All Chapters of THE EXILED KING : Chapter 171
- Chapter 180
188 chapters
LINE IN THE SAND
The surveillance room remained thick with tension even after the last screen stopped flickering. Evelyn stayed frozen in front of the monitor, her fingertips still pressed lightly against the glass where Nolan’s blurred figure had disappeared minutes earlier. The lingering image of him walking through the chaos made her stomach twist. She remembered how calm he used to be—it was one of the things she used to admire and sometimes resent. Now that same calm unsettled her more than any bullet or scream in the casino.Zahir watched her closely. “Evelyn, sit down before you fall down. You’re shaking.”She snapped out of her daze and stepped back from the screen. “I’m fine.”“You don’t look fine.” He walked toward her, his voice low and firm. “You recognized that man. I saw your eyes.”“I didn’t recognize anyone,” Evelyn said quickly, too quickly. “The Phantom King is just another criminal.”Zahir did not look convinced. “You reacted like he was an old memory.”“I reacted like any sane p
THE THORNE ALGORITHM
Nolan sat near the wide glass wall of the penthouse, watching the city lights spread across Bullwick like a glowing map. From this height, the buildings rose and fell like quiet pieces on a board, each block stitched together with roads that pulsed like wiring in a machine he used to understand. But tonight, something in the grid was wrong. His eyes stayed on the skyline, but his mind followed the patterns his Ghost network had shown him—trades that moved too fast, algorithms that copied his routes, signals that predicted his next shift before he even made it.Vera walked into the room with a tablet tucked under her arm. “You’re still staring at the skyline,” she said, sitting across from him. “Most people come up here to relax.”“I’m not most people,” Nolan replied. He didn’t look away from the city. “Ghost flagged another strange cluster five minutes ago. Same pattern as before.”Vera tapped her screen. “I checked it already. It’s not random. Whoever is doing this knows your math.
YOUR TURN NOLAN
Vera sighed. “You fight too much.”Boris shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. People keep giving me reasons.”Nolan allowed a faint smile before turning back to the city. “The meeting room is in Tower Crescent. Fiftieth floor. Glass walls. Perfect for a message.”Boris zipped the bag shut. “Then let’s go. Before these Syndicate rats start thinking they’re actual predators.”Nolan shut down the screen. “My Ghost network will mask the route. No one follows us there.”Vera watched them head for the elevator. “Nolan,” she said softly, stopping him for a moment. “This team copying you… it’s dangerous.”“So am I,” Nolan said. He wasn’t being arrogant. He was stating a fact.The elevator doors closed.Inside Tower Crescent, the office lights glowed faintly against the polished glass walls. Nolan sat in the center of the room with his hood down and the false briefcase on the table beside him. The city stretched around them like a curtain of stars. Boris stood near the door, humming some off-ke
ALEX’S TRIGGER
Nolan heard the echo of the last message on Ghost—MOVE MADE. YOUR TURN—long after he and Boris left Tower Crescent. It settled in his mind like a cold weight, the kind that followed him even when the city lights blurred past the car windows. Whoever Elias Thorne truly was, he wasn’t guessing anymore. He was responding. Countering. Moving like someone who wanted to predict Nolan’s next breath.But the moment the car turned toward the abandoned hospital block—Timo’s safehouse tucked under broken stone and rusted gates—Nolan forced all thoughts of Elias aside. There was someone here who mattered more than any hacker shadow or Syndicate ghost.Alex.He had been stable for two days. Eating. Resting. Even making jokes with Boris. Trauma wasn’t linear, Nolan knew that, but Alex had been trying. Trying to live. Trying to breathe. Trying to feel human again after Stillwell’s panic implant turned his nervous system into a weapon.But as Nolan stepped out of the vehicle, the sound of a news
ASSET NO MORE
“To remind you you’re not what they tried to make you.”Nolan adjusted the band as the pulses softened Alex’s spasms. His shoulders lowered. His breathing eased. He pressed a hand over his face, overwhelmed and exhausted.“You shouldn’t waste your time on me,” Alex whispered, voice rough. “You’ve got enemies. Real ones. People with money and guns and clones of your code. And I’m just—”“Stop.” Nolan’s tone cut the air cleanly. “You are not a burden. You’re not an experiment. You’re not what Stillwell branded you.”Alex swallowed hard. “Then what am I?”“Someone worth protecting,” Nolan said.Alex’s eyes finally met his—clear for the first time since the panic attack began.But the moment didn’t last.The distant sound of heavy boots hit the hallway.Four pairs.Fast.Purposeful.Armed.Nolan’s expression darkened. “They followed the news clip. They’re not cleaners—they’re retrieval units.”Alex tensed again, but Nolan pushed him gently back. “Stay down. Keep the Echo running. Whatever
CRACK IN THE WALL
Nolan stood in the darkened ward, the smell of blood was thick under the softer hospital antiseptic. The surgical lamp was off now, but the bodies on the floor still made the room feel bright in the worst way. He stacked the cleaned tools in a neat line on the tray, metal edges catching the faint glow from the hallway.Alex watched him, shoulders pressed into the thin mattress, Echo band humming quietly at his temple. “You… you really don’t shake, do you?” he asked. His voice was small, raw from the panic attack and the sedative pulses.Nolan checked the Echo’s readout, thumb brushing the edge of the device. “Your heart rate is back in range,” he said. “Stay with that. Slow breath in, hold, slow breath out. Again.”Alex tried, pulling in air through clenched teeth. “You killed three of them like it was nothing.”“It wasn’t nothing,” Nolan replied. He stepped to the door, took a quick look down the corridor, then dragged one body out of direct sight. “It was necessary. There’s a diff
THE BAITED GHOST
In the cyber-ops room, the windows were gone, replaced by screens stacked from floor to ceiling. Lines of code and transaction logs flowed like rivers. A young hacker with hollow eyes brought up a construct diagram for Virella, hands shaking slightly as he expanded sections.“We built a payload,” he said. “A Ghost-like exploit. It looks like a patch for off-chain aggregation nodes. Anyone who installs it thinks they get access to Nolan’s routing advantages. In reality, it reports key info back to us and opens a trace.”Virella stepped closer. “Does it look like him?”“We cloned his style,” the hacker said. “At least, what we know of it. Same obfuscation habits, same cryptographic preferences. It’s convincing enough for first glance. If Nolan cares about his legend, he will want to clean this up before it stains him.”In the corner, a man in a dark jacket leaned against the console, the Syndicate’s underworld broker, always halfway between a grin and a flinch. “I can spread it,” he sa
NEON SLAUGHTERHOUSE
“It’s the most controlled,” Nolan replied. “Crowds give me cover. Cameras give me proof. And when word spreads, it will not say I walked into their trap. It will say something else.” He closed his laptop and stood, slipping his mask into his pocket instead of over his face. “You stay here. Keep the Echo running. If I’m not back in six hours, trigger the fallback and follow the route I left you. No debate.”Alex’s jaw clenched. “I hate this.”“I know,” Nolan said quietly. He rested a hand on Alex’s shoulder for a brief second. “Breathe. Trust the band. Trust me.”*********The neon nightclub pulsed like a heartbeat against the night. Light leaked onto the street, painted faces and cars in shifting colors. Inside, the air was thick with sweat, alcohol, and bass that rattled the glassware. Bodies moved on the crowded dance floor, and the back corners hummed with side deals and quiet threats.Nolan stepped through the entrance in plain clothes, no visible weapons. He paid the cover witho
EXPOSING ATHERTON
Lena watched the bloody words on the nightclub mirror replay for the tenth time, the shaky clip looping across her main screen. THE PHANTOM WATCHES. Somewhere in that mess of strobe lights and screams, Nolan’s face flashed at the edge of frame, half-shadowed, jaw tight, eyes flat. On another monitor, columns of numbers crawled down a National Fund ledger. Her whole cramped apartment newsroom hummed with fan noise and quiet rage.“You see this?” her producer asked from the doorway. Malik’s hoodie hung half off one shoulder, his eyes ringed with the kind of tired that came from too much bad news and not enough pay. “He turned a Syndicate club into a slaughterhouse. Again. And everyone is already arguing about whether he’s a monster or a myth.”Lena dragged her gaze from the clip to the spreadsheet. “People have time to argue about his style,” she said. “They don’t even know their ‘National Fund’ is bleeding them out.”Malik stepped closer, following her line of sight. “You’re still o
THE TRUTH AT BULLWICK SQUARE
Across the city, in a glass office high above a quiet street, Atherton watched Bullwick Press Square on a wall-sized screen. His tie was loosened, his jacket was off, but his posture was still that of a man used to cameras. The crowd’s roar reached him as a distant rumble through professional microphones.“She’s grown teeth,” one of his advisers said carefully. “We can file for defamation the moment she implies embezzlement.”Atherton did not look away. “If we sue, we verify,” he said. “No. We call the regulator. Friendly ears. We call the networks. Remind them how much of their ad money comes from institutions like ours.”“And the street?” another aide asked.For that, Atherton checked his watch instead of answering. As if on cue, his secure tablet buzzed. He answered, voice low. “You promised there would be no surprises,” he said into the line.A Syndicate contact chuckled in his ear. “She wants a crowd. We’ll give her one. Some noise, some smoke. Her nice clean protest will look li