Chapter 3 - The Impostor's Shadow"It's a deepfake!" Max shrieked, his voice pitching high with panic as he pointed a shaking finger at the screen. "Your father was losing his mind! He experimented with neural-mapping and synthetic identity projects! He imagined enemies everywhere! Don't listen to him, Elena! It's a digital ghost!"
"Shut up!" Elena screamed, the raw agony in her voice silencing the entire cathedral.
She turned back to the screen as the video continued to play. The camera angle shifted slightly. On the grainy footage, the door behind Richard creaked open. Footsteps echoed from the dark corridor.
A figure stepped into the frame.
The blood rushed in Elena’s ears. It was Max. Exactly as he looked today—the same sharp jawline, the same piercing hazel eyes, the same faint scar just beneath his left earlobe. But the man on the screen wasn't wearing a designer suit; he wore a bloodstained lab coat, and a chilling, predatory smirk played across his lips.
“You see, Elena,” the video-Max on the screen said, his voice overlapping with the live audio of Richard's recording. “Old Richard here wouldn't hand over the biometric algorithm. So we had to make a... substitution.”
The groom standing on the altar staggered backward, his heels catching the edge of the altar stairs. He stumbled and fell hard onto the marble floor.
"No... no, no, no," the groom muttered, clutching his head as if trying to block out a voice inside his own brain.
"You're not Max," Elena whispered, horror wrapping its icy fingers around her throat. She looked down at the red collar around her neck, then back at the man on the floor. "Who are you?"
Before the groom could answer, the heavy oak doors of the cathedral slammed wide open.
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A blast of cold autumn wind swept inside, extinguishing several candles along the center aisle. Standing in the doorway was a squad of armed men in tactical gear, their faces hidden behind dark helmets and ballistic masks. Leading them was a woman with sharp silver hair and cold, calculating eyes—Director Vance of the International Cyber Intelligence Bureau.
And right beside her, walking with a steady, hauntingly familiar gait, was a man wearing an identical red collar.
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