Chapter 3 - The Broken Timeline
The revelation hung in the air like smoke. Thomas Blackwood, the titan of industry, wasn't a man who had built himself from nothing; he was a man who had replaced his own history because the truth was too painful to inhabit.
"I need to know," Thomas said, his voice urgent. "Show me. Anything you have."
Sarah hesitated, then walked to the back office. She returned with a small, battered shoebox. She opened it to reveal a stack of polaroids, a marriage certificate, and a heavy, silver watch—identical to the one Thomas wore on his left wrist.
He held the watch, his thumb tracing the engraving on the back: To Thomas, my heart. Always, S.
"I couldn't report you missing," Sarah said, her voice cracking. "The police told me that if you didn't want to be found, I was only hurting myself by looking. They told me you were gone. And then, a year later, I saw you on the news. You weren't a man lost to grief; you were a mogul. You looked like him, but you were so cold, Thomas. You were nothing like the man I married."
Thomas stared at the watch. He felt the cold, clinical walls of his own mind beginning to melt. Images started to flicker in his consciousness: the smell of this diner, the sound of Sophie’s laughter, the feeling of Sarah’s hand in his. He hadn't been lost; he had been erased.
"I remember," he whispered, a tear tracing a path through his stoic expression. "I remember the night of the accident. I remember the pain, the blinding white lights. I thought... I thought I was dying. And then I woke up in a new life, told by men in suits that I was a genius who had lost his memory in a freak accident, but that my previous life was a tragedy that didn't matter."
"Your father," Sarah said, her eyes narrowing. "His assistant, the one who took over the firm. He was the one who 'helped' you recover."
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Thomas’s jaw clenched. The pieces fit with terrifying precision. His father’s empire hadn't been inherited; it had been stolen from him by the very people who claimed to be his mentors. They had manipulated a man with amnesia, turning him into a corporate weapon while keeping his past locked in a vault.
"He used me," Thomas said, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, controlled fury. "He turned me into a stranger to my own life."
