Jack Vance slowly opened his eyes.
Everything in his field of vision was completely unfamiliar.
True to his training as a tier-one black-ops operator, he did not panic.
He remained entirely silent.
His mind worked in overdrive, passively gathering intelligence from the hushed conversations echoing around the room.
The fragments of information he pieced together were staggering.
He was in England.
More alarmingly, he was a newborn infant.
Even as the most lethal operator in America’s most highly classified military detachment, the shock still washed over him.
But that shock quickly gave way to a cold, pragmatic silence.
He knew with absolute certainty that his old life was gone.
There was no returning to his unit, his country, or the world he knew.
According to the snippets of conversation he had overheard, the current year was 1985.
Time had rewound.
Perhaps one day in the distant future he could return to the States, but for now, his old life was effectively erased.
His former unit, Task Force Black, was not some mythical organization depicted in Hollywood movies.
There were no rogue superspies or high-tech gadgets.
They were simply a hyper-lethal, off-the-books military unit.
They handled the nation’s darkest work.
Deep-cover assassinations, impossible hostage rescues, and ruthless shadow wars against foreign intelligence agencies were their daily bread.
Even then, Task Force Black was not the absolute apex of the military hierarchy.
Above them existed a phantom unit known only as Omega Actual, where the true monsters resided.
Jack had been an orphan, raised by the system and forged into a weapon by the military machine.
Consequently, his loyalty to his country was absolute.
Not all members of his task force were orphans, but absolute secrecy was mandatory.
None could ever reveal their true nature to their families.
The recruitment protocol was brutal.
Operators were pulled from top military branches nationwide.
Upon graduation, they were promised a way out.
If they survived one hundred classified deployments, they would be granted a clean slate and a normal civilian life.
Given the suicidal nature of the missions, very few ever lived to claim that reward.
Through sheer willpower and lethal talent, Jack had survived.
He became the deadliest operator in Task Force Black, completing over a hundred deployments.
He had earned his right to leave.
But as an orphan with no family to return to, a “normal life” meant nothing to him.
With nowhere else to go, he had chosen to stay in the shadows.
Now, listening to the voices around his crib, he identified his mother.
Anna Williams was a stunningly beautiful woman, possessing a radiant grace.
His father and uncle were equally striking.
Both men possessed the textbook features of elite British aristocracy.
Then there was his grandfather.
Outwardly, he looked like an ordinary elderly man.
But when the old man’s temper flared, he radiated an oppressive, commanding aura that even a seasoned JSOC operator like Jack found intimidating.
This was clearly a man who wielded absolute power.
To Jack’s quiet amusement, the terrifying old man unilaterally stripped his father of all naming rights.
While his father wore a look of bitter helplessness, the patriarch officially declared the boy’s name: Allen George.
If he could not go back, then he would not look back.
His homeland was a lifetime away.
Right now, he was a helpless infant.
He could not fight, and he could not serve.
He would embrace this second chance.
He would live as an Englishman, blending into his new reality while keeping the soul of an American soldier hidden beneath the face of an aristocrat.
Over the next few days, the infant Allen listened carefully to his family’s conversations.
He decided to let go of his past and embrace something he had always envied but never possessed.
He finally had a real family.
But the more he learned about his new family, the more terrified he became.
The House of George was the undisputed sovereign of British nobility.
Their history spanned over eleven hundred years, tracing back to the violent chaos of the Dark Ages.
While much of their early history was lost to time, their survival through over a millennium of war and political upheaval was a testament to the ruthless genius born into every generation.
Today, the House of George controlled wealth that defied human comprehension.
Even his grandfather did not know the exact number.
The family possessed seven secret vaults.
The contents of a single vault easily eclipsed the entire gold reserve of the United Kingdom.
They owned seven ancient estates across the country.
The most famous of these was Eilean Donan Castle in the Scottish Highlands.
While the public believed the castle belonged to a historical trust, its true master was the House of George.
The other six estates were entirely undocumented, hidden in impossibly remote locations.
The family commanded the absolute loyalty of the traditional British aristocracy.
If the House of George willed it, the entire infrastructure of the United Kingdom would collapse overnight.
Even the Royal Family treaded lightly around them.
No member of the George family actively served in the military or parliament, yet both institutions bowed to their influence.
A family that had accumulated power for a millennium possessed shadow armies and underground networks that could swallow nations whole.
Allen even overheard his uncle casually mention the Italian Mafia.
According to John, the modern Mafia was merely a small, splintered subsidiary of the George family’s underground empire.
As a former black-ops operator, Allen knew exactly how terrifying the Mafia was.
He had crossed paths with them in his past life.
They secretly controlled forty percent of Italy’s Ministry of Defense.
To hear that they were just a minor branch of his new family’s power was staggering.
Forget it, Allen thought.
I don’t even know if being born into a family like this is a blessing or a curse.
His infantile brain, overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the information, finally gave out.
Slowly, the deadliest operator of Task Force Black drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep.