The clock was ticking with the relentlessness of a timebomb, and the countdown had just been shredded. With seventy-two hours initially projected for Neville’s arrival, I had laid my groundwork with the cold, deliberate patience of a spider. I had made a move that surprised everyone, including Sloane, who had questioned the necessity of such a risk: I reached out to Dax.I didn't use an intermediary nor did I send a formal request to his office or a coded message through the backchannels. I pulled out the personal number I’d saved back when the city was still a battlefield, and I dialed it."Van Alen," he answered, his voice dripping with his trademark, performative bravado. He was waiting for a threat, an insult, or a demand. He was braced for the familiar dance of corporate warfare. He got none of them. I kept my tone low, calm, and invited him for a drink—not at the sterile, high-security confines of the estate, but at a dim, mid-city bar where the air smelled of stale beer and h

I stood up slowly, still trying to process every word he had just said as I adjusted my jacket. I looked at Neville and to my surprise, I didn’t feel the anger nor the desperate terror he had expected to instill in my heart. I had already found a way to keep my expression like a blank, unreadable mask to people like Neville."Give me twenty-four hours," I said calmly, even though my heart thumped heavily.Neville nodded, a thin, triumphant line appearing on his thin-linned lips. He was a man who enjoyed the taste of surrender, even if it was only temporary. He rose to his feet, turned and walked away, his stride solid and arrogant. Instead of watching him go, I walked out of the Meridian Club, the cool air of the street hitting my face like a slap of reality.The moment I cleared the building, I pulled out my phone. "Sloane, listen to me carefully. My father is awake and I just found that out from Neville. Get to the estate wing now. Put maximum security on it and all necessary lock

He had to be fucking kidding me. Helen?There’s no way that could be possible…could it?I felt a cold chill creeping up my spine when I remembered her lips brushing against mine the other day, her shoulder leaning against mine and all the silent electric moments we’d shared.I had learned already that I couldn’t trust anyone wholeheartedly but…no, not Helen!I looked at Sloane in disbelief and simply told Sloane to hold, set the phone down on the cold marble surface of the side table, and sat with the information for sixty agonizing seconds.Helen was standing in the corridor, the silence between us growing thick with the weight of things left unsaid. She was watching me, her eyes tracking the little shifts in my posture. I slowly turned and looked at her, our eyes meeting for a few seconds before I reluctantly looked away. She could tell from the way my body stiffened that all wasn’t well in the room.I had no idea how to feel. The shock in my body numbed the tempestuous storm of an

The story of the missing plane burned through the news cycle for forty-eight hours, fueled by speculation and corporate hysteria, before it hit a wall of absolute silence. The media ran into a frenzy, it was all over the papers and the new reporters took it up like scavengers who haven’t eaten in years.I remained at the Van Alen tower, watching the madness unfold.There was no wreckage, no distress signal, and no bodies whatsoever. Henry Neville had done the impossible by simply vanishing from the sky.The immediate result was a violent shift in the way the entire Kingston operated.The board faction that had functioned as his extension lost its invisible center, and the resulting vacuum was more volatile than his presence had ever been. Two members resigned their positions within hours of the news, effectively retreating into the shadows. A third member, a man who had spent months voting against me, called me directly. At first, I thought he was going to threaten me, probably try

The rot I was unearthing only seemed to grow darker the deeper I dug into it.Without Helen’s knowledge, the following morning, I went to Adolph’s quarters before the house was fully awake. The old man was hunched over his desk, the silence of the room heavy with the gathered weight of his betrayals.I didn't have the patience to mince words with him and offering any greetings were certainly out of the picture now."Who told you where to find me?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, yet it seemed to vibrate against the walls.Adolph’s hands stilled, a pen hovering over a ledger. He didn't look up immediately, but I saw the lines on his forehead deepen. "I told you, Carter. I followed the trail from the orphanage records—""That’s the lie you fed me when you wanted me to trust you," I snapped coldly. "I’m asking for the specific location, Adolph. The night you found me outside Brentwood, in the rain, with a fleet of black cars and a rescue plan ready to roll. You didn't just stumble up