The name was like a trigger. Elias felt his breath catch, a jolt of awareness cutting through the haze in his head.
Sebastian Grant?
The last thing he remembered was the explosion, the blinding light, the mechanical voice that kept ringing and then… the car.
Oh. The unknown face that stared back at him in the car.
A sharp pain suddenly took over his thoughts however and like a tornado hitting waves, images slammed into him like an uninvited download: laughter in a crowded party; hushed, intimate whispers with a woman in a corner office; a flash of an argument with a woman; and several images of the woman who had just chewed him out and left.
The pain in Elias's head was immense and he couldn't help but grab the bedside table for anchor. The glass of water on the table shook with the impact and fell, shattering on the floor.
Elias had no mind to pay attention to the mess right now and just grabbed his head, only stopping himself from screaming in pain with sheer willpower and endurance.
Gradually, the pain in his head slowly subsided.
But with it, the images that were initially floating about seemed to have found their place in his head and stuck themselves there like a glue.
Now, it felt as though they had always been there naturally and were his own memories. That face Elias didn't know now felt familiar and he knew without being told whose these memories were.
He slowly lifted his head and leaned back into the pillows, his face still as impassive. But inward, his heartbeat was fluctuating.
What kind of sorcery was this?
Of course, he knew it wasn't sorcery but it must have been some crazy technology that was used to imprint these memories into his head.
But that was if this was even his head. After all, putting two and two together, the woman earlier recognized him as someone else and these memories felt so natural.
It wasn't hard to figure that it was him who barged unannounced into someone else's body.
The absurdity was messing with his head. But Elias was just not used to displaying his emotions and even though he was running amok in his mind, there wasn't much change physically except the turbulent look in his eyes.
Even that soon subsided and he slowly forced his breathing into control.
After some time, he moved to get down from the bed. The floor was icy beneath his feet, the chill shooting up his calves as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Once he got down, he did a few basic stretches and quickly concluded that he should be discharged in a day as his injuries weren't too severe. It was actually mild for someone like him.
The adjoining bathroom door creaked faintly as he pushed it open. He stopped short in front of the mirror.
A stranger stared back at him.
Gone was the hard-cut face he knew. In its place was a softer frame, the faint pallor of a man more accustomed to late nights in luxury than in combat. The eyes were the same sharp brown, but very different from his.
Under the chin, a thin scar caught the light reflecting against the mirror. His borrowed memories told him this had come from an incident years ago.
A corner of his mouth slowly lifted in amusement. "So… it's real."
His fingers brushed over the alien jawline, tracing the shape. He lifted the edge of the hospital gown. The body beneath was toned, yes, but lacking the precision muscle of his old life. Even the skin tone was off.
But thankfully, he still had a fit body even better than the average person. The body should be able to endure a few hits.
Thinking to this point, his thoughts strayed to the memories he now had.
The owner of this body, Sebastian Grant, lived quite a melodramatic life.
When he was ten, his grandfather who was the steward for the Beaumonts, died saving the patriarch of the family. On his last breath, he made the latter promise to take care of his grandson and entrusted him to the patriarch.
Indeed, the family was rather magnanimous. The patriarch entrusted the boy to one of his welfare foundations and sent him to a prestigious university, sponsoring him till he graduated. After graduation, he even let him enter one of the subsidiary companies as a clerk. But no one expected that the patriarch would suddenly have a stroke and died, leaving him stranded. The company structure changed and he was at the risk of being thrown out.
However, who knew luck would suddenly shine on him?
A huge scandal suddenly tore the family apart and they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Sebastian, still trying to survive, managed to catch the eye of the matriarch purely by chance. It turned out that one of her granddaughters, Lila Beaumont, had been embroiled in a shocking murder case. Though acquitted in court for lack of evidence, the public believed otherwise. Overnight, the Beaumonts' reputation plummeted, and their stock price crashed to an all-time low.
At that critical moment, the matriarch made a decisive move: she arranged a marriage between her granddaughter and Sebastian Grant. It was framed as a marriage of deep love between a heiress and the steward's grandson who were childhood sweethearts. One would expect netizens to see through such a tactic but they actually ate it up. After all, it was very unlikely that a young woman planning her wedding could possibly be a cold-blooded murderer causing public opinion to divide and the Beaumonts used that as an opening to finally stabilize the family's reputation.
And so, three years ago, Sebastian Grant became the live-in son-in-law of the Beaumont family.
The matriarch probably developed a fondness for him as he had saved them in a crucial time after all. She tacitly began to give him access into the family. However, his job wasn't at all honorable. He was responsible for cleaning up scandals and messes caused by the family members. He was practically their janitor and everyone in the circle had different jeering names for him, each worse than the last.
Over the years, the couple paid no mind to each other. Lila was busy competing with her cousins for the inheritance while Sebastian was also busy working his way up and warming up to the other members of the family to gain a firm stand. He got involved with his secretary which one of Lila's cousins, Beatrice found out about and the matter ended up in one of the family meetings, prompting the matriarch to tell him to break up with her. Beatrice however refused to give up and convinced the matriarch to fire the secretary and ban her from getting a job anywhere else. This plan leaked to Sebastian causing him to riot and he went to threaten Beatrice with a secret he knew about, causing enmity between them.
So… that scene Lila described as him throwing himself off a bridge for a woman was likely her retaliation to silence him forever.
What a dramatic family!
Elias stood in front of the mirror thoughtfully. "Sebastian Grant…"
So, was the real person dead or alive?
He, Elias, suddenly found himself here after the real Sebastian nearly committed suicide although Elias was more inclined to believe someone tried to erase him. So, did the person really die or what?
He had suddenly found himself in this person's life. If he took this situation as a mission, then it was rather complicated and messy. He could handle combat and tactical matters but things like family drama were really not his forte.
Not to mention one that was filled with so much chaos and plots.
Just then, a thought suddenly came into his mind and Elias's face changed.
Beaumonts.
He suddenly recalled that name. It was the first name on that list.
So they were related?
Elias was inclined to believe that it was. Otherwise, he really could not trust that what had happened to him was merely a coincidence. He was plotted against so mysteriously and died, yet he woke up and found himself in the life of this family's son in law.
But in a way, Elias was relieved.
He had been thinking of where to start looking into his death, was it the whole unit who gave up on him or one of the higher ups wanted him gone? Moreover, the entire secondary team he had taken on that day were all wiped out. He was also worried about Jax whom he had handed the list to. He didn't know if he had managed to escape unscathed and the agency didn't go after him but he also couldn't relax. Although he usually trusted his subordinates, he had no idea where the attack on him came from so he was also wary.
Elias rubbed his brows. It seemed he would have to start from the Beaumonts. After all, he now had a new identity which gave him some leverage.
For now, he planned to stay low and observe this family he found himself in while searching for news about what happened to him.
With that conclusion, he turned to walk out of the bathroom. Elias had barely taken two steps into the ward when the door opened from the outside. A young nurse entered briskly, balancing a tray of supplies. She stopped short when she saw him upright, bare feet against the tile, hospital gown loose at his shoulders.
"You shouldn't be moving around," she scolded immediately, clearly out of habit. "Your body's still weak. You need rest."
She brushed past him efficiently, metal instruments clinking softly on the tray as she set it beside the bed. That was when she noticed the broken shards and looked up at him sighing.
"I'll get someone to clean this up."
Without another word, she began preparing the IV and snapping vials into place.
Elias watched her for a moment, then spoke, "May I use your phone, please?"
The nurse froze mid-motion and glanced up at him, clearly hesitant. "That's against protocol. Patients aren't allowed—"
"Just a minute." His tone was even, not forceful.
Yet, there was something in the way he said it that made her feel compelled to give it to him. After a taut pause, she sighed, dug into her pocket, and handed it over.
"Keep it brief."
He took the device with a nod of thanks and stood at the edge of the bed. He held the phone in a way that the nurse couldn't see what he was doing even if she tiptoed and immediately pulled up the news feed. His thumb moved quickly, eyes scanning headlines.
Nothing. Not even a whisper about the blast.
His brows furrowed as he switched to different outlets and social platforms. There was still nothing. As if the explosion had never happened.
That kind of absence wasn't natural. An explosion of that scale couldn't simply vanish. It meant that they were burying it.
Without hesitation, he shifted to a hidden forum, fingers gliding across the interface. His message was short and laced with meaning only the receiver would read correctly:
{Archive 17 remains unburned. Keypage missing. Requesting librarian.}
Loid would understand.
Although Elias could not trust anyone right now, Loid was not one of those people. Between them, trust was absolute and there had never been room for betrayal.
He cleared the history, erased the trail, and returned the phone casually, his expression unreadable.
The nurse accepted it warily, still muttering under her breath as she fixed the IV. He reclined without resistance, allowing the needle into his arm. The slow drip of fluid began, syncing with the steady hum of monitors.
In a matter of seconds, Elias suddenly began to feel his mind relaxing. He was beginning to feel sleepy. This body was indeed not as strong as his.
The nurse strode to the TV screen across the room and turned it on. She clicked the remote as she spoke, "That drip will make you sleepy but you shouldn't sleep for now. You should watch some TV for now. I'll be back in ten minutes to turn it off so you can sleep."
Elias only gave a slight nod as he watched the nurse change channels. The ward was quiet and only the rhythmic sound of the monitors and the sounds from the TV screen could be heard.
And then—
The door slammed open with a bang.