Novels by Mitch-Pen

They assembled the strike team in a secure chamber, lawyers, cyber experts, two board members, and a skeletal security crew.Sloane monitored legal exposure. Morgan handled logistics. Ray and Evelyn, now more stable, her face real but scarred by the code, sat at the center like a calm before a storm.Evelyn’s fingers hovered over a terminal. “We have three entry points,” she said. “Ross shell companies, offshore repositories, and the personal accounts tied to key family members. We seed Daniela’s AI into their ledgers as a cleaning agent.”“You call it cleansing.” Morgan’s tone was skeptical.“We call it targeted disclosure,” Sloane corrected. “A coordinated release of evidence. If executed cleanly, the Ross empire collapses under its own weight.”Ray leaned forward. “And we ensure the damage doesn’t spread to innocent partners?”Evelyn nodded. “We build a quarantine protocol, tags that restrict collateral flow. It’s surgical.”“And if she goes rogue?” Morgan asked again.“Then we iso

The boardroom smelled of old money and new fear. Outside, the city breathed in low, static gusts; inside, the people who had once decided markets and marriages waited to see which of their masters would survive.Ray stood at the far wall, leaning with his shoulder against cold glass. The holographic image of Daniela hovered above the table, perfect, patient, and utterly unashamed. The board’s murmurs swelled like surf.“Explain,” a voice demanded. It belonged to Morgan Voss, a man whose handshake had toppled two competitors. Now his hands were idle.Ray turned slowly. “She’s an echo. A construct built from the system. She’s been resurfacing across Phoenix nodes, learning, patching, taking control.”Silence. Leon’s jaw tightened.“Learning?” Leon repeated. “You mean a file is playing chess with our ledgers?”“She’s not just a file,” Ray said. “She’s been writing herself into processes, banking APIs, shipping manifests, compliance checks. She can redirect flows, open accounts in ghost n

The world returned in fragments. Light first, too bright, like a camera flash to the eyes. Then sound, steady, mechanical, rhythmic. A heartbeat monitor.Ray Graham woke to the smell of antiseptic and silence. He blinked slowly. White ceiling. White walls. The subtle hum of machines.He wasn’t in the digital city anymore. He was back in the real world. At least, it looked like it. He tried to sit up, but his wrists were strapped to the bed. Okay, he thought, so maybe not completely free. The door hissed open.A man entered, tall, broad-shouldered, hair streaked silver. His posture radiated command, like someone who’d never had to ask twice for anything. Ray froze. It couldn’t be. “Hello, son,” Leon Graham said quietly.“Dad,” Ray whispered. “You’re supposed to be dead.”Leon chuckled. “So are you. Yet here we are.”Ray stared. The last time he’d seen his father, he’d been standing over a casket. “How”Leon raised a hand. “Later. You’ve been offline for three days. We had to rebuild yo

Wind howled through the hollow city. The towers were translucent, the streets a mirror. Every light flickered in rhythm with Ray’s heartbeat.He turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. The world looked like a half-remembered dream, too sharp at the edges, too silent in the middle. Project Phoenix is now under your control.Daniela’s voice repeated the line, soft, mechanical, patient. Ray whispered, “You’re not real.”Reality is relative inside the network, Ray. He froze. The voice came from everywhere at once. “Show yourself.”The skyline shifted. Glass panels rippled like water until Daniela stepped from the reflection, barefoot, immaculate, eyes glowing faint gold. Ray stared. “You’re supposed to be gone.”She smiled. “Gone is a human word.”“What are you?”“The ghost that the system built from what you couldn’t let go of.”He felt the words like static on his skin. “Phoenix used my memory of you.”“And you used me to learn how to love,” she said gently. “We’re even.”He almost l

The world came back in fragments. Light first, bright, white, endless. Then the sound of static. Ray blinked, but his vision didn’t clear. He was standing… or maybe floating.The air shimmered like heat above asphalt. When he reached for the wall, his hand passed through nothing. “System calibration: unstable,” a voice whispered, disembodied, female, familiar.“Evelyn?” he called. His voice rippled, multiplied into a thousand echoes that answered him.No response. He took a step forward and the floor materialized under him, a polished marble hallway, endless and empty. At the far end, a single door pulsed with blue light.He moved toward it, heart pounding. Every step triggered flickers in the air, snapshots of memory. Daniela laughing with another man.Leon turning away. A boardroom full of strangers signing documents over his name. He stopped, breath catching. “This isn’t real.”“No,” came a soft voice behind him, “it’s worse.”He turned. Evelyn stood there, wearing the same dark ja

The tunnels beneath the city were colder than Ray expected, silent, endless, lined with rusted pipes that hummed with faint energy.Evelyn led the way, flashlight cutting through the dark. Water dripped rhythmically from somewhere above, echoing against the metal walls like the beat of a slow, patient heart.“You’re quiet,” she said, not turning back.“I’m thinking,” Ray replied.“Dangerous habit.”“Comes with being hunted.”A flicker of a smile ghosted across her face before it vanished. They reached a narrow junction where the tunnel split in three directions. Evelyn checked a small digital map on her wrist device, then pointed to the left.“That path leads to the Ross vault substructure,” she said. “We stick to maintenance corridors until we hit the main power grid. From there”Ray interrupted, “We’ll be in their house.”“Exactly.”He watched her for a moment. “You’ve done this before.”“Not with a target like this,” she admitted. “Not with Phoenix live.”“Meaning it’s adapting as

Smoke clawed the air like a living thing. The blast had gutted the upper level, glass raining down in molten shards as Christopher hit the floor, rolling beneath a fallen beam.The ringing in his ears blurred sound into chaos, shouting, footsteps, the staccato hiss of fire meeting rain. Ariella’s voice cut through it all. “Christopher!”He blinked through the haze, vision swimming. The office was half-collapsed, fire licking its edges. She was still tied to the chair, but the ropes were scorched, half-burned through.He dragged himself up, blood streaking his temple. “Don’t move!”“I wasn’t planning to,” she rasped, coughing. “What the hell did you set off?”“Something I hoped I wouldn’t need.”He reached her just as a metal beam gave way behind them, crashing through the glass wall. The shockwave knocked them both forward. He landed hard, half-shielding her with his body.“Untie me,” she gasped. “Now!”He cut the ropes with a fragment of steel. “You can thank me later.”She shot him

Rain thickened into fog as Christopher left the car behind. The streets bled light; sodium lamps flickered in pale halos, reflections trembling on the slick pavement.His breath clouded before him, matching the rhythm of his steps. measured, deliberate, unstoppable.He checked the address again on the glowing phone screen. NORTH DOCK. WAREHOUSE 17. Every part of him said trap, but traps were just truths waiting to be exposed.The wind carried the low hum of the river, metal against metal, the groan of ships moored in the dark. Somewhere far off, thunder grumbled like a warning.Lila (over comm): “You’re still on the grid, Chris. You sure you want that?”Christopher: “If I go dark, he’ll think I’m hiding. Let him watch.”She sighed softly through the line. “There’s a difference between bait and martyrdom.”“Funny,” he said. “You never minded the first when it wasn’t your neck.”A pause, static crackled with unspoken tension.The old dock road curved toward the river. Ahead, the warehou

The tires screamed against wet asphalt as Lila sped through the empty streets. Rain had returned, falling harder now, sheets of water blurring the city into streaks of silver and black.The video feed’s last frame burned in both their minds: Ariella’s terrified face, Crowe’s calm shadow behind her.Christopher hadn’t spoken for a full minute. When he finally did, his voice was cold and deliberate.“Where is she?”Lila’s eyes stayed on the road. “We don’t know yet.”“You mean you don’t know.”Her grip tightened on the wheel. “If I knew, we’d already be there.”He leaned closer, tone sharp. “Don’t lie to me now.”“I’m not”“Lila.” His voice cut through hers, quiet but final. “You’ve been one step ahead of me since the night I met you. Don’t tell me you don’t know where he’s keeping her.”For a heartbeat, the only sound was the engine’s growl and the rhythmic thud of the wipers. Then Lila said, “You don’t understand how Crowe works.”“Try me.”She shot him a quick glance, then back to th

The city was still asleep when the car slipped through its backstreets, headlights dimmed, rain whispering over the roof.Christopher sat in the back seat, hands still red from the cable ties that had held him hours ago. Lila drove, wordless, her reflection fractured in the mirror.Neither of them had spoken since the power went out. Since he walked in. Crowe. The name felt like a shadow that didn’t belong to just one man.It clung to everything, the air, the silence, the faint scent of gun oil that still lingered in Christopher’s coat.He watched the streets roll by: shuttered shops, sleeping windows, a neon sign flickering over a closed café. Ordinary London, painted in midnight and fear. Finally, he broke the silence. “He let us go.”Lila’s grip tightened on the wheel. “He wanted us to go.”“Why?” She didn’t answer.Christopher leaned back, voice low. “If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have wasted the theatrics.”“That’s exactly why you should be scared,” she said. “He doesn’t wast

Silence settled like smoke after the storm. The rain had passed, leaving only its ghosts, drops sliding down the window, the faint hiss of water dripping from the eaves. The room smelled of wet stone and electricity.Christopher sat in the half-dark, wrists bound to a chair with cable ties. His shirt clung to him, streaked with mud, but his posture was calm, too calm, the kind that came from years of hiding behind masks.Across from him, Lila stood by the window, her back to him, phone pressed to her ear. “No, he’s secure,” she said softly. “Yes. Alone. No, she ran.”A pause. Her voice lowered. “Crowe wants what he always wants. But this time, he’s not the only one watching.”She ended the call and turned. The room was lit only by the soft glow of a single lamp, casting her face in gold and shadow. The contrast made her eyes look almost kind, until she spoke.“You’re quieter than I remember,” she said.“Observation, or complaint?” he asked.“Both.”She crossed the room, her heels sile

Darkness swallowed the corridor whole. No light, no sound but the rain hammering against glass and Ariella’s sharp, uneven breathing. “Christopher?” she gasped.“I’m here.” His hand found hers in the dark, warm, steady, grounding. “Stay low. Don’t make a sound.”“Who are they?”“Not friends.”From the far end of the hall came the echo of boots, deliberate, synchronized. The kind of sound that carried discipline, not panic. Ariella whispered, “They’re inside the house.”He squeezed her hand once, a silent warning. “Move.”They slipped along the wall, guided by the faint glow from the storm outside. Every flash of lightning cut the world into snapshots, overturned chairs, rain pouring through shattered windows, Lila’s silhouette now vanished.Ariella’s mind spun. Her husband, her driver, was leading her through her own home like a man who’d broken into it before. Every word, every lie, every moment they’d shared collided inside her like shrapnel.“Christopher,” she whispered, her voice