Chapter 7 - THE UNINVITED VISITORThe sun had fully set by the time the federal auditors packed up their gear and cleared the building, leaving me alone in my father’s executive office. The city lights below twinkled like a distant grid of stars, steady and unyielding.

My phone vibrated on the polished oak desk.

An unknown number. Local area code.

I picked it up and pressed accept, sliding the phone to my ear.

“Speak.”

“You think you’ve won, don't you?”

The voice was raspy, exhausted, but carrying a sharp edge of desperate malice. Elaine.

I didn't flinch. “Where are you, Mother?”

“I’m out on bail,” she spat, the refined veneer completely gone, replaced by a raw, snarling survival instinct. “Curtis is still locked up because of your little military stunt, but my lawyers managed to post my bond. Do you honestly think you can just take everything? Titan is our family name. It belongs to us!”

“It belongs to the people who built it honestly,” I replied calmly. “And right now, it belongs to a federal receivership while the IG investigates your corporate espionage.”

“You ungrateful little b—,” she started, her voice rising in pitch before she suddenly stopped herself. A harsh, chilling laugh echoed through the line. “You think your father was a saint, don't you? You think he left you everything because he loved you best?”

I frowned, tightening my grip on the phone. “What are you talking about?”

“Ask him about the night before the Kandar deployment,” Elaine hissed, her tone dropping into a poisonous whisper. “Ask him why your unit was sent into that specific valley. He didn't just design tactical systems, Avalon. He sold them to both sides. And your precious Commander Carney? He knew all about it.”

The line went dead with a sharp click.

I stood frozen in the center of the dark office, the hum of the city fading into a dull roar in my ears.

He sold them to both sides?

Before I could process the chilling implication of my mother’s final words, the heavy oak door of the office slowly pushed open.

May you like

His chest tightened, a sharp, cold panic piercing through the expensive...

The silence of the boutique hotel room was a heavy, suffocating blanket....

The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds before I found my voic...

Colonel Carney stood in the doorway, his uniform jacket removed, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He held two cups of black coffee in his hands, offering one toward me with a calm, inscrutable expression.

“Trouble?” he asked quietly.