CHAPTER 5 — The Boy Who Remembered Everything
Gavin couldn't sleep anymore.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the gray uniforms.
The bombs.
The stranger climbing through his bedroom window.
His mother noticed.
"You don't have to be brave every minute."
"I know."
"But if I stop remembering..."
"What if people die?"
Those words broke her heart.
The following afternoon Chase personally drove Gavin to meet Dr. Eleanor Price, a forensic psychologist who specialized in helping child witnesses.
She expected frightened memories.
Instead...
She found something extraordinary.
Gavin remembered almost everything.
Every license plate.
Every face.
Every logo.
Every conversation.
He described details most adults would never notice.
Then he mentioned something that changed everything.
"One of the fake workers kept calling the other man..."
"...Professor."
Everyone looked up.
"Professor?"
"Yes."
"He said, 'Professor, we're running out of time.'"
Dr. Price slowly turned toward Chase.
"That's unusual."
Bishop immediately searched international intelligence databases.
Hours later they found an encrypted file.
Codename:
THE PROFESSOR.
No photographs.
No fingerprints.
No confirmed nationality.
Only one fact repeated by multiple intelligence agencies.
"He never appears in person."
"He builds impossible operations."
"And he has never failed."
Until Savannah.
Until Gavin Crawford.
Later that evening, Chase stood alone on the mansion balcony.
For years people had feared him.
Tonight...
He finally understood what fear felt like himself.
Someone powerful enough to hire Adrian Cross...
Someone brilliant enough to plan four synchronized car bombs...
Someone invisible enough to remain only a codename...
Had declared war.
Then Chase noticed movement below.
Little Emily, his seven-year-old niece, was teaching Gavin how to feed ducks beside the estate lake.
The two children laughed together.
A sound Chase hadn't heard on the property in years.
He suddenly realized something.
This wasn't about protecting an empire anymore.
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It was about protecting innocence.
And he was willing to burn the entire underworld to the ground to do it.
