The great study, usually a bastion of quiet power, had become a pressure cooker. Four formidable figures sat around the table, waiting not for a battle cry, but for a simple telephone chime. The silence was heavy, saturated with the knowledge that the smallest sound would signal the commencement of

The moment Michael Thorne’s emergency line had interrupted his carefully delivered ultimatum to Mirreti, the world of controlled power he inhabited shattered. He didn’t wait for a polite goodbye; he simply cut the line on Mirreti and snatched the second phone, his hand suddenly slick with cold sweat

The secure line lay dead on the table, its final click an echo of the conversation’s abrupt, violent end. In Mirreti’s study, the quiet that descended was far worse than the threats Michael Thorne had just delivered. It was the quiet of absolute uncertainty, a vacuum where a clear ultimatum had just

Michael Thorne, Raymond's father,nstood on the balcony of his secure command center, the city lights below blurring into stripes of impotent color. He wasn't watching the city; he was watching the internal clock that marked the speed of his vengeance. He had left the hospital, not because Raymond wa

The low-level office beneath Mirreti’s mansion pulsed with quiet, urgent energy. The tactical screens displayed the complex web of the counter-strike plan: Marcus’s informational noise, the synchronized diversion, and the two critical teams preparing to strike the financial and logistical hearts of