What do you think I should do after finding out my father was murdered by my stepmother?
Dylan Lee's fingers hovered over the glowing keyboard for half a second before he slammed delete.
He wasn't stupid enough to trust ChatGPT. He knew these chatbots kept logs, and if officials showed up one day with warrants, every word he'd ever typed would be evidence.
Unfortunately, this was what it had come to. He had cut every friend loose months ago, ghosted the group chats, ignored the DMs. The only thing left to talk to, left to tell how he felt, was a chatbot.
Fuck my life.
He shoved the laptop aside and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, the same room that used to smell like his father's cologne when the old man came in to say good night. Now it smelled like sweat, energy drinks, and the many nights spent soldering circuit boards.
Dylan's life changed six months ago.
His father, Richard Lee—billionaire tech mogul, founder of Lee Dynamics—had dropped dead at forty-nine.
The coroner called it "sudden massive cardiac arrest triggered by undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy." It was a good enough cause of death to bring pity and little suspicion.
But Dylan hadn't believed any of it.
He had seen his father the day before. They'd gone boxing together at the private gym on the estate. Richard had laughed, sweat pouring down his face, and said, "Kid, you're getting faster than me," then he'd clapped Dylan on the shoulder and told him he was proud.
There was no chest pain. No shortness of breath. Nothing.
The next morning the maids found him cold on the marble floor of his office.
Mabel, his stepmother, had cried at the funeral. She had the perfect widow tears, with the black veil, trembling lower lip and everything.
But the very next day she was back in her yoga pants and silk robes, humming while she made her smoothies like nothing had happened.
That was when Dylan started taking action. No one believed him when he said his father was perfectly fine. But he was set to prove it.
And his first suspect was his father's very own wife. His stepmom, Mabel.
Dylan knew she was always taking these strange calls, leaving to go to quieter rooms. He'd never thought anything of it before, but after his father's death, it was his best and only trail.
One night, unknown to Mabel, Dylan slept under her bed. It was that night that he heard it all when she answered one of those calls.
There was something called WORLD WATCH PROTOCOL.
From what Dylan understood, it was a black-budget program buried so deep even most intelligence agencies didn't know it existed. Beautiful, lethal women that were recruited, trained and inserted into the lives of the world's most powerful men.
They became wives, mistresses, personal assistants, even maids. Their overall job was to watch and listen.
But the moment their target stepped out of line—threatened global stability, defied certain governments, or simply knew too much—they became executioners.
Mabel was one of the best.
She was twenty-nine years old, she had curves that made men forget their own names, and skills that earned her the nickname, Black Widow.
She'd married Richard Lee in a whirlwind romance two years ago. Dylan had been sixteen then, too busy with college parties to notice how quickly his father fell. Now he noticed everything.
Under her bed, he heard her report the exact dosage of the synthetic cardiac glycoside she'd slipped into Richard's evening whiskey.
She had done it in a way that it was undetectable, untraceable, designed to mimic natural heart failure in a man with no prior symptoms. He heard the configured voice of her handler praising her for "keeping the asset stable for eighteen months before termination."
He heard everything.
It was from that moment that Dylan's life changed.
The next morning, he began his search for knowledge, to find everything he could about the World Watch Protocol.
He spent the inheritance money that legally belonged to him on private tutors, dark-web hacking courses, combat training, and a custom-built rig that could crack encrypted satellites.
He turned his bedroom into a war room; three monitors, servers humming in the corner, walls covered in printed call transcripts and grainy photos of other "widows" who looked suspiciously like Mabel: same perfect bone structure, same predatory smile.
Mabel still played the part. Every evening she knocked on his door with a tray of homemade lasagna and fresh juice. "Dylan, honey, you have to eat," she would say with a sweet voice. "Your father wouldn't want you wasting away like this. I miss him too, you know."
Dylan would scream through the door, "Stop knocking on my door and get the fuck away from me!"
Then he'd wait until her heels clicked down the hall before opening it just enough to kick the food she had dropped into the hallway carpet.
He wanted her to think he believed the movie version: greedy stepmother kills rich husband for the money. That way she could feel some sort of security, not knowing what he was truly aware of.
This has been life for the past six months.
Dylan rolled off the bed and dropped into a plank. Push-ups. He did fifty of them, then one hundred.
His arms and chest burned, veins standing out like cables under tanned skin. Six months of obsession had turned him into the leanest, buffest guy.
With a lot of time in one's hands and thoughts to chase away, working out was an angel.
He started doing pullups, sweat rolling down his abs as he thought about the next move.
Telling the police was useless. This wasn't some local murder. WORLD WATCH had senators, generals, CEOs on speed-dial.
They'd bury any report before the ink dried. No. The only way to make it right was to burn the entire program to the ground.
Starting with the woman sleeping two doors down.
He stood, wiped his face with a towel, and walked out of his room in nothing but black gym shorts.
Today's the day.
When he reached Mabel's room, he ignored knocking and turned the handle, immediately stepping inside.
She was on the phone, standing by the window in a short red robe that barely covered the swell of her ass. One hand held the phone to her ear; the other toyed with the tie at her waist.
The curve of her breasts pressed against the thin fabric, nipples faintly visible in the low light. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her back.
The true image of a widow, am I right?
But then her face darkened once she saw her stepson.
"Dylan?" Her voice cracked with surprise. She killed the call instantly, screen going black. "Why are you here? It's midnight, sweetheart. You should be—"
"Who were you talking to?" Dylan asked flatly.
She gave the practiced smile, the one that used to fool his father. "No one important. Just a friend checking in. I'm not dating anyone if that's what you're worried about. I'm still mourning your dad. I would never—"
"Stop pretending, you whore spy."
The smile froze. Her eyes widened, genuine shock flashing across the perfect face for the first time since the funeral. She took one involuntary step back until her shoulders hit the wall.
"What… what did you just say?"
Dylan walked forward slowly, each step deliberate. "Shocked aren't you?"
Mabel's eyes narrowed then widened again. She didn't know what to react, what fake emotion to display. Those words had completely caught her off guard.
Dylan glared as he got closer. "That's right. I know everything. WORLD WATCH PROTOCOL. The cardiac glycoside you put in his whiskey. The handler who calls you 'Black Widow.' know how you killed him. I know why."
Mabel tried the innocent routine again, voice trembling just enough to sound real. "Dylan, I have no idea what you're—"
"Shut up."
He crossed the last two steps in a blur. One hand slammed against her throat, pinning her to the wall. Not enough to crush, just enough to feel her pulse hammer under his palm.
Her robe slipped open at the top; heavy, flawless breasts spilled forward, nipples awfully tightening in the sudden rush of fear and adrenaline.
Mabel's training kicked in instantly. She twisted, drove a knee toward his groin, and tried to slip the choke with a classic counter.
Dylan surprisingly countered her counter. He dropped his weight, caught her leg, spun her. In a quick movement, he slammed her down onto the king-sized bed.
She landed on her back with a gasp. The robe flew open completely, showing her red lace panties and her toned legs.
She tried to kick with them but he pinned them wide apart with his knees. Mabel struggled, shocked and overwhelmed by his strength. Her chest heaved, breasts bouncing with every panicked breath.
Her eyes—those same bedroom eyes that had seduced his father—were now huge with real fear.
"Stop it, Dylan—"
He leaned down until their faces were inches apart, his hand still locked around her throat.
"That's right. I studied every spy move you've ever been taught. I learned the counters. What do you think I've been doing locked in that room for six months while you played the perfect mommy?"
Mabel's lips parted, but no sound came out. For the first time in her career, the assassin had no script.
Dylan whispered something to her that filled her murderous heart with fear.
"When I'm done with you… I'll send you over to Dad for his turn."