2026-05-16 21:55:12Warning: Mentioned Abortion, minor violence
“Erick, what the—?” Martin immediately switched tactics, clutching his bleeding nose dramatically. “He attacked me! I was just—”
“He’s lying,” Erick cut in flatly. “He said—”
“ENOUGH!” Dominique burst out of the dressing room in her half-finished gown, face pale with fury. She grabbed Erick’s arm, nails digging painfully into his skin, and dragged him outside onto the sidewalk.
The moment they were alone, she shoved him away like he was toxic.
“You humiliated me!” Dominique snapped. “In front of everyone! You ruined everything, Erick!”
Erick stared at her, voice low and tight. “He talked about you like you belonged to him. Like you were still his.”
Dominique let out a bitter, sarcastic laugh. “So what? Maybe I should’ve stayed with him. I already ruined my life once by marrying you.”
Erick’s stomach twisted. “What does that mean?”
She crossed her arms tightly. “I wasn’t ready, Erick.”
“Ready for what?”
Dominique gritted her teeth. “Can we not do this right now? I still have to finish my dress.”
A cold dread settled deep in Erick’s chest. “Dominique… were you pregnant?”
She looked away. “I took care of it.”
The words landed like a hammer. Traffic roared past them, but Erick felt the world go dead silent.
“You handled it?” he repeated, voice barely above a whisper.
“I wasn’t bringing a child into that family,” she hissed. “Into that life.”
Erick stood frozen on the sidewalk. He had just learned he could have been a father — and she had ended it without telling him.
Dominique turned and walked back into the boutique without another glance.
Erick didn’t follow.
His fingers found the burner phone hidden in his jacket. It vibrated.
Aria’s message appeared:
[Boss. Problem. Helix flagged unauthorized access — core systems. Origin: inside the Laurent estate. That camera? No surveillance. Someone’s brute-forcing your network.]
Erick’s eyes narrowed.
Michel.
***
The Laurent estate was eerily quiet when Erick returned that afternoon. He slipped in through the service door.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Hollis gave him a silent, knowing look. Thirty years with the Laurents had taught her when to stay quiet.
Erick went straight to the storage room. A hidden panel clicked open. He placed Arias’s frequency jammer directly beneath Michel’s camera.
As he stepped out to make tea, familiar footsteps approached. Mrs. Hollis.
Erick melted into the hallway shadows and listened.
She rounded the corner carrying a tray. “Earl Grey, Mr. Erick?” she asked softly, pouring steaming tea into a chipped cup. “You look like you need it.”
He took the cup. The heat burned his palms, but he barely felt it.
“I’ve watched this family for thirty years,” Mrs. Hollis murmured. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with.”
A loud, arrogant laugh echoed nearby. Michel.
Erick raised a finger to his lips. Mrs. Hollis disappeared into the shadows.
“…so fucking funny!” Michel’s voice boomed from his phone speaker as he neared the pantry. “I rigged the feed outside that loser’s room. Hoped to catch him jerking off or something, but nothing. The pathetic bastard just sleeps like a corpse.”
“Get off that camera, Michel,” Dominique snapped, her voice sharp with warning.
“Oh, relax, princess…”
“You stole two hundred million from Dad’s festival project,” she hissed. “He doesn’t know yet. If I were you, I’d be fucking terrified right now.”
Michel’s tone turned nasty. “You’re lecturing me? Don’t think I don’t know about your dirty little secrets, Dominique. The abortion. The affair with Martin. All of it.”
“That’s my business, you idiot!” Dominique’s voice rose dangerously.
The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls. Mrs. Hollis let out a shaky breath.
Erick stared into his tea, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Inside the storage room, his fake smile vanished completely. A hidden screen glowed behind a panel. Encrypted data streamed across it.
Erick had built GD Tech long before the Laurents ever learned his name.
He scanned the latest acquisition reports and froze.
Laurent Corporation — Partnership Status: ACTIVE. Victor Hale Industries.
Erick’s jaw tightened until it hurt. Victor — his childhood friend and former second-in-command — had betrayed him.
His phone buzzed again.
Aria: [Board meeting tomorrow. No-show = Victor controls the story.]
Erick leaned back in his chair, eyes cold and calculating.
For the first time that day, a dark, dangerous smile touched his lips.
It was time to stop hiding.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 124 — First Ripple
The medical node sat inside a quiet two-story clinic on the edge of Long Island City, the kind of place that handled private insurance and asked few questions after hours. Continuity had used it before. The residual pattern matched three earlier short-term holdings from the mirror slice.Erick’s team hit it at 15:41, forty-one minutes after Aria flagged the early movement order.Ivan took the rear service door. Jacqueline covered the street exit. Erick and one additional operator entered through the side stairwell Aria had unlocked with a residual utility pulse that looked like ordinary grid noise. Remi remained at the command site with her mother and Dominique, running the external watch.The two Continuity handlers were already in motion when the team cleared the second-floor corridor. One reached for a compact weapon. Ivan ended the movement without a shot. The second ha
Chapter 123 — New Terms
Kane’s message arrived on the shielded line at 14:07.No greeting. No residual encryption theater. Just a short string of coordinates, a time stamp seventeen minutes out, and a single line of text:Permanent-site breach is circulating. I have a location. New terms. Meet or lose it.Erick read it once. Aria confirmed the coordinates resolved to a decommissioned waterfront warehouse on the Red Hook side, quiet enough for a conversation and exposed enough that neither party could easily trap the other.He did not waste time debating.“Ivan, hold the second courier pursuit at soft distance. Do not engage. Jacqueline, maintain the box on Hale. No movement. Aria, full residual sweep of the warehouse grid. I want every camera and every possible exit marked before I arrive.”Remi stepped closer to the table. “You’re going alone?”“Kane does not deal if the room is full. Ivan will be on the perimeter. You stay here with the residual map and your mother. If Continuity moves on any of the remain
Chapter 122—Closing Files
The command room held the residual tension of a failed intercept.Aria’s screens still showed the second courier vehicle cutting hard through Midtown traffic, now moving with the deliberate unpredictability of a team that knew it was burned. The distribution van on West 28th had gone dark thirty seconds after the dead-man pulse. Continuity had activated the remaining packets remotely and pulled their handlers offline.Erick stood at the main table, issuing short, precise orders. Ivan was already redirecting to cut off possible exit routes. Jacqueline held the box on Victor Hale’s townhouse. The captured courier remained secured and silent in the secondary vehicle.None of that stopped the private fracture opening on the other side of the room.Remi had not moved since Aria confirmed the remote activation. She stared at the legal pad with the three residual names, then at her mother, then at Dominique.When she spoke, her voice was quiet enough that only the four of them could hear it.
Chapter 121—Dead-Man Pulse
Ivan’s team hit the Vermilyea walk-up at 09:17.Soft knock. No answer. Second knock. Still nothing. The heat signature on the third floor had not moved in twelve hours. Aria confirmed the phone was still powered and stationary.Ivan gave the signal. The lock yielded in four seconds. They entered clean.The apartment was small, ordered, and empty of life. A single mug sat on the counter, coffee gone cold. The bed was made. The phone lay face-down on the nightstand, still pinging its location. No signs of struggle. No forced exit.The residual carrier was gone.Ivan’s voice came flat over the channel. “Site is clean. Subject vacated. Phone left behind as decoy. We’re checking residual traces now.”Erick stood in the command room of the secondary site, eyes on the live feed. Remi was beside him. Dominique remained at the far table with her mother’s legal pad. Jacqueline was still boxed on Victor Hale’s townhouse.“How long?” Erick asked.Aria answered. “Last genuine movement on the phone
Chapter 120—The Residuals
Remi’s mother was sitting at the small table in the back room with a legal pad and a black pen. It looked weird having a paper pad in a place full of screens and encrypted feeds, but she wouldn’t use a tablet. She claimed paper didn’t leave a digital trail.Erick stood across from her. Remi sat right next to her mother, just in case her hand started shaking again and she needed help.Dominique stayed by the door with her arms crossed, just listening in since nobody told her to leave. Ivan was guarding the outside. Jacqueline was still watching Victor Hale’s townhouse up on the Upper East Side. Aria was on the line, staying quiet and only chiming in when something important happened.The older woman wrote down three names in neat print. She didn’t look up until she was done with the last one.“These are the ones I am certain still carry active Legacy residual status,” she said. “Not historical. Not closed. Active.”Erick read the names upside down.The first belonged to a woman in her
Chapter 119 — Containment
Aria traced a signal from the Laurent estate node to a discreet Upper East Side townhouse. At 7:19 a.m., the house received the packet, sent a four-second acknowledgment, and both went dark.Erick didn’t rush. After securing the perimeter and having Aria research the house’s history, he entered the side room. The door sealed with a magnetic click, leaving him with Dominique; she looked composed, but her rigid shoulders and twitching fingers betrayed her.“You asked for a private conversation,” he said. “You have it.”She did not sit.“The packet went to a private address.” Her eyes stayed on him. “Who lives there?”“We don’t know yet.”“But you’re already surrounding it.”“Yes.”Her mouth tightened.“You are treating this like another residual trail.”“It is a live link.”“It is under my family’s house.”“I know.”“Then stop talking to me like this is just another piece of data.”Erick said nothing.Dominique’s breath came out slowly through her nose.“That node is connected to the sam
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