RULE NUMBER ONE: DON'T MESS WITH MR. BURGESS

CHAPTER 8

Garrick blinked, caught off guard. 

"But Boss... you just said his architecture was sloppy. Thirty seconds on a terminal and you could crush him, trace his location. The global elite would owe you an unpayable debt."

"And when did I start caring about what dying elites owe me?" Slayde murmured, his voice cutting through the ambient screaming. 

He turned his back to the giant monitors, ignoring the ruined tycoon dry-heaving onto the polished marble.

"Let the kid play his games," Slayde sneered softly, adjusting his tailored cuffs. "He's dismantling a system built by idiots. If these fools spent millions on cybersecurity just to watch their fortunes dissolve to a three-second mutation script, they deserve bankruptcy. I didn't spend twelve months in a cell to step out and become high society's tech support."

Garrick let out a quiet breath, a tight, respectful smile returning. 

He bowed his head slightly. 

"Forgive me, Titan. I let the theater distract me. You're right. Their bleeding isn't our concern."

"Exactly," Slayde said, his grey eyes flicking casually across the room.

Through the speakers, the hacker's synthesized voice crackled to life again, cutting over the desperate wails with a mocking laugh that echoed off the gold-leaf ceiling.

"Look at you all," the hacker taunted. "The great titans of industry, reduced to begging. Go ahead, call whoever you want. Bring in the finest minds money can buy. I will make sure your fortunes disappear regardless. None of you can touch me. You're helpless in my theater!"

The blunt arrogance sent a fresh wave of panic through the room, but Slayde turned on his heel, ready to walk away.

Until the broadcast took a sharp, highly specific turn.

"And to show you just how untouchable I am," the hacker’s voice boomed, a smug chuckle vibrating through the audio feed, "let's look at the grand prize of the evening. I just breached the main server of the Elsher Sovereign Group.”

The voice grew even more condescending.

“Miss Brec Elsher, your encrypted maritime routing manifests and private offshore shipping ledgers are on my screen. I’m giving you exactly sixty seconds to publicize your submission to my network, or I will leak every piece of data and sink your logistics empire into the dirt."

Slayde stopped dead in his tracks. 

Garrick’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. 

Across the room, Brec’s grip tightened so hard on her crystal flute that the glass threatened to snap. 

Her face paled, but her jaw remained set.

Slayde didn't care about Brec Elsher's empire. But his eyes narrowed as the hacker began displaying the stolen maritime data on the wall monitors. 

Embedded deep within those logistics ledgers, hidden under layers of encrypted shell code, were the precise, proprietary shipping routes for the private security transport units Slayde’s own shadow network had finalized hours ago.

The kid hadn't just targeted a politician's daughter. 

In his blind arrogance, he had tripped over Slayde's newly acquired assets. 

If those manifests leaked, the security grid Slayde had just built to protect his operations would be laid bare to the world.

"Boss..." Garrick whispered, his voice dropping into a dangerous cold tone. "He just pulled the logistics logs for the western perimeter. The private security company we acquired this afternoon... our transport routes are embedded in her files."

Slayde’s bored expression vanished, replaced by a terrifying coldness. 

He pulled his left hand from his pocket. 

The silver signet ring on his middle finger flared with a sharp blue light as it synchronized with his hidden neural network.

The amateur had tried to burn down a house without realizing the owner was standing in the living room.

"He wants to build a throne out of stolen gravity," Slayde murmured, his voice drowning out the noise of the ballroom. "But he just tried to sit in my chair."

Slayde turned back toward the tech alcove, a cruel smile cutting across his face.

"Garrick," Slayde commanded smoothly, his fingers twitching as a stream of raw, unhackable source code began flashing behind his eyes. "Let's show this digital phantom what a real god looks like."

On the other side of the room, the panic reached a fever pitch.

"Security! Where the hell is security?!" the ruined real estate tycoon screamed, clutching his expensive tuxedo. "Get someone down here who can stop this! Call national cyber defense! Call anyone!"

By now, three elite cybersecurity specialists hired to protect Luminary Plaza had rushed into the ballroom, throwing open their ruggedized tech cases and plugging directly into the wall terminals. 

Their fingers blurred across keyboards, sweat pouring down their faces as they desperately tried to erect digital firewalls.

It was entirely to no avail.

"It's not working!" one technician yelled, his eyes wide as lines of crimson code flashed across his monitor. "Every time we deploy a counter-patch, the mutation script eats it! It's accelerating!"

"Dammit, it's locking us out!" another specialist roared, slamming his fist against the marble counter. "The mainframe is locking up! If we press any more keys, it'll trigger an automated hard-wiring of the entire database!"

A few paces back, Slayde stood perfectly still, his hands shoved into his pockets. 

He was relaxed, unbothered as he waited for Garrick, who had slipped away to retrieve his personal laptop from the vehicle.

Listening to the frantic, incompetent shouting of the tech team, a look of profound disdain settled over Slayde's face. 

He didn't wait for the laptop.

Taking a slow step forward, Slayde strolled directly into the tech alcove. 

His heavy leather boots clicked sharply against the marble, a sound that carried over the panicked murmurs of the crowd.

"Take your hands off the keyboards and stop," Slayde commanded. 

His voice wasn't loud, but its cold authority instantly cut through the room. 

"You're making things worse."

The three specialists froze, their fingers hovering over the keys.

The Grand Ballroom fell dead silent. 

Screaming tycoons, frantic assistants, and whispering elites all turned, their stunned gazes locking onto Slayde. 

Nobody knew who he was, yet the sheer confidence radiating from his midnight-black suit made it impossible to look away.

Before the tech team could process the interruption, the crowd parted. 

Brec Elsher stepped forward from her marble pillar, the crimson silk of her gown sweeping across the floor like liquid fire. 

Her dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, her jaw clenched tight with raw fury.

Glaring dead into Slayde’s eyes, Brec demanded in a sharp tone that echoed through the silent room:

"Who the fuck are you?"