The interrogation took place in a windowless sub-level room where the sound didn't travel, a space where the air felt recycled and stale. Sloane decided to handle Reeves himself.He didn't raise his voice, nor did he use physical force, and he didn't offer a single false promise. I watched as he simply peeled back the layers of Reeves’s psyche with no trace of empathy.Reeves managed to hold out for exactly twenty minutes. When he finally cracked, the truth rolled off his tongue like an avalanche.He gave up the staffing agency that had "vetted" him without a single point of failure in their background check. The agency led to a shell and the shell led to a complex, nesting-doll structure of offshore interests that Sloane tore apart in four hours of frantic, digital warfare. The entire chain of custody for the mole led back to a single holding company registered to, of course, Marcus Callum.Helen’s cousin hadn't just moved in three streets away to watch; he had been seeding his own

Constance Albright did not belong in my library. She’d walked in without an invite and sat on the edge of the velvet armchair, her spine rigid, refusing to be cowed by the weight of the room or the weapon Sloane had left carelessly on the side table.I stood by the window, the city lights below pulsating like a slow, indifferent heartbeat. I pulled a cigarette from the silver case on my desk and struck a match. The flame flared, bright and sharp in the dim room, and I inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in my lungs before letting it drift toward the ceiling.Constance watched me with an intense, unwavering stare. She didn't look offended by the intrusion of smoke, rather, she looked profoundly tired. She was a woman who had played this game for decades, and she looked as though the weight of the years was finally pressing down on her."Victor Hale doesn't react, Carter," she said, her voice cutting through the silence of the library like a blade. "He is a man who doesn’t need to panic.

The Meridian Circuit Gala was more of a social war of extravagance and wealth than a party.Kingston’s elite had gathered to decide if I was the new king or the latest casualty. The invitation felt more like a summon, and at first, my ego had refused, but Helen urged me to go.“We can make a statement and find out whatever they’re planning at the same time, Carter.” She’d said.I entered the ballroom with the weight of the Van Alen name on my shoulders and every eye in the massive hall turned to face me.Back at the estate, the dressing room had been filled with a slight tension and anticipation. Helen stood before the mirror, checking the sheath of the blade strapped to her thigh. I watched her, my heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs.She caught my gaze in the glass and the air between us suddenly grew heavy with everything we refused to say."Stop," she commanded."I’m not doing anything." I replied calmly, still holding her gaze through the mirror."You’re doin

The rage that had ignited at the construction site didn't vanish as I slammed the door to my car shut. My knuckles had turned white, locked against the steering wheel as I drove from the Gravel Yards to the private clinic.I didn't care about how dangerously fast I was driving, nor the sirens that faded in the distance. I only cared about the name that was currently vibrating in my skull like a funeral bell.My father was awake by the time I got back to the clinic. He was propped up against a mountain of pillows, his frame was frail and his skin was already the color of aged parchment. But the eyes…those eyes were the same. They were the eyes of the man who had stood in a boardroom eleven years ago and tried to rip the heart out of the GLASSWING project.I dismissed the nurse in the room with a simple wave of my hand and she nodded, and walked out. I walked to the edge of the bed and looked down at him. He tracked me with a slow, agonizing effort, his head turning on the pillow like

Elara sat in the wingback chair, the shadows of the library stretching across her face, and for ninety minutes, she spoke without pausing.I thought she would, but she didn't offer apologies for her past or excuses for her current predicament. She simply began to tell me everything she knew of a nightmare she’d been dragged into.She went on to map out the operational structure of Hale’s network with a nervous, trembling note in her voice. She stripped down every layer, every instrument, every remaining active player who still held a knife to the city’s throat.She confirmed the name my father had whispered in the clinic, verifying it with a detail that made my stomach turn and made me feel sick. She also laid out the financial siphoning routes, providing two offshore account numbers that Davis’s algorithms had missed entirely. She explained the leverage Hale held over Marcus Callum too. Marcus wasn't a true believer in the GLASSWING ideology; he was just a hostage. Hale possessed do