The Heir’s Awakening System

The Phoenix Directive

Miami's morning traffic was a clot of sun-baked metal and impatience, but the SUV moved through it like a shark through sardines—Eleanor's driver knew which lanes were FBI-monitored, which intersections had facial rec, which red lights could be run without triggering a chase.

Marcus sat in the third row, Claire asleep on his chest, her breath warm and regular against his collarbone. The silver thread was gone, but he could still feel it coiled behind her eyes, a viper dozing in a nursery.

Li Mei sat beside him, her ninety-three-year-old frame swallowed by the leather seat, her gold eyes tracking every billboard, every pedestrian, every threat. She didn't blink often. Waste of time.

"Your father," she said, her voice a whisper that cut through the engine noise, "thought he could outsmart the virus. He built the System to cage it. The System became a prison. The prison became a god." She looked at Claire. "She's the first to make it a pet."

Emma rode up front, a cold pack pressed to he