2025-08-11 02:42:40At 3:47 a.m., Lucas Sebastian sat alone in the strategy vault.
The city glittered below, but inside the room, only darkness reigned, broken by the soft green glow of security monitors and encrypted data lines flowing across the wall. The envelope from the Consortium lay open in front of him.
Inside, a card. Plain, silver-edged, unassuming, Except for three chilling words: “The Circle Awaits.”
His fingers tightened, Helena had never seen this side of him, the one buried beneath layers of business, strategy, and vengeance. But they knew him. The Consortium. The shadow syndicate that once shaped his childhood, molded his instincts, and discarded him like a failed weapon.
He wasn’t supposed to live, Let alone rule, Lucas stood, walked to a hidden panel, and entered a code he hadn’t used in twelve years. A drawer slid open. Inside, an old silver ring, engraved with the crescent moon and broken crown.
The insignia of the original heirs. He slipped it on. “I didn’t want to come back to this,” he murmured.
Behind him, Helena stepped in, barefoot and dressed in silk. “You okay?” she asked gently.
Lucas didn’t turn. “No. But I will be.”
Helena’s voice softened. “If they know you're alive… they’ll come for the boy.”
He turned then, and for the first time in days, fear flickered in his eyes. “Then we’ll be ready.”
Rachel sat across from the gloved man in a dimly lit room that smelled of ash and power, He called himself Mr. Sable, and he hadn’t blinked once since she entered. “You want revenge,” he said plainly. “We want access.”
Rachel crossed her arms. “Why help me?”
Sable smiled. “Because the man you married is now standing in the way of something far greater than your bruised ego. We were watching long before you threw those divorce papers.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”
He slid a dossier across the table. “His past. His weaknesses. His bloodline. Everything Lucas Sebastian tried to bury. We want it all.”
She opened it hesitantly. Inside were surveillance photos, encrypted family trees, even photos of Lucas as a teenager, wounded, feral, in training facilities she didn’t recognize. “What… what is this?”
“Truth,” Sable said simply.
“And what do I do?”
He smiled wider now. “You remember. You suffer. And when the time comes, you betray him one last time.”
Lucas stood before a sealed vault in the sub-levels of Black Tower, accompanied by a man in his seventies with white hair and a stiff spine. “Do you believe they’re testing you?” the old man asked.
Lucas nodded. “No doubt. They want to see if I’m still controllable.”
“And if you’re not?”
Lucas smiled grimly. “Then they’ll try to remove me. Again.”
The man passed him a folder. “Then you’ll need this. Every detail on Project Pale Flame. And the woman your enemies just hired.”
Lucas opened it, and froze. Inside: a grainy photo of Rachel sitting across from Sable, She was making a deal.
Helena’s voice echoed in his head: “She’ll come back. Not for love. But for revenge.”
Rachel returned to her apartment to find a package waiting, No return address. Inside: a phone, a photo of Lucas holding their son, and a voice message. “Rachel. We warned you not to make this personal. Now we will.”
She gasped. Then a second message came through. This time, a video, Helena, Bound, Bleeding, Silenced.
“Make your move, or she dies.”
Rachel stared at the screen in horror, caught between the man she betrayed… and the nightmare she just unleashed.
That night, Lucas called a meeting with his top three lieutenants, Only one had ever seen the inside of the Circle. The others knew him simply as the CEO. But tonight?
He was more than that, He was the last surviving heir of the Shadow Lineage. “Target the west wing of the Consortium. Asset freeze. Legal infiltration. I want their leadership destabilized in under 72 hours.”
“And Rachel?” one of them asked.
Lucas looked at the screen showing her entering a hotel room with Sable’s men.
He stood slowly. “Let her walk into hell,” he said. “But when she starts to scream… I’ll be the one who pulls her out.”
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Chapter 100 – Ashes or Victory
The world ended in white. The chamber detonated with light and sound so violent it tore the breath from lungs and the scream from throats. For a single instant, existence itself was obliterated in brilliance, then came the shockwave.Steel ripped. Glass shattered. Men were hurled like ragdolls across the chamber. The floor split with a deafening crack, flames vomiting from ruptured conduits.Evelyn was flung across the steel, her body slamming into a railing. Her vision went black, lungs crushed under the force, she clawed for breath tasting blood.Bravo Team collapsed in heaps of broken armor, some groaning, others silent. Vance roared orders through the maelstrom, his voice nearly drowned out by the collapse around him. At the center of it all, Lucas Sebastian was swallowed by fire.The Silence AfterAnd then silence. The roaring hum of the detonator died, the countdown clock was gone, screen shattered, console burning. The relay core, once thrumming with Vincent’s malignant energy,
Chapter 99 – Zero Hour
00:01, the number glared at Lucas Sebastian from the monitor, red as blood, merciless as fate.One second a heartbeat the span between living and being erased, time slowed.Lucas – The Digital EdgeHis hands were fire on the console, fingers cracked and bleeding but still moving. Sweat blurred his vision, ribs screaming with every breath. But none of that mattered. His entire universe was code snarling, resisting, alive with Vincent’s malignant ghost.The screen split with static. Vincent’s sneering face flickered in and out, mouth opening in a jagged scream: “You cannot erase me!”Lucas’s pulse slammed in his ears. He wasn’t just typing he was attacking, each keystroke a weapon, each override command a thrust. He forced the backdoor wide, shoving his final failsafe through.The system screamed, Sparks cascaded from the console like fireflies the chamber lights flickered. Lucas bared his teeth. “You’re not immortal, Crowe. You’re obsolete.”The ghost lunged back, its digital claws rak
Chapter 98 – One Minute to Midnight
The numbers bled red across the screen.00:56.00:55.00:54.Lucas Sebastian stared at the countdown, breath ragged, hands trembling but steady over the console. The detonator’s cold glow reflected in his bloodshot eyes.The failsafe had shifted into his control, but it was no gift it was a curse with teeth. Vincent’s ghost hadn’t died, It lingered, snarling through the wires, pushing back against his every keystroke.The Chamber in ChaosGunfire still rattled across the chamber. Bravo Team was fractured into scattered squads, pinned down by mercenaries flooding the catwalks. Bullets sparked against the armored shell of the relay core, smoke stung the air, thick with the iron tang of blood.General Vance’s voice was a raw bark over comms. “Bravo, suppress fire! No one lets those bastards near Sebastian!”Evelyn was already moving. She sprinted between cover, sidearm cracking, every shot finding its mark. She slid behind a crumpled console beside Lucas, grabbing his arm. “You’ve got le
Chapter 97 – Two Fronts of War
The Caldwell Power Station groaned like a dying beast. Every light had turned crimson. Alarms howled, echoing through the steel and concrete labyrinth.The relay core pulsed with malignant energy, its secondary device sleek, armored, ticking casting a blood glow across the chamber, GLOBAL DETONATION SEQUENCE INITIATED.The SplitLucas Sebastian slammed his palms against the console, blood smearing across the keys. His eyes blazed as he fought to read the torrent of code cascading down the screen.“This isn’t just a relay anymore,” he barked, chest heaving. “It’s a failsafe bomb wired into the entire grid. If it blows, it’ll trigger everything.”General Vance swore under his breath, barking orders into his comm. “Bravo, secure the perimeter! No one in or out!”But before the words finished, gunfire cracked through the cavernous chamber. Mercenaries, Vincent’s loyalists men who had melted into the city’s shadows after his fall now flooding in like roaches, armed to the teeth.The soldie
Chapter 96 – The Dead Man’s Hand
The command tent exploded into chaos. Alarms shrieked from every console red lights pulsed across the walls like arteries throbbing with panic. Techs shouted over one another, screens filling with flashing warnings. BOMB STATUS: ACTIVE, SIGNAL AUTHENTICATION OVERRIDE FAILED.Lucas Sebastian gripped the detonator, his bloodied knuckles whitening around it. His body ached, his lungs screamed, but his mind snapped into diamond clarity. Vincent Crowe was dead, but the man had left behind a legacy that refused to die with him.The Countdown That Wasn’t“Status report!” General Vance roared, his voice thundering above the din. A young tech with trembling hands stammered, “No visible countdown, sir. The bombs aren’t they’re not timed! They’re synced to the signal. If it reaches full confirmation”“They’ll all blow at once,” Lucas finished grimly.Evelyn clutched his shoulder, her face pale. “How much time do we have?”Lucas studied the blinking device. The rhythm had changed no longer steady
Chapter 95 – The Blinking Doom
The night did not sleep. Helicopters thundered above the ruins of Crowe Tower, their spotlights sweeping across the collapsed mountain of steel and smoke. Firetrucks still screamed, dousing flames that refused to die. Reporters shoved microphones at trembling survivors, demanding answers.But the only answer that mattered pulsed in Lucas Sebastian’s palm a blinking red light,the detonator.Dragged Back From DeathParamedics carried him on a stretcher toward the triage tents, their faces tight with disbelief. “He should be dead,” one whispered, wiping soot from Lucas’s blood-caked face.Evelyn never left his side, clutching his hand as though her grip alone tethered him to the world. “Stay with me,” she whispered, tears cutting rivers through the ash on her cheeks. “Don’t you dare leave now.”Lucas stirred. His chest heaved like a furnace, every breath shallow and ragged, but his eyes flickered open. And then they all froze because his other hand clenched the detonator. “Stop!” a firef
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