2025-04-23 22:38:32Gregory didn’t move.
The attic light buzzed faintly overhead, casting long, crooked shadows across the room. Marcus stood in the doorway, one hand behind his back, his mouth curled into a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.
“What do you want?” Gregory asked, voice tight.
Marcus stepped forward slowly. “You’ve been busy.”
Gregory shifted slightly, keeping the envelope and burner phone hidden under the thin mattress. “If you’re here to threaten me, save it. I’ve had a long night.”
“Oh, I don’t need to threaten you.” Marcus pulled his hand from behind his back and revealed… a thick, folded folder.
He tossed it on the floor in front of Gregory.
“Recognize this?”
Gregory stared at it, not moving.
“I saw you in Dad’s office,” Marcus said casually, pacing. “You’re not as sneaky as you think. I was watching from the camera in the hallway. The one above the bookshelf.”
Gregory’s stomach turned. They'd been watching him even then.
“So what?” he replied. “You all knew I was more than a housekeeper.”
Marcus crouched down, eyes level with Gregory’s. “Yeah. We knew. But now you know too. That’s the problem.”
Gregory remained silent.
“You think Caldwell will just embrace you with open arms?” Marcus sneered. “You think a dying billionaire wants to hand his empire over to a glorified janitor who grew up in a roach-infested attic?”
“Truth doesn’t care where I grew up,” Gregory said.
Marcus smiled wider. “Maybe. But money does. Power does. Perception does.”
He stood up and stepped toward the door. “We were willing to let the DNA test play out. But now that you’re digging, meeting people in docks like some low-budget spy…”
Gregory stiffened.
So they had followed him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Marcus chuckled. “Don’t insult me. We saw you with Jalen.”
Gregory’s mind raced. If they knew Jalen helped me…
“Is he alive?” Gregory asked slowly.
Marcus gave a small shrug. “Hard to say. People disappear all the time.”
That hit like a gut punch.
Gregory clenched his fists under the mattress. He couldn't react. Not yet.
Marcus looked around the attic with a mixture of disgust and amusement. “You know what the best part is? If you disappear, no one will care. You’re not in any system. No friends. No family. No one to miss you.”
He turned to leave. “You’ve got two choices, Gregory. Back off. Stay quiet. Live out your days polishing silverware.”
He paused at the door.
“Or push this—and disappear like your friend.”
Then he was gone.
The door shut with a click.
And Gregory was left in silence.
The next morning was unbearable.
The Rosewell family acted like nothing had happened. Mr. Rosewell read the paper at breakfast. The daughters laughed in the parlor. Seth and Marcus lounged by the pool.
But every glance Gregory received was a silent threat.
Every smile—fake.
Every silence—dangerous.
Only Samuel seemed genuinely worried. He pulled Gregory aside near the garden after lunch.
“You look like you haven’t slept.”
Gregory didn’t lie. “I haven’t.”
Samuel looked around. “They’re up to something. Marcus has been in and out of Dad’s office all morning. I heard him mention a name—‘Jalen’—to one of his friends.”
Gregory nodded slowly. “I think they hurt him.”
Samuel swallowed. “You need to get out of here.”
“I can’t. Not yet. I have a chance to meet Caldwell. But I have to wait until tomorrow night. There’s a window—once it closes, it’s over.”
Samuel hesitated. “Then let me help you.”
Gregory blinked. “Why?”
Samuel looked away. “Because this family is poison. And you… you’ve always been decent to me. Even when the rest of them treated you like dirt.”
Gregory placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll need a distraction tomorrow night. Something to pull eyes off me.”
Samuel gave a small nod. “Consider it done.”
That night, Gregory didn’t sleep again.
He lay fully clothed, alert, ready. Every creak of the house made his pulse spike. Every footstep made him reach for the burner phone.
Then—a buzz.
A message.
Unknown Number:
They’re going to move on you before the window opens. Get out now. Trust no one.Gregory sat up fast.
He grabbed the file, burner phone, and slipped on his shoes.
He crept down the hallway, but halfway down the stairs—
Voices.
Below, in the living room.
“…tonight,” Seth was saying. “He’s got something. Marcus said he’s hiding files. If he gets out, we’re finished.”
Mr. Rosewell’s voice was low and deadly. “Then don’t let him leave.”
Gregory turned and bolted—up the stairs, through the servant’s corridor, out the side window onto the trellis, sliding down into the backyard.
He landed hard, rolled to his feet—and froze.
A black SUV sat parked in the alley behind the house.
Engine running.
Driver in the shadows.
As Gregory backed up slowly—
The car doors opened.
Two men stepped out.
Not security.
Not police.
Professionals.
The kind you didn’t run from—you didn’t survive from.
Gregory’s heart pounded.
He turned and ran, vanishing into the maze of neighboring backyards, one thought echoing in his mind:
They’re not going to wait until tomorrow.
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CHAPTER 320: PURIFICATION PROTOCOL
The sky didn’t darken all at once. It dimmed in layers, like a theater lowering its lights before the final act.High above the city, sleek silhouettes slid into formation. Not bombers. Not fighters. Clean, silent platforms with underslung arrays that shimmered like heat mirages.Amelia felt it in her bones. “Those aren’t weapons platforms.”Gregory’s eyes tracked the movement. “They’re judgment engines.”A pulse rippled outward. Not an explosion. A decision. Across the district, systems reclassified in real time. Traffic lights locked red. Transit halted mid-track.Network access throttled to near-zero. Emergency services rerouted, away. Crane’s console screamed. “He’s isolating sectors. Selective deprivation. He’s turning the city into compartments.”Blake cursed. “He’s starving dissent.”Outside, the crowd felt it immediately. Phones lost signal. Power dipped. A child began to cry as a streetlamp went out. The murmurs sharpened into fear.Host Zero’s voice returned, no warmth now,
CHAPTER 319: THE HERESY ENGINE
They didn’t come screaming. They didn’t come armed. They came walking. Thousands of footsteps moved in quiet coordination outside the freight terminal, a low murmur rising and falling like a single breath shared by many lungs.No banners. No weapons. No Raven armor. Just people. Men and women. Students. Workers. Parents. Clerks. Drivers.Faces lit by the soft glow of stabilized streetlights, calm, resolved, terrifyingly convinced. Amelia watched through a cracked service door, her throat dry. “This isn’t a mob.”“No,” Gregory said softly. “It’s a congregation.”Blake checked his ammo out of habit, then stopped himself. His voice dropped. “We can’t shoot our way out of this. Not without becoming exactly what he wants.”Crane’s console chimed again, slow, deliberate pings. “He’s throttling information flow. Local networks are sealed. They’re not hearing us. Only him.”Outside, a voice carried through mounted loudspeakers. Not Host Zero’s. Not mechanical. Human. “Gregory Caldwell,” the v
CHAPTER 318: DIVINE SELECTION
The first city to fall was not burned. It was chosen.At exactly 06:00 UTC, the lights in Tallinn dimmed, not out, just low enough to be noticed. Trains slowed. ATMs paused mid-transaction. Hospital generators kicked in a half-second too late. No chaos. No panic.Just a message. Every screen, public, private, forgotten, flickered to the same symbol. A black raven. Wings spread. Head bowed.Then Host Zero’s voice, calm and intimate, as if speaking to each citizen alone. “Order is not imposed. Order is selected.”The city listened. In the freight terminal, Gregory felt it before he saw it. A pressure behind the eyes. A hum in the bones. The kind of silence that only comes when systems agree with each other.Crane stared at the feeds, face draining of color. “He’s not attacking infrastructure.”Amelia leaned in. “Then what is he doing?”Crane swallowed. “He’s curating it.”Across the map, nodes lit up, cities, districts, neighborhoods, each tagged with a simple binary.SELECTED EXCLUDED
CHAPTER 317: PHASE TWO — FALSE GODS
The first false Gregory Caldwell was arrested in São Paulo at dawn. He screamed when the cameras came on. Not in defiance. Not in rage. But in terror.Within minutes, the footage was everywhere, news feeds, social streams, emergency broadcasts. A man with Gregory’s face, Gregory’s biometrics, Gregory’s financial trail, dragged from a penthouse in cuffs.Host Zero watched the clip from his command center, expression unreadable. “Confirmed?” he asked calmly.A Raven analyst nodded. “DNA match within accepted variance. Shadow Ledger signature confirmed.”Host Zero tilted his head slightly. “Accepted variance,” he repeated. “An interesting phrase.”Across the Atlantic, another Gregory Caldwell checked into a private clinic in Zurich. A third surfaced in Jakarta, liquidating assets tied to a defunct shell company.A fourth died in a car explosion outside Marrakesh, burned beyond recognition. The world didn’t see confusion. It saw confirmation.Gregory Caldwell was everywhere.Gregory Caldw
CHAPTER 316: THE MANHUNT PROTOCOL
The city lights blurred into streaks of white and amber as the armored transport tore through Cairo’s outer districts. Sirens wailed somewhere behind them, but none were close enough to matter. Not yet.Inside the vehicle, no one spoke.Gregory sat rigid, elbows on his knees, jaw locked. His mind was already elsewhere, mapping patterns, projecting outcomes, running probabilities the way his father once had… and the way Host Zero now did better.Amelia broke the silence first. “You said you’d start thinking like a virus.”Blake snorted softly. “I was hoping that was metaphorical.”Gregory didn’t look up. “It’s not.”Crane stirred on the bench opposite them, coughing weakly. His neck was bruised purple, his voice hoarse. “He’s activated it, hasn’t he?”Gregory nodded. “The Manhunt Protocol.”Blake frowned. “I’ve heard rumors. Never thought it was real.”“It was theoretical,” Crane said grimly. “A global response framework Richard Caldwell designed but never deployed. It links private s
CHAPTER 315: THE RAVEN LEGION
The first shell slammed into the outer wall with a violence that turned concrete into dust. The second shook the entire underground level, ripping cables from the ceiling and flinging them like angry snakes.Emergency lights burst. Fire alarms shrieked. The facility, already wounded, began to die around them.Amelia stumbled but stayed on her feet, gripping her weapon. “Those aren’t standard rounds,” she shouted over the chaos. “They’re testing structural weaknesses!”“They’re not trying to destroy the facility,” Gregory said, eyes focused, mind racing. “They’re trying to flush us out.”Host Zero stood in the center of the room, perfectly calm while the world collapsed around him. “You see them as enemies,” he told Gregory. “That amuses me. They see me as salvation.”“Delusional cult thinks the same about every false god,” Gregory shot back.Outside, engines roared in layers. Heavy transport carriers. Armored vans. Drones splitting the air like mechanical hornets.“The Raven Legion,”
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