.
“What was the final medical review?”
“Alexander.”
“What was it?”
Victor glanced at Tommy.
“Not in front of the boy.”
Mrs.
Martinez rose.
“He has already watched his mother and sister die.”
Victor looked at her.
For the first time, shame broke through his expression.
She stepped toward him.
“Tell him.”
Victor swallowed.
“Compound Seventeen wasn’t just industrial waste.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“What was it?”
Maria asked.
Victor answered me.
“A pharmaceutical precursor.”
“For what?”
“An experimental immune therapy.”
I stared at him.
“And Eastbridge Medical Center?”
His silence answered.
I felt sick.
“They were studying the residents.”
Victor shook his head.
“Monitoring.”
“Without consent?”
“We didn’t expose them deliberately.”
“You just watched them get sick.”
“It was more complicated.”
“No, Victor.
It was more profitable.”
He looked wounded by that.
Perhaps because it was true.
Mrs.
Martinez suddenly spoke.
“Tell him about the children.”
Victor’s face changed.
“What children?”
I asked.
He said nothing.
I grabbed his coat.
“What children?”
“The ones who didn’t get sick.”
I released him.
“What?”
Victor looked toward Tommy.
My body went cold.
“Most residents developed respiratory or immune problems after long-term exposure,” he said.
“But a small number didn’t.”
“And?”
“They developed resistance.”
Maria whispered, “Natural immunity.”
Victor nodded.
My eyes moved slowly toward Tommy.
He was staring at us.
“No,” I said.
Victor’s silence confirmed everything.
“Tommy?”
“He’s one of them.”
Mrs.
Martinez moved between them.
“You will not touch him.”
I stared at Victor.
“Lucia?”
“Also resistant.”
“And her daughter?”
Victor looked at the covered child.
“No.”
My stomach turned.
“That’s why Lucia was marked PRIOR CONTACT.”
“Yes.”
“You were studying her.”
“Eastbridge was.”
“You funded Eastbridge.”
“Yes.”
“And now Tommy?”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“He may be the only surviving subject with complete resistance.”
The word subject filled me with rage.
“He is eight years old.”
“I know.”
“He is not a subject.”
“I know.”
“Then why are armed men surrounding the building?”
Victor looked toward the hallway.
And very quietly said:
“They’re not mine.”
A gunshot erupted downstairs.
Then another.
Victor’s men spun toward the stairwell.
His face drained of color.
“That’s why I came.”
A burst of automatic fire shattered the silence.
Tommy screamed.
Victor grabbed my shoulder.
“Take the passage!”
“Who are they?”
“Eastbridge security.”
“You mean hospital security?”
“No.”
Another burst of gunfire.
Closer.
Victor shoved me toward the bedroom.
“They know Lucia gave you the key.”
I stopped.
“How?”
His eyes fell to the brass key in my hand.
“What does it open?”
Victor stared at me.
“The reason your daughter died.”
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
“My daughter died in a car accident.”
Victor’s expression broke.
“No, Alexander.”
The gunfire stopped.
That was somehow worse.
Footsteps approached.
Calm now.
Controlled.
My hand closed around the brass key.
“What are you saying?”
Victor looked directly into my eyes.
“Your daughter was the first child exposed to Compound Seventeen.”
The wall behind Tommy seemed to tilt.
Impossible memories flashed through me.
Hospital corridors.
White sheets.
Doctors whispering.
Victor standing beside me.
A closed coffin.
My wife screaming that something about the accident made no sense.
“No,” I whispered.
Victor’s eyes filled with tears.
“We built Morgan Consolidated because of what happened after she died.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Then a voice came from the hallway.
A woman’s voice.
“Mr.
Morgan?”
Victor went rigid.
Mrs.
Martinez turned pale.
Maria whispered, “Who is that?”
Victor raised his weapon.
The woman outside laughed softly.
“You’ve spent thirty-one years looking in the wrong direction, Alexander.”
My blood froze.
Nobody called me Alexander like that.
Nobody except—
I stepped toward the hallway despite Victor trying to stop me.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
Then the woman answered.
“My name won’t help you.”
A pause.
“But this might.”
Something slid beneath the door.
A photograph.
Old.
Faded.
I bent and picked it up.
Four young men stood outside Marrow Chemical.
Victor was one.
I was another.
The third man was someone I barely remembered.
But the fourth—
I stared.
Tommy came beside me.
“That’s the picture.”
My hands began shaking.
The fourth man looked directly at the camera.
On the back, written in blue ink, were five words.
LUCIA’S FATHER — DANIEL MORGAN.
I looked at Tommy.
Then at Mrs.
Martinez.
Then back at the photograph.
“Who was Daniel Morgan?”
The old woman’s face collapsed.
Before she could answer, the woman outside spoke again.
“Your brother.”
Everything inside me stopped.
I had no brother.
At least, that was what I had believed for sixty years.
Then Tommy reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a thin chain.
Hanging from it was a small silver pendant.
The Morgan family crest.
The same crest engraved on my father’s signet ring.
The same crest that had never been sold.
Never been public.
Never been given outside the family.
Tommy held it in his palm.
“My mom told me her dad gave this to her.”
I stared at the boy who had entered my garden to steal six buckets of soil.
The boy whose mother had been trying to find “Mr.
Morgan.”
The boy my company had been secretly monitoring.
And suddenly I understood why Lucia had kept my photograph.
Why she had tried to reach me.
Why men had come for the papers after she died.
Why Tommy had not been removed with the other families.
Victor whispered beside me.
“Alexander… there’s something else.”
I could barely hear him.
“What?”
He looked at Tommy.
Then at me.
“Daniel Morgan wasn’t just Lucia’s father.”
The woman outside finished the sentence for him.
“He was the legal owner of Morgan Consolidated’s original assets.”
I turned toward Victor.
His face told me the rest before he said it.
“If those documents still exist,” he whispered, “Tommy may not be trespassing on your property.”
Another pause.
“He may own it.”
Outside the apartment, a weapon clicked.
And the mysterious woman said:
“Now give us the boy.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
