“Three days from now, Mr. Holt,” Matthew said, his voice weighted as he fought the pain crushing his skull. “A rebel faction backed by foreign mercenaries will seize control of North Kivu. They will nationalize your mine. Your asset will be worth zero overnight.”“Bullshit!” Holt shouted. “That region is guarded by UN peacekeepers! I have people on the ground. The reports are clean!”“Your reports are slow. My data is absolute,” Matthew replied, pulling a phone from his suit pocket. Somehow, it pierced the room’s signal jammer through ARC system modifications. He placed the phone at the center of the table.“Look,” Matthew said, turning the screen toward Reginald Holt.On the display was a breaking news alert from a private defense intelligence blog, freshly published.“ALERT: Rebel troop movements detected near Kivu border. U.S. Embassy issues evacuation warnin

The clock on the penthouse wall showed three fifteen in the morning. The silence inside the luxury apartment felt heavy, broken only by Viviane’s soft breathing as she slept deeply on the living room sofa.She had been too exhausted to even walk to the bedroom after the night of relentless social tension at The Gilded Gala. Matthew Thomas sat in a leather armchair facing the massive glass window that framed the New York skyline.His expensive suit jacket lay discarded on the floor. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his chest rising and falling slowly. In his hand, a glass of aged scotch trembled slightly, following the faint shake in his fingers.“A long night,” Matthew murmured to his own reflection in the glass.He was not speaking to anyone. Yet something was listening. Something that lived inside his cerebral cortex, fused with the neurons and synapses of his brain.Suddenly, a sharp pain far more intense than anything before slammed into the base of his skull. The glass slipped

“You will return to your office and call James Sterling,” Matthew instructed. “Tell him the sabotage was successful. Tell him you weakened the concrete structure across all of Sector 4 and that next week’s inspection will fail catastrophically.”“But… the inspection won’t fail, right?” Arthur asked, confused.“Of course not. You will replace the bad concrete with top-grade material tonight,” Matthew said firmly. “But James must believe this project is a ticking time bomb.”Viviane understood now. Her eyes shone as she grasped her husband’s strategy. “You want James to think we’re weak.”“I want him to think we’re already dead,” Matthew replied, then looked back at Arthur. “So, Arthur? Prison or double agent?”Arthur nodded quickly, desperately. “Double agent. I’ll do anything for you, sir. I swear on my children’s lives,” he said plainly.Matthew released his grip, returned to the tablet on the table, and pressed accept.[Transfer Complete: $2,500,000 credited to Arthur Pendelton]“Th

“Who am I?” Matthew chuckled, a cold sound that sent a shiver up Dimitri’s spine. “That is the wrong question. The real question is, who are you without Lane Corp.?"“Lane Corp is my inheritance,” Dimitri roared. “My blood.”“Lane Corp was a walking corpse before I injected life into it,” Matthew replied calmly, his gaze locking onto Dimitri’s.“You offer fifty million? That pocket change would not even cover my system’s operational costs for one hour.”“You… you are insane,” Dimitri hissed. “I will destroy you. I have connections you cannot comprehend. The board of directors…”“The board only cares about profit,” Matthew cut in as he pulled a slim tablet from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the desk, right atop the shredded check. “Look.”Dimitri hesitated, then picked up the tablet. The scre

His breathing came fast and ragged. He wiped the blood from his nose with the sleeve of his silk shirt. Julian Vance. His uncle. The man who had thrown him into the streets ten years ago.The monster from his childhood nightmares had stepped into reality. The man who forced him to live as a lowly accountant while sitting upon a golden throne built from the blood of Matthew’s parents.“Julian,” Matthew whispered, hatred burning hotter than the pain in his head. “So you’re still alive, you miserable old bastard.”The glass door to the balcony slid open. Viviane stood there, wrapped in a thin nightgown, her eyes wide with terror at the sight of her husband kneeling, his face smeared with blood.“Matt!” she screamed as she ran to him. She dropped to her knees beside him, her warm hands cupping his cold face. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding again. What happened? Is that system killing you?”Matthew looked into his wife’s eyes. He saw love there, but also deep fear. He could not hide this any l