Chapter 116: ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN

Nicholas’s POV

By the time we reached the last workplace, I was already exhausted.

We’d spent most of the day going from one place to another, asking questions about my father but nothing could prepare me for what I felt when we finally got to the civil rights building.

The building looked abandoned. Police tape had been wrapped around the entrance and stretched across several of the windows, and the doors were covered in dust.

There was no sign outside anymore, only the faint outline where something had once been attached to the wall.

A few of the windows were cracked, and weeds had grown around the edges of the pavement.

Interesting.

I stared at it through the car window for a moment before getting out. "This is it?" I asked quietly.

Adrian looked at the building and checked the information on his phone. "According to the records, yes. This is the address."

We approached the entrance together, and Adrian carefully moved past the police tape before pushing the door open. The others followed, and I stepped inside last.

The moment I entered, I stopped, my breath hitching.

There were old posters on the walls, most of them faded with age, but the words were still visible.

They talked about equal treatment, protection for Omegas, discrimination in workplaces, and the right of every Omega to live without being treated as inferior simply because of what they were born as. There were photographs pinned beneath some of the posters, showing groups of people gathered outside buildings, holding signs and standing together.

I slowly walked toward one of them.

There were people of different ages in the photograph, all standing together behind a large banner. I moved to another wall and found more documents, old newspaper clippings and printed papers that had been left behind.

Even though much of it had been removed or damaged, the purpose of the organization was impossible to miss.

It had been built for people like me.

I reached out and touched one of the faded posters and my fingers trembled.

I had spent so much of my life thinking there was something wrong with being an Omega. I had spent years watching how people treated Omegas, listening to the way they spoke about us, and eventually accepting the idea that maybe they were right. Maybe we really were weaker. Maybe we really were meant to stay beneath Alphas. Maybe there was something about being born this way that made us less important.

But my father had looked at the same world and decided it was wrong.

He had seen everything I had grown used to and refused to accept it.

I swallowed hard, staring at the words in front of me until my vision blurred. "Was being born an Omega supposed to be a sin?"

The question left my mouth before I could stop it.

Nobody answered immediately and I looked down, trying to blink away the tears that had gathered in my eyes, but it was too late.

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away with the back of my hand.

Cassian came closer. "No, Nicholas," he said firmly. "It was never a sin. There is nothing wrong with you because you’re an Omega."

I shook my head, but I couldn’t make myself look at him. "Even my father could tell."

Cassian remained beside me instead of trying to force me to look at him. "Look, the society we live in has spent years teaching people that one designation makes someone more valuable than another. People grow up hearing it, watching it happen and eventually believing it themselves. That doesn’t make it true."

I stared at the poster again and I wiped my face again, frustrated that I couldn’t stop crying. "I still can’t believe he was doing all this."

Adrian stepped closer and looked around the room. "He was a good man."

I didn’t answer and we continued deeper into the building.

There were several rooms filled with what looked like the remains of the organization.

It was obvious that someone had gone through the place before us. Whatever the police had considered important had already been taken, leaving behind things that appeared useless.

Roman picked up a folder from one of the desks and flipped through it before putting it back. "Most of this is empty."

Adrian nodded. "Keep looking anyway. We don’t know what they missed."

We searched room after room, opening drawers and checking cabinets. Most contained nothing useful. Some held old documents that had nothing to do with my father, while others were completely empty.

Eventually, we reached an office at the end of the hallway and I knew immediately that it had belonged to my father.

I don’t know why I did, I just knew instantly.

Then Elijah noticed something beneath the desk. "Wait."

He crouched down and pulled away a damaged wooden panel.

There was a safe built into the wall and we all gathered around it.

The keypad was old, and the display wasn’t showing anything. Elijah touched it, pressed a few buttons and frowned. "It’s not working."

Adrian crouched beside him. "Can you open it?"

"Not without power." Elijah examined the keypad again, running his fingers over the wires connected to it. "The safe itself might still work. The problem is the building has no electricity. If the system is connected to the main power supply, I could probably get this running again, but I’d need the electricity back first."

Roman immediately stood. "I’ll check the control room."

I looked at him. "I’ll come with you."

Roman nodded, and we left the office together.

The control room was on the other side of the building. We had to search for it because there were no working lights, and the windows in that part of the building were too dirty to let in much sunlight. Eventually, we found a door marked with an old electrical warning sign and Roman pushed it open.

Inside were several panels and switches, most of them covered in dust.

"Do you know what you’re doing?" I asked.

"Not really," he admitted, looking over the controls. "But we don’t have many options."

Right.

Roman checked the main panel carefully before moving toward another set of switches. He called Adrian on his phone to ask which systems Elijah had mentioned, and after a few minutes of checking, we found the main supply.

The first attempt did nothing and Roman tried again before a loud click came from somewhere inside the wall.

Then one of the lights above us flickered and I looked up as another light came on.

The building slowly came back to life.

"It’s working," I said, staring around the room.

Roman grinned. "Told you."

We hurried back to the office. When we entered, Elijah was already standing in front of the safe with the keypad lit up. "Finally," he said. "I got it working."

Adrian walked over. "Open it."

Elijah pressed a few buttons, but the safe remained locked and he tried again.

Nothing happened so he frowned and stepped back.. "It’s asking for a code."

I stared at the keypad.

Four digits.

Elijah sighed. "So all that work was useless."

I barely heard him. I kept staring at those four empty spaces.

A code.

Something my father had chosen himself. I tried to think of every number that could possibly have meant something to him. The date he started the company. The year the organization was founded. My mother’s birthday. The day they met. Maybe some important date connected to one of his protests.

I suddenly paused. Wait— my birthday.

I looked at the keypad for a few more seconds before reaching forward.

Adrian noticed what I was doing but didn’t stop me as I entered the four digits slowly.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the safe clicked and everyone went silent.

I stared at it and Elijah’s eyes widened. "That actually worked."

My father’s safe had opened with my birthday.

Meaning he had protected whatever was in here with something he loved.

Me.