The Vindication Gents

Chapter 3.12

5 years ago…

Charles Debrun’s POV

“Now, you are coming of age, I wanted you to know the truth about your heritage, Charles,” my father said as I was looking over my father's documents. I knew the truth that my father, who was in front of me right now, was my adopted parents.

“The fact that you were not my biological father?” I asked him as I was looking at him, leaning on the chair where I was seated right there. His eyebrows shot up.

“How do you know?” He asked. I smirked at him as I was looking back at the documents of my patients at the hospital where I work right now.

“Your father, Albert Debrun, thought it was good if you were not involved in the propaganda of overthrowing the monarch,” my father continued. I stopped looking at the papers as he got my attention.

“What? Propaganda? Overthrowing the monarch? What are you talking about? We’re in France, the monarch was not in our dictionary,” I said as I was laughing at finding this conversation amusing. My father, however, did not laugh at all.

“He was entrusted by some benefactors to research a teleportation mechanism that can be used and diffused into the human’s body,” he said as I arched my eyebrows at him. He sighed.

“He and his colleague, Danial Clarke, have discovered that it was possible,” he said before I blinked at him.

“Really? But why didn't the government or media tell us about this? This discovery might be changing the way that we travel from one to another place,” I said as I was closing the file. Maybe this conversation was intriguing to me after all.

Interesting.

My father sighed as he was looking at the window. The snow was furious outside this time of year in Lyon.

“He left you a journal. All about his work and secrets. But I must advise you, you have to read it until the end,” he said as he took out the journal and handed it to me. I looked at it. Worn leather as if it has been used for a long time and weary. I tried to open the journal before my father stopped me.

“You will read it when you reach Zurich,” he said. I arched my eyebrows at him.

“Zurich? But I have to deal with this thing at the hospital and such—“

“No time, they’re here,” he whispered before he took something from his pocket and when I was about to say something, he put something sharp into my neck.

“Ow! What the—?” I asked before my vision was blurry and I was closing my eyes. As I was looking through my last shell of consciousness, I saw that my adopted father was being shot in his head as his blood was everywhere. I don’t know what happened to my body but they cannot see me. I was fading, I supposed, before I saw her, Sophia. The woman that I will be engaged to.

“Search the area. I think it’s here somewhere,” Sophia said as I was closing and I was out of my mind.

When I opened my eyes as the sunlight was streaming inside the house, it was noon. I was in the middle of the room. It was grandiose actually, as I was looking at the apartment. I went to look at the window outside to get a sense of where I was.

“Zurich, no way,” I mumbled before I went around the house to find the clue. There was nothing. It was bare as the apartment was not being occupied by anyone.

“What in the world?” I said before I remembered my father’s last word. I searched for the journal as it was on the floor before I opened it. I saw cursive writing that I was not familiar with.

Dear Charles,

If you are reading this journal, it means that I am dead and the last defense to the serum has been killed. It was your godfather, the man that raised you. He was my best friend, he and I went back to when we were only a toddler. But I have regarded him as my brother.

The reason why I asked him to raise you was to conceal you from the truth. You have no idea how much it broke my heart to leave you. I know that you never knew your mother as she was my wife and colleague on this mission of ours.

Danial Clarke made sure that we would be working more than we should. I told him to stop but he was obsessed with teleportation. And when I discovered that he had used his wife's serum, it broke my heart that she was unable to walk again. More devastatingly, she was with a child. His child, to be exact.

I never knew his child about that matter, but I know this. Do not contact Danial Clarke or his association, including his daughter. You will secure this journal as his goons will search for it. Trust no one, even though it is the woman that you love. Look what happened to Danial’s wife.

You are in Zurich, the capital of finance and banking. I know you will make the right choice to invest in those routes as they will never come out. Build your empire and maybe, just maybe, you will find justice to our demise.

Forever your loving father,

Albert Debrun.

I was stunned to read that my father had suffered a lot at the hands of Danial Clarke. I have to get my vengeance on his family, for my family and to secure this serum from getting into the wrong hands.

I have asked the Secret Service of Hungary, the man that I trusted, Commander Romano, Antonio’s father, to find this person. Danial Clarke was a threat to the monarch and because he was loyal to one, I thought about what could go wrong.

He agreed and he gave me all the information that they had on this Danial Clarke. Unfortunately, it did not mention his daughter or whatsoever. Then I asked him again to find Danial’s wife, Luna Hoffman, and I found a name.

Kiara Hoffman.

Blood boiled as I remembered what they did to my father and mother. Then I also learned that she was a travel agent here in Zurich. Maybe my father knew about her and decided that it was best to send me, his son, to kill Danial’s daughter.

Everything was right as I went to her travel agency and I asked for her specifically as I had a recommendation from a friend. They did not ask much and that’s when I saw her for the first time.

Blonde hair.

Blue eyes.

And a smile that can freeze even the hottest fire.

She was radiating and charming. She was cheerful as she helped me to get a ticket to Denmark as I had something to settle the score with that fiancée of mine. But I could not help myself to ask her out.

‘‘Say, do you have any plans for tonight?’’ I asked as I was trying to work on her. She flushed as she was typing away on the computer to get to my flight.

‘‘I don’t know, it depends,’’ she replied as she smiled politely.

‘‘Would you like to go to dinner with me then?’’ I asked her before she blinked at me as if she hadn't heard the question right.

‘‘Dinner?’’ she asked. I nodded.

‘‘With you?’’ she asked. I nodded.

“Tonight?’’ She said and I nodded again.

“Unless you have other inquiries that you need to do,’’ I said as I looked at her. She shook her head like a robot. I smiled, as I knew that I had that kind of effect on her.

‘‘Good, I will pick you up at 8,’’ I said before I went out of the office. The plan was simple, get her to dinner, then crush her with some poison in the champagne and then I would be out of here and no one knew any better.

Except when I saw her waiting in front of her office for almost 30 minutes for me to show up, I did not have the gut. Maybe it was the oath that I took when I was a medical student. I could take her life, even if I wanted.

And so, I left her stranded there as I went to the hotel and dozed myself with alcohol, champagne to be exact, because it reminded me of her.

I did not know that she entered the agency when I resigned. She was supposed to protect Princess Christine from any danger. And that’s when I found out that she had the gift, the serum that her father gave to her mum, was transferred to her. It was a discovery before I knew that I had been induced with the serum as well.

It was my first and last mission where we had to find Princess Christine. I was trapped in the cave after they all moved out when Antonio found the princess. I was trapped and I was alone. I felt the loneliness and the death that was near. I closed my eyes and I imagined my home. And all of a sudden, I was in Zurich again.

Commander Romano asked for me but I just told him that I wished to get out of the agency. Not with the knowledge that Kiara was in the agency as well. I sighed before I looked out the window of Zurich to contemplate my destiny.