The next morning, Elias woke up to the hum of his phone vibrating on the nightstand. His mind was still foggy, his sleep interrupted by dreams of Mara and the cold emptiness she left behind. He had confronted her, stood his ground—but the weight of the threat still lingered in his chest.He reached over and grabbed his phone. A quick glance at the screen showed a message from Lana.*We need to talk. Meet me at the office in two hours. Don’t do anything rash.*He sighed, rolling out of bed. He had hoped for some time to gather his thoughts, to process everything, but there was no time for that. He had to keep moving, keep fighting. He needed answers, and Lana might just have them.---Two hours later, Elias walked into the sleek, modern office building. The sharp contrast of the sterile white walls against the dark wood floors reminded him of how much he had changed—how far he had come from the days when he had no idea who he was, let alone what he was capable of.Lana was already wait

Elias stood at the edge of the rooftop, the cool night air brushing against his skin. Grady was beside him, but for a moment, neither spoke. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable; it was as though the city itself was holding its breath, waiting for the next step.It had been a long road to this point. The weight of everything that had happened in the past few days was still heavy on Elias’s shoulders, but for the first time in a long while, he felt something that had eluded him for years: clarity.He turned to Grady, the man who had been there through it all, who had stood by him even when the world seemed determined to tear them apart. “I never thought it would end like this,” Elias said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.Grady glanced at him, his eyes tired but resolute. “You don’t get to choose how it ends, Elias. You only get to decide what you do with what’s left.”Elias nodded slowly, the truth of Grady’s words sinking in deeper than he had expected. It wasn’t ju

They moved like a single organism: quiet, efficient, focused. Elias watched the cluster offaces in the war room—the screens, the timelines, the thin lines connecting accounts and people—and for the first time in weeks he felt the thrum of certainty under his skin. Mara was shifting assets; she was nervous enough to run. That made her reckless. That made her beatable.“Where’s the window?” Elias asked, not looking up from the map of transfers Lana had pushed across the table.Lana pointed. “There—an eight‑hour gap. She’s routing through three shell accounts, then an offshore. If Burns can get court approval for a temporary freeze in that jurisdiction, we can catch her before those transfers clear.”Elias rubbed his jaw. “Eight hours. That’s not a lot of time.”“It’s enough,” Lana said. “If we cut the first leg and hit the shell companies here, we collapse the chain. She can’t move without the nodes. We pull two things: money and the lead on where she’s planning to shelter the rest of h

The days blurred together in a haze of phone calls, late-night meetings, and quiet strategy sessions. Elias barely slept, his mind racing constantly, trying to stay one step ahead of Mara. She had already proven how dangerous she could be, how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted. And now, with the game shifting on a global scale, Elias felt the weight of it all pressing harder than ever.He sat in his office, staring at the array of files scattered across the desk. His fingers traced the edges of a map Lana had put together—Mara’s last known movements, connections, and potential allies. The international connections, the financial discrepancies, the hidden accounts—all of it pointed to a much larger web than Elias had ever imagined.A knock at the door jolted him out of his thoughts.“Come in,” Elias said without looking up.Lana stepped inside, her expression tight with focus. “We’ve got a breakthrough.”Elias lifted his head, his interest piqued. “What is it?”Lana didn

Elias’s grip tightened on the phone, the words from Lana still echoing in his mind. *It’s about your past.* What past? He had buried so many parts of his life, so many memories, in the name of survival. Was it something from his childhood? Something darker, more dangerous, from the years before his rise to prominence? His thoughts spiraled, each possibility worse than the last.“Lana,” he said, his voice low and steady despite the storm raging inside him. “What exactly does Mara know about me? What did she find?”He could hear Lana’s shaky breath on the other end of the line. “I don’t know everything, Elias. But it’s bad. She’s been digging into your life for months. I—I didn’t know how deep it went. I thought I could control it, but I was wrong. You need to understand that this isn’t just about the project or the money. It’s something much more personal.”Elias felt a chill run down his spine. He had always known his past could catch up with him, but he’d hoped it never would. The we