The estate was quiet that evening.Not silent, but contained.Jasper stood near the back terrace, hands resting lightly behind his back as he watched Zoey walk along the edge of the garden path. She wasn’t distracted. She rarely was. Her steps were careful, measured, like she understood that every movement inside the Brennan estate was observed, even when it didn’t feel like it.“Zoey,” he called.She turned immediately and walked toward him without hesitation.“Yes?”“Come here.”She stopped in front of him, posture straight, eyes lifted. There was no impatience in her expression. No resistance. Just attention.“You went out today,” he said.“Yes.”“With Jessica.”“Yes.”His gaze didn’t harden, but it sharpened slightly.“Did she tell you why?”“She said she wanted to spend time with me.”“And you believed that?”Zoey paused, thinking before answering. “I believed she was curious.”“About what?”“About me.”Jasper nodded once.“And what did you tell her?”“Nothing important.”He stud

The arrest was quiet.No spectacle. No raised voices. The butler was escorted from the estate at dawn, wrists restrained, head lowered. Staff stood at a distance, watching without speaking. No one asked questions. No one dared.The Brennan council convened briefly that morning. Authority was granted without resistance.“Handle it,” one elder said.Jasper inclined his head once.That was enough.By midday, he stood inside the holding facility on the outskirts of the city. Concrete walls. Steel doors. Fluorescent lighting that flattened everything it touched. The air smelled faintly of metal and disinfectant.The guards recognized him immediately.“Mr. Brennan.”“I’ll speak with him alone.”There was no hesitation.“Yes, sir.”The door to the interrogation room opened with a dull scrape.The butler sat at the center table, wrists cuffed to a metal ring. His posture had changed since the estate. Shoulders curved inward. Eyes restless. He looked smaller here.When he saw Jasper enter, he

Adrian’s office smelled faintly of leather and coffee, a combination that had always reminded him of control. He sat behind his desk, fingers drumming against the polished surface, though the sound was hollow to his own ears. The screens around him flickered with reports he had no power to change. Every pipeline frozen, every partner withdrawing, every regulator circling like vultures.Jessica leaned against the edge of the desk, watching him. Her arms were crossed loosely, but the tension in her shoulders betrayed caution.“Adrian,” she said, voice soft but steady. “You look worse than yesterday. Or the day before.”He smiled, the curve of his lips deliberate, controlled. “I assure you, I am managing.” He leaned forward, lowering his tone. “It’s… complicated. More than I can explain in a brief summary.”Her eyes narrowed. “Complicated enough that it involves bending the truth?”“Some truths,” he said, stepping around the desk to stand closer, “are more useful when left partially… vei

The disruption began at 2:13 a.m.No alarms at first. Just a delay.A shipment flagged.A payment queue stalled.A server response time stretched longer than it should have.By 2:19 a.m., three Brennan subsidiaries were offline.By 2:27 a.m., financial routing systems began looping error codes.Rowan entered Jasper’s private office without knocking.“Multiple hits,” he said.Jasper was already awake.“Scope.”“Logistics. Two ports. One clearing house.”“Internal breach?”“Negative. External infiltration.”Jasper stood from his desk.“Pattern?”Rowan brought up the projection screen.Lines of code scrolled across it.Layered misdirection.Dummy signatures.Foreign routing masks.Jasper watched in silence.Then he spoke.“Snow.”Rowan looked at him.“You’re certain?”“He’s hiding under borrowed architecture.”“How can you tell?”Jasper stepped closer to the screen.“He always overcorrects encryption symmetry.”Rowan narrowed his eyes.“I see nothing obvious.”“You wouldn’t.”Jasper fold

The message arrived just before noon.It was not encrypted well enough to be invisible, but well enough to suggest urgency rather than subtlety. Rowan brought it directly to Jasper’s office without passing it through secondary channels.“He wants immunity,” Rowan said, placing the tablet on the desk.Jasper did not reach for it immediately. He finished signing the document in front of him, then set his pen down with measured precision.“For what?” he asked.“For silence.”Jasper lifted his eyes.Rowan tapped the screen. “He claims to possess archival material tied to early Brennan operations. Financial records. Political coercion. Names that were buried decades ago.”“Authentic?”“Partially,” Rowan replied. “Fragments we thought were erased.”Jasper finally picked up the tablet and read the message in full.Grant me legal immunity and reinstated corporate access. In exchange, the Brennan lineage remains untarnished. Refuse, and the past becomes public.There was no flourish in the wor