Nikolai didn’t watch the news anymore.News was noise.Noise was for people who reacted instead of planned.He stood in the glass-walled office overlooking the city that still refused to acknowledge his return properly. Halcyon Global’s logo gleamed behind him, pristine and falsely innocent.“Run it again,” he said.The analyst swallowed and replayed the footage.Gracie Konstanio.Walking into a closed council session that wasn’t supposed to have witnesses—let alone spouses. No statements. No demands. Just presence.Nikolai’s jaw tightened.“That wasn’t Andrea,” he muttered.The analyst hesitated. “Sir?”“That move,” Nikolai continued coldly, “wasn’t his style.”He leaned closer to the screen, eyes sharpening.“She’s adapting.”That realization bothered him more than Andrea ever had.Within forty-eight hours, subtle things began to happen.A funding channel Nikolai relied on stalled—not shut down, just… delayed.A private bank requested additional verification it had never required be

The leak didn’t come from Andrea.That alone told him everything he needed to know.At 6:03 a.m., every major outlet lit up at once—not with gossip, not with speculation, but with documents. Raw. Structured. Timelined. Impossible to dismiss.Not opinion pieces.Evidence.Gracie stood in the kitchen, barefoot, scrolling silently as headlines multiplied faster than they could be contained.> UNREGISTERED COUNCIL LINKED TO FINANCIAL DESTABILIZATION ACROSS THREE CONTINENTSSEALED AGREEMENTS REVEALED: WHO REALLY PROTECTED NIKOLAI VOLKOV?THE SHADOW NETWORK BEHIND “ACCIDENTAL” MARKET COLLAPSESAndrea watched her closely. “You didn’t authorize this.”“No,” Gracie said. “But I prepared for it.”She set the tablet down and finally looked at him.“They underestimated how many people were waiting for permission to speak.”By midmorning, analysts realized something was wrong.The documents weren’t traceable.Not anonymized—distributed.Fragments seeded through dozens of independent servers, mirro

The fallout from Gracie’s livestream didn’t explode.It imploded.By morning, the world hadn’t moved forward—it had frozen mid-breath.Trading floors opened and closed within minutes. Banks delayed transactions under the guise of “system audits.” Political spokespersons appeared on camera with faces too tight, voices too rehearsed. No one wanted to be the first to blink, because blinking meant guilt.Andrea didn’t sleep.Neither did Gracie.They sat in the private study of the Konstanio estate, the kind of room designed for legacy decisions—dark wood, old paintings, soundproof walls. Screens lined one side, each showing a different angle of the chaos she had unleashed.“You didn’t destroy them,” Andrea said quietly. “You destabilized them.”Gracie nodded. “Destruction gives closure. This keeps them afraid.”She wasn’t triumphant. She was focused—dangerously calm.Andrea watched her closely. This wasn’t the woman who had once flinched at the sound of his phone vibrating. This was someo

CHAPTER 213The markets didn’t crash immediately.That was the mistake everyone made assuming collapse would be loud.Instead, it was quiet. Too quiet.Andrea watched the numbers tick on the screen in the early hours of morning, Gracie asleep in the adjacent room under armed watch. Halcyon Global stock held steady for six minutes after his confession.Six minutes of denial.Then the sell orders came.Not panic—precision.“They’re coordinated,” Chloe said, stepping into the war room with a tablet in hand. “This isn’t fear. It’s strategy.”Andrea nodded. “He waited for me to speak.”Nikolai hadn’t responded publicly. No statement. No rebuttal. No denial.Silence was his counterattack.By noon, Andrea received confirmation of something worse.Someone had begun quietly purchasing the falling shares—through offshore vehicles too complex to trace directly.“He’s not trying to destroy Halcyon,” Chloe said slowly. “He’s trying to own the ashes.”Andrea leaned back in his chair.“No,” he corre

The lie didn’t scream.It whispered.That was how Andrea knew it was dangerous.Three days after Elias’ arrest, the markets stabilized—too neatly. Halcyon Global’s stock dipped, recovered, then plateaued as if guided by an invisible hand. Analysts praised the “resilience.” Regulators paused investigations “pending review.”Nikolai wasn’t pressing.He was letting the lie settle into muscle memory.Andrea sat alone in the lower strategy room, the one without glass walls or biometric logs. Old-school. Paper. Ink. Burnable.Chloe entered without knocking.“They’re offering arbitration,” she said. “Quiet talks. Off-record.”Andrea didn’t look up. “From who?”“Vargas’ intermediaries. Two degrees removed.”Andrea finally lifted his eyes. “He wants legitimacy.”Chloe nodded. “He wants to be seen as reasonable.”Andrea leaned back slowly. “That means he’s ready to take something.”Gracie didn’t give interviews anymore.She listened.She attended fundraisers under a different name. Sat in back