2026-05-20 01:33:51After breakfast, Erick waited until the last car disappeared down the driveway before slipping out of the Laurent residence. He couldn’t risk any of the servants noticing he was gone.
A black sedan idled in the alley behind the mansion. The rear window rolled down.
Ivan looked the same. The scar across the back of his left hand hadn’t faded in eight years.
Erick climbed into the back seat. The sedan pulled away before the door had fully closed.
“You look like trash,” Ivan said in Russian.
“English only,” Erick said.
Ivan smirked. “Five years playing house servant, and this is what’s left? Getting bitched at by maids?”
Ivan lit a cigarette. “I know about the baby. Aria told me. Sorry, Boss.”
Erick’s jaw flexed. “Don’t.”
Ivan nodded. “Understood. Won’t mention it again.”
A few minutes later, Erick’s phone buzzed. A message from Dominique:
[Vanessa’s divorce party tonight. Martin will attend despite your behavior. Try acting like an adult for one evening. I am tired of cleaning up your messes.]
He stared at the Gerard Dominion building in the distance. Five years ago, “Quade” was a name people feared.
Now, the world moved on like Quade never existed.
The car stopped at a red light. His new phone buzzed.
Unknown number:
Unknown Number
Emergency Board Meeting by Order of Quade.
Victor Hale Will Announce Quade’s Death Today.
Erick’s grip tightened. “In that case… I’m done hiding.”
***
Ivan parked in the underground garage, wiping grease off his hands. “I’ll wait here.”
“Get upstairs.”
“Boss, it’s boring as hell up there.”
“You’re coming. I need backup.”
Ivan snorted. “Fine. But if I break someone’s jaw, it’s coming out of your paycheck.”
Erick entered the lobby wearing a frayed black windbreaker, faded T-shirt, and worn-out jeans. His sneakers had long lost their white color.
“Sir?” The receptionist (Clara, according to her name tag) looked him up and down. “This area is for authorized personnel only.”
“Board meeting,” Erick said, still walking.
She blinked, then gave a disbelieving laugh. “I’m sorry… who are you?”
Security moved in quickly. A large guard grabbed Erick’s arm. “You need to leave, buddy.”
Before Erick could react, Ivan was beside him. “Get your hand off him.”
The lobby went quiet.
Someone muttered something about calling the police. Another joked that a homeless guy had wandered in looking for free coffee.
Clara’s expression shifted as she typed rapidly on her computer.
By then, people were staring. Someone muttered something about calling the police. Another joked that a homeless guy had wandered in looking for free coffee.
The elevator dinged, and every assistant on the floor froze mid-movement.
“Miss Aria…” Clara started.
“Is this how we treat major shareholders now?” Aria’s voice was calm but carried. “This man is the founder and CEO. Show some respect.”
The guard immediately let go. The whispering stopped.
Aria looked Erick over, her face unreadable to everyone else. Only he noticed the slight tightness in her jaw.
In the elevator, Aria stared straight ahead.
“You could have warned me,” she said.
“And miss the show downstairs?” Erick replied.
She exhaled through her nose, almost a laugh. “Five years later and you’re still difficult.”
They rode up in silence for a few floors.
“You’ve been letting them walk all over you,” she said quietly.
Erick didn’t answer. There would be time for that conversation later.
When the doors opened on the executive floor, assistants froze mid-step. A tablet nearly slipped from someone’s hands.
Victor Hale was stepping out of the boardroom, laughing until he saw Erick. The laugh died instantly.
Erick didn’t slow down. His shoulder crashed into Victor’s.
Victor staggered into the wall.
He pushed open the boardroom doors.
Eight heads turned at once.
Victor’s chair — Erick’s chair — sat empty at the head of the table.
Erick crossed the room slowly, his worn sneakers leaving faint traces of dirt on the polished floor. At the head of the table, he pulled out the chairman’s chair and sat.
The room went completely silent.
“Victor won’t be joining us,” he said. “We’ll start without him.”
Michael, one of the original board members, looked like he might choke. “Quade?”
Erick leaned back. “Still alive, Mike.”
He slowly scanned the faces around the table. Many of them had known him when they were eating instant noodles in a freezing garage almost a decade ago.
“First order,” he continued. “Victor Hale is suspended, effective immediately.”
No one spoke.
Michael swallowed. “There are procedures…”
Erick tossed his phone onto the table. “Second: someone sent me condolences on my death this morning. I’ll be finding out who.”
He let the silence stretch, then gave a small, cold smile. “Bad news, gentlemen. Quade isn’t dead.”
He pulled the thick leather-bound financial report toward him and opened it. The cold smile instantly faded from his face as his eyes locked onto the active acquisition data.
His eyes narrowed. [LAURENT CORP - EMERGENCY CAPITAL INJECTION: $200,000,000 APPROVED BY V. HALE.]
Erick closed the report. The room went silent.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Who approved transferring two hundred million dollars to Laurent Corp?”
No one answered.
Erick smiled. “Good. Then I’ll assume it was theft.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 165 — Soft Points
The conduit was barely wide enough for single file.Residual dampeners lined the walls in old Continuity patterning, most of them dead or flickering. Aria’s route kept them inside the seed’s blind angles—maintenance channels it had left under-reinforced so it could keep talking to the older signatures.Remi went first. Erick followed, every step measured against the tear in his side. Pain had settled into a constant hot pressure. He used it as a metronome.Aria’s voice stayed low in their ears.“Eighty-one minutes on the handshake estimate. Seed is still consolidating the forty-seven. Twelve of the named are clustered in a residual holding lattice two levels above the core proper. That’s your target. Ivan has overwatch on the secondary exit route. If the negotiation locks ea
Chapter 164 — We Still Have That Conversation
The first visible proof hit the city at 03:17.Aria’s alert cut across every hard-line in the clinic at once.“Residual spike. Midtown administrative cluster. Seed defensive core just pushed a coordinated pulse through three abandoned Continuity channels. Not an attack pattern. A broadcast.”Remi was already on her feet. Erick had forced himself into a sitting position against the raised bed, residual leads still taped to his chest. The monitors complained. He ignored them.“Content?”“Catalogue language mixed with something else. It’s trying to redefine boundaries in real time. Claiming residual sectors it already lost. And—” Aria paused. “It’s addressing the older signatures directly. Formal structure. Almost like a treaty proposal under residual law t
Chapter 163 — Boundary Negotiation
Erick woke to the low hum of residual dampeners and the smell of antiseptic gel.His left side felt packed with wet sand and broken glass. Breathing still hurt. Consciousness came in pieces—ceiling lights, the weight of monitoring leads, the distant sound of someone arguing in a corridor.Remi’s voice cut through first.“He’s awake. Give us the room.”A residual specialist muttered something about vitals and stepped out. The door sealed. Remi stayed where she was, arms crossed, residual light under her skin dim but steady.“You look like shit.”Erick’s throat worked. “Feel worse.”“Good. Means you’re still processing pain like a person instead of a residual event.&rdqu
Chapter 162 — Spite and Unfinished Business
The service corridor spat them out into a loading alley behind a shuttered logistics depot. Night air hit as a slap—exhaust, rain, distant sirens layered over each other.Remi kept Erick upright against the brick wall. His breathing was a wet, uneven scrape.Aria’s voice stayed tight in their ears.“Extraction van is ninety seconds out—Black GD Tech medical unit, no markings. Driver is one of ours. Trauma kit onboard is better than nothing. Clinic is seven minutes from your position once you’re moving.”Ivan set Jacqueline’s body down under the shallow overhang and checked the alley both ways.“Street’s too quiet.”“Residual infrastructure in this sector is partially offline,” Aria said. “Seed failure is creating dead
Chapter 161 — What’s Left of the City
The incline steepened.Remi adjusted her grip under Erick’s arm. His weight kept shifting the wrong way.“You’re drifting. Stay on your feet.”“Trying.”“Try harder. I’m not dragging a corpse the rest of the way.”Ivan walked ahead with Jacqueline’s body. The residual burns on his arms had stopped spreading, but the skin looked wrong—dark, stiff, half-claimed by the field they were leaving.He didn’t look back when he spoke.“How much further until we hit something that still answers to city infrastructure?”Calder’s voice came from the front, layered and thin.“Two more vertical shafts. After that the residual density drops. Continuity systems—or what’s left of them—will start registering again.”Remi glanced at Erick’s face. Gray. Eyes half-lidded.“You hear that? We’re close. Don’t quit.”“Not quitting.”“Good. Because if you die in this tunnel I will be extremely angry with you.”A faint breath that might have been a laugh escaped him.“Noted.”They reached the first vertical shaf
Chapter 160 — Backlash
The residual scream from above cut off like a throat being closed.For several seconds the only sound in the memory core chamber was the slow drip of Erick’s blood hitting scar-tissue. The white cracks that had spiderwebbed across the walls faded one by one. The pressure that had been trying to rewrite everything in the chamber simply… stopped.Remi kept both hands pressed against the worst of the wounds in Erick’s side. Her residual light was so dim it barely showed under her skin.“Hey. Look at me.”Erick’s eyes were open but unfocused. She slapped his cheek, not gently.“Erick. Eyes on me.”He blinked. Focus returned in fragments. His voice was barely air.“Did it work?”<
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