CHAPTER 7 — The Man Everyone Thought Was Dead
The emergency alarms echoed through every floor of Voss Global.
Employees rushed toward emergency exits.
Security teams sealed the elevators.
Outside, police sirens mixed with the sound of helicopters circling above the skyscraper.
Inside the executive command center, Elena stared at dozens of surveillance monitors.
One after another...
The cameras went black.
Someone wasn't merely hacking the system.
They were replacing it.
A single image appeared on every screen.
A silver phoenix.
The symbol of Black Horizon.
"We've lost the entire network," the Chief Security Officer said.
"They're inside."
Suddenly...
One monitor flickered back to life.
A man wearing a dark coat stepped into view.
His face remained hidden beneath the hood.
He slowly removed it.
The room froze.
Sophia gasped.
"No..."
"It can't be..."
The man looked directly into the camera.
"Hello, Elena."
It was Michael Reyes.
Alive.
Not older.
Not broken.
Almost exactly as Elena remembered him twelve years earlier.
"You've all been asking the wrong question," Michael said calmly.
"The question was never whether I survived."
"The real question is..."
"What did I become?"
The transmission ended.
No trace.
No location.
Only silence.
Damian, watching from another room under government supervision, slowly sat down.
His face had turned pale.
"He found us."
Elena looked toward him.
"You knew he was alive."
Damian nodded.
"I knew..."
"But I never knew whose side he was on."
For the first time...
Elena wondered whether the man she had trusted years ago had become someone far more dangerous than Damian ever was.
And somewhere beneath the city...
May you like
Michael smiled as hundreds of encrypted servers lit up around him.
"The game finally begins."
