Chapter: Chapter 8: Cracks in the CircleThe boardroom confrontation still hung in the air long after the doors had closed. Malik could feel it clinging to him as he stood alone in his office, the smell of paper, coffee, and unease.Outside, Atlanta’s sunset bled red across the glass, turning the skyline into a bruise. Elena slipped inside, closing the door softly behind her.“Half the board’s already whispering,” she said. “Kent’s people are promising stability. That word travels fast.”Malik didn’t turn. “Fear always does.”“He’s buying trust, Malik. You can’t fight that with silence.”He faced her. “Silence isn’t surrender. It’s calculation.”Her gaze searched his. “And what are you calculating, revenge or survival?”He didn’t answer. She sighed, crossing to the window. “When I signed on, you talked about rebuilding, not destroying.”“Sometimes rebuilding starts with demolition.”“Not of people,” she said quietly. “You’re not him.”Malik’s jaw tightened. “That’s exactly why I’ll win.”The door opened again. Raymond Willis
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
Chapter: Chapter 7: The Ghost at His DoorThe rain had stopped, but the city hadn’t quieted. Atlanta shimmered under a dull sky, streets still slick, traffic pulsing like a heartbeat beneath the towers.Malik stood by the window of his office, jacket slung over the back of a chair, sleeves rolled. The meeting with the board loomed in less than an hour, yet he couldn’t focus on financial reports.His mind kept returning to one name, Kent, and to the feeling that every step forward was already being watched. A soft knock broke through his thoughts. “Come in,” he said.The door opened halfway. For a heartbeat, the world seemed to tilt. “Tasha.”She stepped inside, hesitating in the threshold like she wasn’t sure if she belonged. A long coat clung to her shoulders; her hair, shorter now, framed a face that carried more weariness than he remembered.“I know I shouldn’t be here,” she began. “But I had to see you.”Malik said nothing. He motioned toward the chair opposite his desk. She didn’t sit.“I found something,” she said. “Abo
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
Chapter: Chapter 6 - The trapThe hum of the servers was the only sound left in the room. Malik stood in the cold glow of the screens, the backup drive in his hand like a live wire. “Start with a sandbox,” he said. “Nothing connects to the main network until I say.”Elena nodded and began isolating the drives. “You’re really going to bait him?”“He wants to watch me bleed,” Malik replied. “Let’s give him a show.”He slid the flash drive into a quarantined terminal. A cascade of data filled the screen, numbers, ports, pings, each one a trail waiting to be followed.Malik’s fingers moved quickly, weaving a false path: a phantom account under his own name, packed with fabricated financial records and a dummy password file.Elena watched. “You just made yourself the world’s most interesting target.”“Exactly.” He leaned back. “Every hunter follows the easiest scent. Once he takes the bait, we’ll trace the callback route.”They waited. The air in the room felt charged, electric.At 3:17 p.m., a ping. Then another. The
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
Chapter: Chapter 5 - Pay DayThe morning came sharp and colourless. Atlanta’s heat hadn’t settled in yet, but the air already felt heavy, like something waiting to break.Malik stood by the window of his office, phone in hand, watching clouds roll in over the skyline. Elena entered without knocking. Her face told him everything. “Something’s wrong,” she said.“How bad?”“Bad enough that the finance department called twice before eight. Two of our biggest contracts, WestRail and MidSouth Freight, pulled out overnight.Their lawyers say the funding came from fraudulent accounts.” Malik turned slowly. “That’s impossible. We vetted every line.”“Not according to them,” she said, laying a tablet on the desk. “Look. The deposits are gone, every cent rerouted through a Cayman subsidiary before dawn.”He scanned the screen. The code names were familiar, too familiar: Wilcrest, Savoy, and a new one, Kestrel Limited. A cold clarity settled over him. “Kent,” he said.Elena frowned. “He’s already hitting back?”“He warned me
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
Chapter: Chapter 4 - War withinAtlanta had a habit of mirroring Malik’s moods. The clouds hung low over the skyline as he sat alone in his suite, laptop open, numbers cascading down the screen like confessions.Phoenix Freight’s analysts had sent over Moore Logistics’ full fiscal reports. On paper, the company was struggling, but not dying. Someone was feeding it life support. Quietly.He zoomed in on a set of ledgers from three years back. The numbers didn’t add up. Two accounts kept reappearing: Wilcrest Holdings and Savoy Finance Group, both offshore, both masked through shell companies.Elena stepped in, coffee in hand. “You’ve been staring at those numbers all morning.”“They’re lying,” he said.“Numbers don’t lie, Malik. People do.”He looked up. “Exactly.”She set the coffee down and leaned over the desk. “You think Derrick’s been laundering money?”“Not just laundering,” Malik murmured. “Covering for someone. Look here, every time their profits dipped, a private deposit refilled their accounts. Always from
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
Chapter: Chapter 3B – Man in The Mirror The suite was dim when Malik returned. Atlanta’s skyline poured through the window, all glass and temptation.Elena sat on the sofa, tablet open, numbers glowing across the screen. “They’ll call by morning,” she said without looking up. “They want the deal badly.”Malik loosened his tie. “Good. The more desperate they are, the clearer their tells.”“You think she suspects?”“She felt something.” He poured a glass of water, watching the ripples tremble. “Recognition isn’t proof. Not yet.”Elena closed the tablet. “And when it becomes proof?”He took a slow drink. “Then the game changes.”She leaned back, studying him. “You’ve built a whole empire just to walk into that room. Don’t let it own you.”“It won’t.” He set down the glass. “I already lost everything once. That’s how I learned what not to worship.”Across town, Tasha Moore sat in her office long after everyone else had gone home. The building was quiet, humming faintly with the sound of air vents and regret.She stared at the r
Last Updated: 2025-10-24
THE HAND OF VENGEANCE
Frank Mercer was a prodigy, the kind of surgeon whose instincts defied logic. His methods were unorthodox, his results miraculous, and his heart too pure for the corrupt medical system that thrived on power and politics.
But genius threatens mediocrity. When Frank exposed malpractice at Chicago’s top hospital, his world imploded, his license revoked, his reputation destroyed, his girlfriend Lisa seduced by a wealthy rival, and his name dragged through every media outlet.
Left jobless and broken, Frank became a ghost in the alleys, saving lives in secret, helping the forgotten.
Until fate threw him into the limelight: a horrific accident outside a mall leaves the President’s daughter dying. Frank acts, and revives her, defying every protocol, every law of medicine.
Overnight, he becomes the nation’s obsession.
But the same hands that saved a life will soon carve out justice.
Behind the headlines, Frank begins to uncover a network of corruption stretching from hospital boards to political offices. The same forces that ruined him are feeding off death and disease, manipulating medicine for profit and control.
Frank’s revenge becomes an art form, surgical, methodical, and righteous.
He’ll heal the world’s sickness by cutting out its rot.
As his fame rises, his enemies close in, and Frank must balance the weight of power, love, and morality before he becomes the monster he swore to destroy.
In a city where every life has a price, The Hand of Vengeance will decide who deserves to live.
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Chapter: Chapter 10 — The EscapeThe laser dot trembled on Frank’s chest. Then he dropped. A bullet cracked the air where his head had been. Glass exploded behind him.He hit the floor hard, rolling behind a steel cabinet as another shot rang out. “Target confirmed! Northwest corridor!” a voice shouted through a radio.Frank’s pulse thundered. His fingers brushed the flash drive in his pocket, his only copy of the Mercer files. He whispered into his comm. “Paige, they’re here.”Her voice snapped back, tinny and panicked. “Frank, I see them on the grid! You need another exit, north stairwell, forty feet ahead!”“Copy.”He moved low and fast, keeping to the shadows. Boots pounded on the concrete behind him. Another burst of gunfire sparked off the walls.He dove through a side doorway, slammed it shut, and jammed a rusted wrench through the handle. The room beyond was a storage lab, broken beakers, old oxygen tanks, a dripping pipe overhead.Paige’s voice again, urgent. “They’re rerouting. You’ve got maybe ninety secon
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
Chapter: Chapter 9 — Bait and PursuitThe safe-house smelled of stale coffee and metal. A single desk lamp cut a cone of light across the room; outside, sirens blurred under the rain.Frank sat in front of the cracked laptop, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Lines of encrypted text scrolled past, green against black.Paige stepped from the kitchenette, holding two paper cups. “That thing’s been running for an hour. You even know what you’re chasing?”He didn’t look up. “A breadcrumb.”“Or bait.”He finally turned. “Same thing, depending on who eats first.”She set the coffee beside him, crossed her arms. “You think Roth would just drop coordinates on a public thread and hope you see them? Come on, Frank. It’s too neat.”“Maybe. But whoever posted it used my own cipher from five years ago. Only three people knew it existed.”Paige frowned. “Lisa?”He nodded once. “So you think she’s trying to help?”“I don’t know. She warned me once before. Or someone did, using her voice.”Paige dropped into the chair opposite him. “Wh
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
Chapter: Chapter 8 — The Net TightensChicago’s skyline gleamed like a circuit board, each window a lit node against the rain. Sixty-two floors up, inside Roth Biotech’s executive suite, the lights never dimmed.Agent Cole stood before the panoramic glass, tie loosened, eyes on the city below. The room behind him hummed with servers and quiet menace.A door hissed open. Dr. Vivian Roth entered, immaculate suit, silver hair tied back, every movement precise. Power in heels. “Tell me you have good news,” she said.Cole didn’t turn. “Depends on your definition.”“Try me.”He faced her. “Mercer’s alive. And he has the data.”Roth’s expression didn’t change. “Impossible. That drive was tagged.”“It was. He’s smarter than we calculated.”“Smarter,” she repeated, as if tasting the word. “He was supposed to be expendable, not exceptional.”Cole handed her a tablet. “He breached your basement archive. Accessed the Lazarus files. Someone tipped him off.”“Someone?”“We’re tracing the call now.”Roth set the tablet down, fingers tap
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
Chapter: Chapter 7 — The Ghost in the WiresRain fell like static, blurring the streetlights into halos. Frank moved fast through the back alleys of downtown Chicago, coat soaked, head down.Every few blocks he checked for tails, none visible, but paranoia whispered otherwise.He stopped at a closed pharmacy, jimmied the lock, and slipped inside. The faint smell of disinfectant hit him like nostalgia. The place was dark, only the red EXIT sign bleeding faint light across the shelves.He found the back office, yanked the phone line from the wall, and booted up the dusty desktop. No internet connection, but that wasn’t the point.He pulled a small device from his pocket, thumbed the power on. A tiny light blinked blue. His own system. Hidden server, off-grid, running on code he’d written during his intern days.If Roth Biotech wanted to play god, he’d show them how a mortal fights back.01:12 a.m. He opened the first drive he’d smuggled from the hospital basement. The directory was buried under a dozen layers of encryption, label
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
Chapter: Chapter 6 — Eyes in the WallsThe hospital at night never truly slept. Machines whispered, vents hummed, and somewhere down the hall a light blinked in rhythm with a mechanical breath.Frank moved through the ICU corridor, shoes squeaking faintly against polished linoleum. He was supposed to have gone home hours ago, but something about the data from the President’s daughter’s monitor kept gnawing at him.The readings were too clean, too symmetrical, like someone was editing them in real time.He stopped outside her glass room. The girl slept, still pale, but the machines were steady now, each number calm and obedient. Too obedient.“Doctor Mercer?” A nurse’s voice made him turn. It was the same one from earlier, Paige, young, exhausted, clutching a clipboard.“You’re still here,” she said. “Security sweep’s done. Everything’s locked down.”He nodded absently. “Has IT been in this room today?”“Not since the morning.”“Then who adjusted the data relay?”Paige frowned. “No one. Why?”“Because it’s running a ghost f
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
Chapter: Chapter 5 — Smoke and MirrorsMorning sunlight hit the mirrored glass of Roth Biotech Tower, turning the lobby into a gleaming reflection of everything Lisa wanted to believe she’d earned.Outside, a line of reporters shouted questions into microphones: “Is it true you knew Frank Mercer personally?”“Was he unstable?”“Did you help expose his methods?”Lisa adjusted her sunglasses and kept walking. Cameras flashed. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.Upstairs, behind soundproof doors, Dr. Victor Roth was already pacing. He turned when she entered, sleek and dangerous in his tailored suit. “Finally,” he said. “You made them wait long enough to look important.”“I am important,” she replied coolly, setting her bag down. “Or you wouldn’t have called me.”Roth’s grin was all teeth. “You always did learn fast.”He clicked the remote. Screens along the wall lit up with the same viral clip, Frank in the alley, rain-slicked and calm as chaos swirled around him. The crowd chanting, the phones, the miracle.“Two million shares
Last Updated: 2025-10-23
