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The sound of the towels hitting the hardwood floor echoed like a gunshot in the high-ceilinged hallway. Mrs. Harper’s breath hitched, her knuckles turning bone-white as she clutched the edge of a mahogany side table. / Chapter 5 / 20

Chapter 5 - The Digital Phantom

"A dead-man's switch," Vincent repeated, a dark, dangerous smile slowly spreading across his face. "You think you're the only one who plays chess, Harrison?"

Blake’s confidence wavered slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"When Claire walked into that bedroom and smelled the vent, she didn't just guess," Vincent said, stepping back and gesturing to the wall monitor behind his desk. "She plugged a frequency analyzer into your own medical tablet while you were arguing in the hallway. We didn't just hack your device, Doctor. We cloned your terminal node."

I stepped forward, tapping the screen on Vincent’s desk. A terminal window popped up, lines of green code scrolling down at lightning speed.

"Your dead-man's switch is routed through a proxy server in Zurich," I explained, watching the panic finally shatter Blake’s composure. "A server that we just intercepted and rerouted to a secure federal-state task force server. The moment your timer hits zero, it won't leak your data to the press, Doctor. It’s going to dispatch a federal indictment straight to the Department of Justice, complete with your offshore bank accounts funding the syndicate takeover."

Blake lunged forward, desperate to grab the tablet, but Vincent’s enforcer slammed the butt of his weapon into the doctor's shoulder, sending him crashing backward onto the floor.

"Get the antidote," Vincent ordered, pressing his boot onto Blake’s chest. "Now."

"It's... it's in the primary medical case in my car," Blake gasped, clutching his bruised shoulder, coughing against the polished floor. "The reversal agent... it neutralizes the toxin in forty-eight hours."

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The ink on the medical schedule wasn't standard printer black. It was darker, heavier, pressed down with the kind of deliberate malice that only a fountain pen could deliver. I stared at the signature at the bottom of the page, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

The ink on the medical schedule wasn't standard printer black. It was da...

The kitchen was so quiet you could hear the distant murmur of the jazz trio outside, playing as if the world hadn't just tilted on its axis. Grant stared at the single sheet of thick parchment resting against the cold Italian marble. His breath caught, a shallow, ragged hitch that gave away his panic before his voice ever could.

The kitchen was so quiet you could hear the distant murmur of the jazz t...

The silence that settled over the Ashford Hills grand terrace after my wedding ring hit the champagne glass wasn’t the polite hush of a high-society dinner. It was the breathless vacuum that precedes an explosion. Around us, smartphones remained elevated, lenses locked on Grant’s face as the pale gold liquid rippled around the platinum band.

The silence that settled over the Ashford Hills grand terrace after my w...

Vincent looked at me, a silent question hanging in the air.

"Check his briefcase," I said, running toward the door. "I'm going back to the boys."

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