Page 115 of The Beast's Broken Angel

“He'd be himself,” Noah said quietly from beside me. “Maybe different, maybe the same, but his. Not yours.”

Harrison's attention shifted to Noah with clinical interest. “Ah, the variable. You know, you're the first truly unexpected element in Adrian's life since the fire. I didn't account for someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“Someone who'd see past the programming to the person underneath. Who'd choose him despite the damage.” Harrison smiled thinly. “Though I wonder, Mr. Hastings, are you drawn to Adrian himself or to the broken things you think you can fix?”

“Don't,” I warned, but Noah was already responding.

“Both, probably,” he admitted with that devastating honesty I'd come to expect. “But here's what you don't understand, Harrison. The damage doesn't define him. It's just part of the landscape. And the landscape is fucking beautiful, even the scarred parts. Especially the scarred parts.”

Harrison studied Noah like a specimen under glass. “Interesting. You know he'll never be normal, don't you? The conditioning runs too deep. Violence will always be his first language. Control his primary need.”

“I know who he is,” Noah said simply. “I've seen him at his worst and chosen to stay. That's more than you ever did. You saw a child in pain and chose to amplify it. To weaponise it. That's not creation, Harrison. That's just torture with delusions of purpose.”

The assessment clearly stung. Harrison's composed mask cracked slightly, revealing something almost human underneath.

“I gave him strength,” Harrison insisted. “Direction.Purpose. Would you rather I'd left him weak? Let him grow up damaged but ordinary? He'd have been dead within a year on London's streets.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, surprising everyone including myself. “Or maybe I'd have found my own strength. My own purpose. We'll never know, will we? Because you stole that choice.”

“Choice.” Harrison laughed bitterly. “Such a middle-class concept. Men like us don't get choices, Adrian. We get circumstances and make the best of them. Your grandfather understood that.”

“My grandfather was a bastard who let you experiment on his grandson,” I said flatly. “Understanding him isn't the endorsement you think it is.”

“He loved you,” Harrison protested. “In his way. We both did. Everything we did was to make you strong enough to survive in our world.”

“Your love was poison,” I told him. “Your strength was just cruelty with fancy justification. And your world?” I gestured around the government facility. “Your world ends tonight.”

Harrison straightened in his chair, dignity intact despite impending death. “I suppose it does. May I ask how?”

“Single shot,” I confirmed. “Clean. Quick. More mercy than you showed my parents.”

“Practical.” He adjusted his cuffs one final time, movements precise as always. “Though I'm curious why you haven't done it yet. Second thoughts?”

“Closure,” I corrected. “I needed to understand why. Needed to hear you admit what you did. Needed...” I paused, searching for words. “Needed to see you as you really are. Not the mentor I trusted or the monster I've imagined, but the pathetic old man who destroyed a child and called it love.”

That finally broke through his composure completely. “I made you great!”

“You made me broken,” I countered. “I made myself great despite you, not because of you. Every choice to be more than your programming, every moment of humanity you didn't account for, every connection that transcended your careful conditioning. That was me fighting back against what you tried to make me.”

“Pretty words,” Harrison sneered. “But we both know the truth. When this is over, when I'm dead and you've had your revenge, you'll still be what I created. The patterns run too deep. You'll still need control, still solve problems with violence, still trust no one completely.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I'll be trying. Fighting against the programming every day, choosing to be more than your weapon. That's the difference between us, Harrison. You think people are fixed, unchangeable, bound by the patterns trauma creates. But people aren't that simple. We're messier. More surprising. More...” I glanced at Noah. “More capable of change than you ever imagined.”

“Touching.” Harrison's mask reformed, professional to the end. “Though if you're going to shoot me, perhaps get on with it? This philosophical discussion is becoming tedious.”

I raised the weapon, aiming with steady hands. “Any last words?”

“Just one question,” he said. “Was it worth it? Everything I put you through, everything I took from you. Did it make you strong enough to survive what's coming?”

“What's coming?”

His smile was cold, victorious even in defeat. “You didn't think I was working alone, did you? The governmental connections, the resources, the protection. I was middle management, Adrian. Useful for handling local operations but hardlyirreplaceable. My death changes nothing. The machine continues.”

“Then I'll destroy the machine,” I said simply.

“With what army? Your street soldiers against governmental resources? Your criminal empire against institutional power?” Harrison shook his head. “I shaped you to be a weapon, Adrian, but weapons need wielders. And the people who wielded me will simply find another tool.”