THE FALLEN BILLIONAIRE BUILDING A DEAD ZONE EMPIRE

8

The Grand Golden’s ballroom was a temple of refined elegance, a place where the scent of five-thousand-dollar perfume usually masked the stench of corporate greed. But tonight, the air had changed. It was thick with the ozone of overheating electronics and the sudden, sharp tang of panic.

Lewis continued to laugh on stage, a high-pitched, manic sound that echoed off the gilded ceilings. His pupils were blown so wide they looked like drops of spilled ink, swallowing the irises completely. The billionaire elite—the men and women who thought they ran the world—watched in frozen, silent horror. Their financial savior was unraveling right before their eyes.

"Look at the screen!" a woman screamed, her voice cracking as she pointed a trembling finger toward the stage.

The massive LED display behind Lewis, which had been showcasing the steady, comforting 20% growth of the Neural-Wealth Global Fund, was no longer showing numbers. The gold and white interface had vanished. In its place was a waterfall of raw, red code—a digital hemorrhage that felt violent to look at. Amidst the chaotic scrolling of data, a single icon flashed repeatedly, strobing in a sickly crimson: a crown being crushed by a jagged, encroaching shadow.

Aiden stood on the balcony, his fingers lightly gripping the marble railing. Beside him, Steiner loomed like a gargoyle. The guard’s hand was no longer at his side; it was firmly on his holster, his thumb flicking the safety catch. His eyes darted between the madness on the stage and the unnerving stillness of the man standing next to him.

"What did you do?" Steiner growled, stepping deep into Aiden’s personal space. The smell of tobacco and stale coffee rolled off him. "You were at the terminal. I saw you."

"I didn't do anything, Steiner," Aiden replied. He didn't turn to look at the guard; his voice was a calm lake in the middle of a hurricane. "I warned Lewis that the system was unstable. I told him the 'Sync' module wasn't ready for a human driver. But he’s a man who hates being told 'no.' He wanted to feel like a god, to see the world’s veins through the AI. Now he’s feeling the weight of the heavens crushing his skull."

Steiner didn't care about metaphors. He grabbed Aiden’s arm, his fingers digging into the expensive fabric of the blazer. "You're coming with me. We’re going to the secondary lab, and you’re going to shut this down before the markets open, or I’ll find out how much blood it takes to short-circuit a genius."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Aiden said softly. He finally turned his head, looking Steiner directly in the eye. There was no fear there, only a cold, ancient boredom. "Listen to your comms, Steiner. The frequency is changing."

Steiner froze. His earpiece began to buzz with a high-pitched static that made him wince. Then, the voice of the Cerberus command center was cut off. A new voice took over—distorted, haunting, and feminine.

"Agent Steiner," Zhara’s voice whispered directly into his ear, bypassing every encryption layer Cerberus owned. "Your offshore account in the Cayman Islands... the one you use to hide your 'extra' earnings from your bosses? It just went to zero. Your retirement fund is currently being distributed to a dozen charities in District 13. If you touch Mr. Crowne, the next thing I send will be the full ledger of your illegal hits to the Internal Affairs of the State Police."

Steiner’s face went bone-white. The aggressive tension in his shoulders collapsed as he slowly released Aiden’s arm. His breath hitched, his eyes wide with a sudden, paralyzing realization. "Who... who are you people?"

"We are the ghosts you forgot to bury," Aiden whispered, his voice barely audible over the growing roar of the crowd below.

On stage, the situation had turned from a glitch to a nightmare. Gina finally moved, her emerald dress rustling as she rushed to Lewis, trying to pull him away from the microphone. Her face was a mask of "concerned wife," but her eyes were darting toward the exits, calculating the damage. "Lewis! Stop it! You’re sick, we need to go!"

Lewis shoved her away with a sudden, violent strength that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his build. He threw her back several feet, his veins pulsing in his neck like snakes. "Get off me, Gina! You're just like the rest of them! You want the crown for yourself! But the AI chose me! I am the Sovereign!"

He turned back to the crowd, his face contorted in a terrifying grin. "None of you are safe! I know your secrets! I know which of you is bankrupt! I know who’s cheating on their taxes, and who’s sleeping with their assistants!"

He began to rattle off names—names of the most powerful people in the room. A senator paled. A CEO dropped his glass, the crystal shattering on the floor. Lewis was reading their private lives directly from the Neural-Sync’s invasive harvest.

Suddenly, the screen went black. The lights in the ballroom flickered and died, plunged into total, suffocating darkness for five agonizing seconds. The only sound was the heavy breathing of a thousand panicked guests. When the emergency lights finally kicked in, Lewis was on the floor, his body convulsing in a violent seizure.

The paramedics rushed in, but Aiden noticed Steiner backing away into the shadows of the balcony. The guard was a professional; he knew when a game had changed. He wasn't the hunter anymore. He was a man with a target on his back, and he knew the man standing next to him was the one pulling the trigger.

Gina stood over Lewis as the medical team worked on him, her face a mask of calculated, perfect grief. She looked around the room, her gaze climbing up toward the balcony until it landed on Aiden. For a split second, the mask slipped. She didn't see her "weak" husband anymore. She saw a silhouette that looked far too comfortable in the wreckage.

Aiden didn't look away. He raised his champagne glass toward her in a silent, mocking toast.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen dimmed to the lowest setting.

[A]: Is the data harvested?

A second later, the reply flickered on the screen.

[Z]: Every single one of them. Lewis’s Sync module didn't just blackmail the VIPs; it mirrored their entire biometric security encryptions while they were in range. We don't just have their money, Aiden. We have their digital identities. We have the keys to every vault in this city.

[A]: Good. Let the media have the 'Mad Billionaire' story. We have work to do in the Dead Zone.

Gina ran toward the balcony stairs, her eyes brimming with fake tears as she reached him. "Aiden! Oh god, Aiden! Something happened to Lewis! He... he just collapsed! We have to do something! The company... the board... everyone saw!"

Aiden caught her in his arms as she threw herself at him. He could feel the cold silk of her dress and the frantic rhythm of her heart. He could smell the adrenaline and the expensive perfume of a woman who was already mentally rewriting the narrative to save herself.

"Don't worry, Gina," Aiden whispered into her hair, his voice dripping with a kindness that felt like a burial shroud. "I'll take care of everything. Just like I always do. You’re safe now."

Gina hugged him tighter, her face buried in his chest, seeking a comfort that didn't exist. Over her shoulder, Aiden watched Steiner disappear through the service exit.

The first pillar of their empire had cracked. And as Aiden held the woman who had helped murder him, he felt nothing but the cold, satisfying weight of the countdown in his head. Act One was nearing its end, and the fire he had planned for them was going to be much hotter than the one that had killed him.