Justice of the Supreme War God

CHAPTER 41 PART 1

Diana Morrison stared at her phone screen, watching her IT specialist Brandon Reynolds run diagnostic after diagnostic. The conference room felt smaller with each passing second, the walls closing in as lines of code scrolled across the monitor he'd connected to her device.

"Ms. Morrison," Brandon said, his voice tight with professional concern, "I need you to understand something. This isn't your garden-variety malware. Whoever planted this knew exactly what they were doing."

Diana's jaw clenched. "Just tell me what you found."

Brandon pulled up a complex diagram showing data pathways. "It's a keylogger—an advanced one. Every password you've typed, every login credential, every bank transaction... it's all been recorded and transmitted to a remote server." He pointed to a timestamp. "This was installed three days ago, right around when the first withdrawal occurred."

The words hit Diana like a physical blow. Marcus had been telling the truth. She'd called him a thief to his face—twice—and he'd been innocent all along.

"Can you trace who did this?" Diana demanded, gripping the edge of the table.

Brandon shook his head slowly. "This level of sophistication? We're talking about a professional hacker, probably dark web level. The routing goes through multiple proxy servers across different countries. I can clean your devices, but tracking the source? That's beyond our capabilities."

Diana's mind raced back to Marcus standing in their foyer, his expression calm despite her accusations. Someone hacked your phone and embedded a dangerous trojan within. He'd known immediately, without running a single test. How?

"Clean everything," Diana ordered. "All my devices. I want this malware completely purged."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll get started right away."

Diana grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Her secretary Jessica called after her, "Ms. Morrison, where are you going? You have the Phillips meeting in twenty minutes—"

"Cancel it," Diana said without breaking stride. "Cancel everything for the rest of the day."

She had to get to Marcus. She had to apologize. The memory of her mother showing up with police officers made her stomach turn. She'd stood there and let them take him, believing the worst despite every piece of evidence that should have told her otherwise.

The drive to the 51st precinct felt endless. Diana's knuckles were white on the steering wheel as she replayed every conversation. Marcus turning down her mother's fifty million dollar bribe. Marcus rejecting Ryan's hundred million dollar offer. Marcus refusing payment from Grandma for authenticating the artwork.

What kind of thief turned down that kind of money?

She pulled into the precinct parking lot and practically ran inside. The desk sergeant looked up from his paperwork, his expression carefully neutral.

"I'm looking for Marcus Hayes," Diana said, slightly breathless. "He was brought in about two hours ago on theft charges."

The sergeant's face went carefully blank. "Ma'am, I don't have anyone by that name in our system."

Diana blinked. "What? That's impossible. Two officers brought him here. I saw them take him."

"I'm telling you, ma'am, there's no Marcus Hayes in our custody. Not now, not two hours ago." The sergeant's tone was final, dismissive even.

"Then where is he?" Diana's voice rose despite her attempt to stay composed.

"I couldn't tell you, ma'am. Maybe your husband decided to take a walk. Maybe he never came here at all. Either way, he's not our problem." The sergeant returned to his paperwork, clearly done with the conversation.

Diana stood there, stunned. Marcus had gone willingly with the officers. She'd watched him get into the police car. So where the hell was he now?

She pulled out her phone and dialed his number. It went straight to voicemail.

"Marcus, it's Diana. I... I know about the trojan. You were right. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. Please call me back." She hung up, feeling foolish and worried in equal measure.

---

Meanwhile, across town in a high-end internet café, Marcus Hayes sat in a private booth with a laptop that would make most government agencies jealous. His fingers flew across the keyboard with practiced precision as he traced digital breadcrumbs that would be invisible to anyone with less experience.

The source code of the trojan had been distinctive—elegant but with specific quirks that marked it like a signature. Marcus had seen code like this before during his operations securing digital infrastructure in hostile territories. He'd narrowed down the list of hackers capable of this work to fewer than a dozen worldwide.

Cross-referencing that list with flight records in and out of the city over the past week had given him one name: Detector Truth.

The hacker had flown in from Singapore three days ago on a private charter. Amateur mistake for someone supposedly so skilled—private charters left paper trails that commercial flights could blur.

Marcus pulled up security footage from various locations around the city, using facial recognition software that was definitely not available to civilians. There—the café where Diana got her morning coffee. And there was Detector Truth, sitting two tables away, laptop open.

"Gotcha," Marcus murmured.

His phone buzzed. Diana's name flashed on the screen along with a voicemail notification. He listened to her message, hearing the strain in her voice, the apology she was clearly uncomfortable making.

He'd deal with that later. Right now, he had a hacker to find.

Marcus pulled up current location data. Detector Truth was using his equipment right now—the digital signature was active. Marcus smiled coldly. The hacker was in a warehouse in the industrial district, probably thinking he was safe behind his firewalls and proxy servers.

Marcus stood, pocketing the laptop. The God of War had been playing house husband long enough. Time to remind people why they should be careful who they crossed.