Chapter 331: The Truth We Hide
The smile that had crept across my face wasn’t one of malice or calculation—it was relief. Pure, simple relief that I finally had a way to cut through Chen’s accusations with facts that no one in this room could dispute.
"You want to know why I haven’t been profiting from my father’s experiments?" I said, my voice carrying the confidence of someone who held all the cards. "Because I was eight years old when my father left."
The statement hung in the air, and I could see Chen’s certainty waver slightly. But I wasn’t done.
"Hugo Vale abandoned his family when NovaCore shut down," I continued, standing straighter as the weight of old pain mixed with vindication. "I haven’t seen him since. I’m thirty-eight years old now. That’s thirty years of no contact, no communication, no secret father-son experimentation sessions."
I gestured around the room, meeting the eyes of world leaders who suddenly looked uncomfortable with their previous assumptions.
"I was a child when these experiments were being conducted. Far too young to profit from them, far too young to even understand what was happening. The only thing I inherited from Hugo Vale was his abandonment and the shame of his name."
President Chen’s expression had shifted from confident accusation to careful recalculation. "But you still could have—"
"Could have what?" I interrupted. "Could have somehow convinced my absent father to experiment on me from wherever he disappeared to? Could have developed these abilities through some kind of delayed genetic modification? Or maybe you think I’ve been running secret experiments on myself for the past thirty years?"
The skepticism in my voice was genuine. The absurdity of the accusations was becoming clear to everyone in the room.
"I only found out about the extent of my father’s work two years ago," I continued, my voice dropping to a more somber tone. "When I went back to my childhood home. Found his old research notes hidden in the basement. That’s when I learned what he’d really been doing at NovaCore."
I paused, letting the genuine pain of that discovery color my words.