For the first time in his life, Ethan skipped a board meeting.
Instead, he sat in his room with the curtains drawn and three laptops open, each running different background checks, archive scrapers, and genealogy databases. The internet was his ally now, and Ethan had one mission: trace the timeline of NealTech, the billion-dollar empire. And his place within it.
What he found confirmed his worst suspicions.
NealTech's origin story had always sounded too polished: a married couple—Jonah and Miriam Neal—came up with the idea in college, built it in their garage, and launched it to wild success after winning a tech grant. But Ethan found a hidden article archived in a forgotten university journal dated two years before their "official" pitch.
The headline was a quote:
"I want to teach kids with code, not just books," says Blake."
—Student Innovators Challenge, 2005.
It featured Russell Blake, younger, brighter-eyed, and full of fire.
The article even mentioned a collaborator—Jonah Neal, "in charge of logistics and funding."
The story was clear now.
Jonah had betrayed Russell. Stolen the idea. Taken the code. Whitewashed Russell's name from history.
Ethan stared at the screen. Rage twisted in his chest, not just at the Neals—but at his parents. Because they had never told him the truth. Never said why he was theirs. Only that he was.
He dug further, this time into public birth records.
Jonah and Miriam Neal had a son. Born in 2006. Records showed the baby was abducted from a hospital in San Francisco just a week after birth. No leads. Cold case.
The name? Ethan Neal.
His hands trembled as he read the old police sketch and the note left at the scene.
"You took everything from us. Now we take everything from you."
The writing was jagged. Furious. Familiar.
Ethan compared the note with a birthday card his mother had written him last year.
Same loops in the "t."
Same aggressive slant on the "y."
He couldn't breathe.
He wasn't Ethan Blake. He was Ethan Neal. Stolen. Raised by the people who had been destroyed by the very man who gave him life. A living symbol of revenge.
And just as the weight of it all pressed down, he found something else—hidden inside the lining of an old music box his mother kept in her closet.
It was a photograph. Faded. Worn.
A baby in a hospital crib.
Two faces smiling behind the glass.
The woman had soft eyes and brown curls—Miriam. The man, with sharp features and a confident grin—Jonah. Both wore hospital tags.
The back of the photo read:
"Ethan, Day 2. Our whole world."
He dropped it.
The picture, the note, the records—they all confirmed what he had feared.
Everything about his life was a lie. His name, his legacy, even his identity.
But now that he knew the truth, only one question remained.
What was he going to do about it?
The silence in his room was deafening.
Ethan sat hunched over the photograph, his hands locked tightly together as though holding it too loosely might make everything collapse.
His name wasn't Ethan Blake. Not legally. Not biologically. It was Ethan Neal. The same name printed under "Missing Infant" in the archived FBI files. The baby whose photo lived in every database his current parents had likely tried to erase. And yet—they didn't erase it all.
Why?
A voice echoed in his mind—Russell's, years ago, late at night.
"They took everything."
He had thought Russell was just venting about money or missed opportunity. Now he knew.
They weren't drunk on grief. They were consumed by it. And when the law failed them, they made their own justice. They didn't just steal a child. They took back a piece of their shattered pride. Their "second chance" was him.
Ethan stumbled backward from the desk and slumped into the corner of the room, pulling his knees to his chest.
Tears came—not loud sobs, but heavy, slow tears, falling one by one like cracks spreading across glass.
He wasn't angry yet.
He was lost.
The two people who had loved him for as long as he could remember—who taught him how to walk, nursed his fevers, whispered goodnight stories—were the same ones who had rewritten his entire life.
And yet, the ones who gave him life? The Neals? They had become legends at the cost of betrayal. They stole someone's dream to build their kingdom. And they let that child vanish for eighteen years without ever finding him.
Was there really a home to return to?
Who was he supposed to trust?
A knock startled him.
"Ethan?" came his mother's voice, muffled through the door. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"
He couldn't respond.
Not yet.
He waited until she walked away before wiping his face and standing. His knees were shaky. But his decision was clear.
No more secrets.
No more whispers behind doors.
It was time for answers. Even if the truth shattered what little peace he had left.
---
To be continued