July 16, 2026 – Hudson River Open Water Lifeboat Time: 05:15
The sun rose behind the New York skyline, a blood-red glow, but our world was still shrouded in the black smoke billowing from 'The Leviathan'. There were four of us in the lifeboat: a badly wounded detective, a spy ready to explode at any moment, a young girl shaken by the heroin crisis in her veins, and me... That is, Julian Vargas. Or whoever I am now.
"Please... Michael... I'm in so much pain," Elara moaned. She was lying on my knees, her body trembling like a leaf. Her pupils were pinpoint small.
I wiped the sweat from her face with my hand. As a psychologist, I had seen these symptoms hundreds of times, but seeing them on my own sister felt like a hot knife through my heart. "It will pass, Elara, it will pass, my sister. You have to hold on."
"It won't pass!" Natalia screamed, pressing the bloody bandage against her leg. "Thomas has bound her to himself as a slave. Michael, that ship was just a laboratory. Thomas's real fortune wasn't the goods on the ship, it was the addicts he created!"
Ivy stood at the bow of the lifeboat, watching the mysterious ship approaching. "Michael, look at that ship. That old unit that belonged to your father... Unit 4. Why did they come here from Chicago? And why right now?"
As the ship pulled alongside us, its massive spotlight blinded the dinghy. Ropes were thrown down from the deck. Men in uniform began lowering themselves down one by one. But their uniforms bore not 'NYPD,' but the insignia of that special unit my father had founded years ago.
A voice rang out from above. It sounded like Miller's, but much more authoritative, much more familiar.
"Julian Vargas! Hand over Elara Hale and drop your weapon! We're here to get you out of this hellhole."
When I looked up, I saw the face of the man standing on the ship's railing. This man was Silas Varga, the former commissioner who was believed to have been "martyred" in my father's last operation before his death. When choosing my surname, Alchemist, we hadn't even noticed the similarity to this name... or perhaps Alchemist had done it deliberately.
Silas Varga was the biggest secret in my father's dark past. And now, that secret stood before us in the middle of the sea.
July 16, 2026 – Hudson River Offshore Time: 05:20
As Silas Varga looked at me from the ship's railing, there was neither pity nor anger on his face. He tossed the thick, yellow envelope down into the dinghy like an executioner dropping a decree. The envelope landed right next to Elara's trembling legs, on the wet wood.
"Open it, Michael," Silas said, his voice cutting through the wind's roar and piercing directly into my mind. "Read about that night your father couldn't tell you about, the night Thomas erased from your memory."
My hand trembled as I picked up the envelope. It bore the words "Unit 4 - Confidential" and the coordinates of that bridge from 15 years ago. A black-and-white X-ray and a crime scene report fell into my lap from inside the envelope. At the top of the report was that note, written in handwriting:
"Thomas didn't save you, Michael. Thomas shot you that night. I was the one who told your father."
My vision darkened. I looked at the X-ray; I saw that piece of metal in the child's chest cavity, just a few centimeters from the heart. For 15 years, the only thing I remembered about that night was pushing Vince and his fall into the darkness. But if Silas's claim was true, then that night I was not only a perpetrator, but also a victim. Why would Thomas shoot me? And more importantly, why would he tell my father that he saved me?
"That's a lie!" I yelled up at him. "I only pushed him! There was no gun!"
"The gun was in Thomas's hand, Michael!" Silas yelled. "After Vince fell, he wanted to silence you. When your father arrived at the scene, he found you covered in blood. Thomas told him, 'Vince shot Michael, and I pushed Vince down.' He sold your father a heroic story, but he was the real executioner!"
Elara shook beside me in crisis, while Ivy froze, staring at the report in my hand. "Michael, if this is true... Thomas didn't just convince you for 15 years that you were a 'murderer'; he raised you to be his grateful slave."
Just then, there was commotion on the ship's deck. The men behind Silas Varga aimed their guns. But we weren't the target; it was another group of boats emerging from the river's darkness.
Thomas Hale wasn't dead. And whatever had survived the wreck of 'The Leviathan' was now coming for revenge.