THE KING’S VESTIGE

Chapter 6

"You planned all this?" She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I planned for every possibility." Kade took out a phone from his pocket and handed it to her. "This is encrypted. Only call the numbers already programmed in. Don't contact anyone from your old life. Don't tell anyone where you're going. Celessa has people everywhere. If she finds out where you are, she'll come for you again."

"What about Aunt Mira?" Her voice cracked when she said the name.

Kade didn't want to tell her, but she deserved the truth. "She's alive, but barely. I got her to a doctor I trust. She'll recover, but it's going to take time."

Lyric closed her eyes. More tears ran down her face. "This is my fault. If I'd been stronger or smarter or..."

"Stop." He put his hands on her shoulders. "None of this is your fault. Celessa did this. The Thorne family did this. I'm going to make sure they pay for every second of pain they caused."

She looked up at him and saw something shift in her expression. "That's why you're staying. You're going after them."

"Yes."

"Kade, they'll kill you." She grabbed his jacket. "You don't understand how powerful they are. How many people work for them. How deep their connections go. You can't fight an entire empire by yourself."

"I don't plan to fight them." He pulled her hands off his jacket and held them gently. "I plan to dismantle them piece by piece until there's nothing left."

"How?"

"By being smarter than they are. Using their own systems against them. Making them think they're winning right up until the moment they lose everything." He squeezed her hands. "But I can't do any of that if I'm worried about your safety. I need to know you're somewhere they can't reach you."

She was quiet for a long moment. He could see her thinking and weighing options. Finally, she nodded. "Okay. I'll go. But you have to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Promise you won't let this turn you into someone like them. Promise that when this is over, you'll still be my brother, not just the King of the North."

The words hit harder than he expected. He hadn't thought about who he would be when this was finished. Maybe that was because he didn't expect to survive.

"I promise." He pulled her into one more hug. "Now go. Marcus is waiting."

Kade walked her to a service exit his military contacts had identified earlier. He watched her disappear into the night and stayed there until he couldn't see her anymore.

Then he pulled out his own phone and made a call.

"Status?" he said when someone answered.

"Tracker is active." A woman's voice came through clear and professional. "We have eyes on the vehicle. No tails detected. She should arrive at the safe house in forty minutes."

"Good. Maintain surveillance. Alert me if anything changes."

"Understood, sir."

He hung up and walked back through the club. Nobody stopped him. As far as they knew, he was just another buyer who got what he wanted.

Outside, the air was cold and sharp. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the city lights, thinking about everything he had learned tonight.

The Gilded Cage wasn't just an auction house. It was a hub, a central point where information flowed through along with money and power. That meant it was connected to everything else in the Thorne network.

Kade pulled out his phone again and opened the recording app. He played back the audio he had captured during the auction. He had spent five million dollars, but he had also gotten something else.

Voices. Names. Lot numbers. Bidder codes.

Every person who bought someone tonight had just put themselves on his list. He was very good at working through lists.

He started walking and pulled up a map on his phone showing every Thorne-owned property in the city. There were dozens of them spread across every district like a spider web.

But spider webs had a center. That center was Thorne Manor, where Celessa lived, worked, and controlled everything.

His phone buzzed with a message from Marcus: Package delivered safely. No complications.

Kade typed back quickly and then called another number. A man answered on the first ring.

"I need you to dig into the Thorne financial records," Kade said as he kept walking. "Everything from the last twenty years. Bank accounts, shell companies, offshore holdings, property deeds. I want to know where every dollar came from and where it went."

"That's going to take time." The man sounded skeptical. "The Thorne family has layers of protection on their finances. Lawyers, accountants, people whose entire job is making sure nobody can trace anything back to them."

"Then hire more people. Pay whatever it costs. I want results in seventy-two hours."

"Understood."

Kade hung up and made three more calls, setting different operations in motion. Taking down an empire required attacking from multiple directions at once.

By the time he reached his hotel room, the sun was starting to come up. He stood at the window and watched the city wake up and go about its day like nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

Lyric was safe. The auction house was compromised. He had names, faces, and information that would start tearing holes in the Thorne network.

He looked at the skyline and found the tallest building in the financial district. He knew that was where Celessa Thorne sat in her office, believing she was untouchable.

Kade pulled out his phone one more time and typed a message to a contact he had been saving for when he really needed them: It's time. I'm ready to move forward.

The response came back three seconds later: About time. What do you need?

He typed one word: Everything.