2025-08-23 22:20:25The Greenwood Tower gleamed in the heart of the city, a monument of glass and steel piercing the sky. But beneath its polished surface, the foundation was shaking.
Boardroom chaos erupted like wildfire. Executives bickered, analysts hurled reports across the table, and the numbers on the giant screen spoke louder than any words.
Losses. Delays. Contracts dissolving, Richard Greenwood slammed his fist down. “Enough! How the hell are we losing three million in a single day?!”
A trembling executive stammered, “Our shipments through Ridge Empire’s distribution lines were halted without notice. Backup suppliers refused to cooperate. We tried rerouting, but”
Richard cut him off with a glare sharp enough to draw blood. “Don’t try. Fix it!”
Deborah sat at the far end of the table, her lips painted into a calm smile, though her hands twisted in her lap beneath the desk. She raised her glass, feigning composure.
“This is nothing but a storm, Father. We’ll weather it. Greenwood Empire has survived worse.”
Richard leaned across the table, his face dark. “This isn’t weather. This is war. And someone is targeting us deliberately.”
The room fell silent, Across the city, in the shadows of the compound, Gibson Ridge watched the same numbers flash across his monitors. Every drop of Greenwood’s blood was measured, calculated, orchestrated.
“Three million gone in one day,” Marcus said, his tone carrying a hint of satisfaction. “Imagine what a week will do.”
Gibson’s gaze never left the screen. His eyes were cold, unblinking. “Not too fast. Deborah needs to think she’s in control. We’ll let them stabilize just enough… before we rip it away again.”
Marcus smirked. “A slow bleed.”
“A lesson,” Gibson corrected. His jaw tightened. “The first of many.”
That evening, Deborah sat in her penthouse suite, the city lights spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She sipped her wine, forcing her mind to stay calm.
But her daughter’s voice broke the silence. “Mommy?”
Deborah turned. Clara stood in the doorway, clutching her teddy bear, eyes wide and questioning.
“Why did Daddy leave?” the girl asked softly.
The wine glass trembled slightly in Deborah’s hand. She set it down quickly, her smile smooth, practiced. “Your father… wasn’t strong enough for us, Clara. He couldn’t give us the life you deserve.”
Clara hugged the teddy bear tighter. “But Daddy said he’d never leave me. He promised.”
Deborah’s mask cracked for a fraction of a second before she crouched down, stroking her daughter’s hair. “Sometimes promises are broken, sweetheart. It’s for the best.”
But Clara’s eyes, innocent yet sharp, narrowed. “You’re lying.”
The words struck like a blade. For a moment, Deborah’s facade faltered. She grabbed her daughter’s shoulders, voice sharper than intended. “Enough, Clara! Your father is gone, and that’s all you need to know!”
Clara’s lips trembled, tears spilling. She turned and fled down the hall, slamming her bedroom door, Deborah exhaled shakily, pouring another glass of wine to silence the echo of her daughter’s accusation.
Back in the compound, Gibson sat alone in a dimly lit room, staring at a small photograph, Clara’s smile frozen in time. His chest ached worse than his ribs.
He whispered into the silence, “Hold on, Clara. Daddy’s coming back.”
Marcus entered quietly, watching him. “She’s your anchor. But anchors can also drown you if you’re not careful.”
Gibson’s eyes burned with resolve. “No. She won’t drown me. She’ll remind me why I fight.”
Marcus studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Then let’s give Deborah her first real taste of fear. Tomorrow, Ridge Empire moves publicly. By this time next week, Greenwood will realize they’re dancing on your strings.”
Gibson’s lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl. “Good. Let her enjoy her wine tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll poison it with her own failure.”
And somewhere in the Greenwood mansion, Clara cried into her teddy bear, whispering into the night.
“Daddy… please come back.”
The storm outside rattled the windows, thunder growling like an omen. Unseen, unheard, Gibson Ridge was already moving pieces across the board. And with every move, the Greenwood Empire trembled closer to collapse.
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Chapter 52 - War Within
The world was coming apart. Stone screamed. Steel bent and liquefied under the crimson storm bursting out of the Nexus. Columns shattered, raining molten fragments into the abyss below. But Gibson didn’t move.He should have run. He should have turned, just as Clara had begged him. Instead, he took a step forward. “Not without you,” he whispered, voice hoarse against the roar of the wind.The storm surged higher, alive and hungry. It rose from Clara’s body like a living entity, tendons of light and smoke wrapping around her, pulling at the sky.Her small frame was nothing but a silhouette inside that blinding radiance, her hair whipping like black fire. Then her voice, no, their voice, rolled through the ruins. “I told you to run, Gibson.”It wasn’t a warning. It was a test. Gibson shielded his face from the wind and pushed forward, one bleeding hand after another clawing through the debris.His ears rang with the thunder of a thousand memories, the sound of Clara’s laughter, her firs
Chapter 51 - The Poison
The air was poisoned with silence. Not the soft, comforting kind that draped itself over midnight fields, but the jagged stillness of a battlefield after the screaming had ended.Smoke curled in fractured pillars around Gibson as he dragged himself across the fractured stones, every muscle in his body trembling.His ribs burned with each shallow breath, but it wasn’t his wounds that hollowed him, it was the sight ahead. Clara.She sat hunched against the jagged wall of what remained of the Nexus, her knees pulled tight to her chest, strands of soot-dark hair plastered to her face.Her small frame looked lost against the ruins, as though she’d been reduced to little more than ash. But what froze Gibson’s heart wasn’t her fragility, it was her eyes.They glowed faintly, ember-red at the edges, fighting against the familiar brown he’d loved since the moment she opened them as a newborn. Two selves colliding in one fragile body.“Clara,” Gibson rasped. His voice broke on the name.Her hea
CHAPTER 23: BLOODLINES
The words hit her like a guillotine blade. “She was never yours to begin with.”Deborah’s breath caught, her lungs seizing as if invisible fingers gripped her throat. For a long, suspended second, her world fell utterly silent.No chains, no screens, no flicker of the overhead bulbs, just those six words, looping in her skull like a death chant.She forced out a laugh, brittle and sharp, the sound echoing off the concrete walls like broken glass. “Y-You’re lying,” she stammered, her voice cracking under its own weight. “You’re trying to… to break me. To twist the knife. Clara is mine. Mine.”The speakers crackled, alive with static, and then his voice poured through, velvet over steel.“Your daughter?” Gibson’s tone dripped contempt. “Tell me, Deborah, when was the last time she reached for you before me? When was the last time she chose your arms over mine?”Deborah thrashed against the restraints, her body jerking like a marionette cut from its strings. “Don’t! Don’t you dare twist
CHAPTER FIFTY: THE DAUGHTER WHO BURNS
Silence. Not the kind that came in moments of peace, but the kind that followed devastation. A silence so complete it rang in Gibson’s ears like the echo of a scream too loud to be heard.He opened his eyes to white. Not light, white. The abyss was gone. The firestorm erased. The endless roar silenced. He lay on scorched stone, half-buried beneath jagged rubble, his body twisted in ways bone and muscle weren’t meant to endure. Blood clung to his lips, thick and coppery, and each breath was a war. But he didn’t care about the pain. He didn’t care about the ruin. “Clara…” The name scraped out of him as a whisper, hoarse, desperate.He pushed the stone from his chest, dragging his body across the fractured ground. His arms trembled under his own weight, but he crawled forward inch by inch.Each scrape of his knee sent fire up his spine, but he didn’t stop. Not until he saw her. She lay ten paces away, still as death, her small form curled against the stone.Around her, the ground was
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: BETWEEN HEARTBEATS
The world was gone. No fire, no stone, no father’s arms. Only silence. A silence so deep it felt like sinking beneath an ocean with no bottom.Clara floated in it, weightless, her chest heavy but her body light. For the first time since the storm took root, the pain wasn’t searing.It was dull now, distant, like a drumbeat muffled by miles of earth. Am I… dead? She opened her eyes.The void stretched endless, crimson and black. Heat shimmered at its edges, but at the center, where she drifted, it was cold. “You are close, little one.”The voice rippled through her like oil spilled over water. She knew it well now, the storm, the thing inside her veins. It did not thunder this time. It whispered, calm, coaxing.Clara turned slowly, her bare feet finding ground where none existed. A shape emerged from the crimson haze: tall, obsidian-eyed, its form cloaked in fire that didn’t burn. The storm.“No…” Clara whispered, stumbling back. Her voice was thin, almost swallowed by the void.“Yes,”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: THE FALL
The ground vanished beneath him. Gibson fell. Stone, fire, and twisted steel collapsed into a screaming chasm, dragging him down with a force that tore the breath from his lungs. His arms locked around Clara’s body, her small frame convulsing in his grip. He didn’t dare let go, not even for a heartbeat.Above, the ruins of the Nexus were swallowed whole. Below, there was nothing but a burning void, endless and alive, like the throat of some ancient beast. “Clara, !” His voice ripped raw against the roar of collapsing earth. Her eyes snapped open. Not her eyes. Not anymore.They glowed with crimson fire, blazing so brightly they cut through the darkness. And when her mouth opened, the voice that answered was not his daughter’s. “You cannot keep her from me.”The words shook the abyss, vibrating through his bones. Clara’s small hands clawed at his chest, burning with fire that licked at his flesh.Gibson gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to cry out as his skin blistered under her t
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