CHAPTER 7 — The Man Everyone Thought Was Dead
The private hospital was hidden beneath another name.
No signs.
No records.
No visitors allowed.
Yet inside Room 917, the most dangerous man in America slowly opened his eyes.
Richard Hawthorne.
The billionaire everyone believed had died six months earlier.
Victoria entered the room trembling.
The moment she saw him sitting upright, tears filled her eyes.
"Father..."
Richard didn't smile.
Instead, he slapped her across the face.
"You failed."
Victoria held her burning cheek in disbelief.
"She destroyed everything!"
Richard's cold eyes narrowed.
"No."
"You destroyed it the moment you humiliated Eleanor Carter."
He stood slowly.
Despite his age, his presence filled the room like a storm.
"You should have killed her years ago."
Victoria whispered,
"We thought she had nothing."
Richard laughed.
"Never underestimate a person who has nothing left to lose."
He walked toward the window overlooking Manhattan.
"Our companies..."
"Our money..."
"Our politicians..."
"They were never the real empire."
Victoria looked confused.
"What do you mean?"
Richard opened a hidden safe built into the wall.
Inside was a black folder stamped:
PROJECT PHOENIX
He handed it to her.
Victoria opened the file.
Her hands immediately began shaking.
Inside were names.
Hundreds of them.
Judges.
Federal agents.
Bank executives.
Technology CEOs.
Foreign investors.
Every powerful person who secretly belonged to Richard's invisible network.
Victoria gasped.
"You still control all of them?"
Richard smiled for the first time.
"I never needed the companies."
"I own the people."
Across the city...
Evelyn received an anonymous package.
Inside was a single photograph.
Richard Hawthorne.
Alive.
On the back, someone had written only four words.
The game isn't over.
For the first time since exposing the corruption...
Evelyn felt genuine fear.
May you like
Because the monster she had spent twelve years defeating...
Had never actually fallen.
