Chapter 10

**UNKNOWN PLACE**

The room was completely dark except for the cold blue glow of a single computer screen. Fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard, the only sound in the silence. Lines of code and surveillance photos filled the monitor.

A door opened quietly. A tall male figure stepped inside, his silhouette cutting through the darkness.

“Have you seen any news yet?” the man asked, his voice low and tense.

The person at the computer — a woman — didn’t stop typing. “No. Not yet.”

“It’s been twenty years,” he said. “How long are you going to keep digging?”

The woman finally paused. Her voice was cold and bitter. “I won’t let it go just like that. I can’t.”

She leaned back slightly, the chair creaking. “But I recently found out that Cassian Hale has taken a girl under his wing. It looks very suspicious.”

The man crossed his arms. “Maybe he’s finally having an affair? The Ice King getting soft?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t gathered enough evidence yet. But there’s something off about this girl. Her background is too clean… too perfect. And the mysterious hacker ‘K’ is protecting her information. Everything about her on the internet looks forged, but I still can’t prove it.”

Anger rose in her voice. Suddenly, she grabbed the edge of the desk and threw a smaller laptop across the room. It crashed against the wall with a loud crack.

She stood up, breathing hard, and stared at the large screen where Cassian Hale’s photo was displayed — cold gray eyes, sharp jaw, the face of the man who had destroyed so many lives.

“I will find the truth,” she whispered. “One way or another.”

With a sharp movement, she turned off the computer. The entire room plunged into complete darkness.

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**HALE DYNAMICS, AI AND TECH CONGLOMERATE**  

**Conference Room**

The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Cassian Hale sat at the head of the long table, his steel-gray eyes burning with fury. Around him, the top R&D team, AI researchers, software engineers, and project leads shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

He slammed his hand hard on the table. The sound echoed like a gunshot.

“Two months!” he growled. “Two full months and you still haven’t delivered a complete set of detailed coding and algorithms for the production team. This product was supposed to be ready for market testing by now. Instead, it feels like my company is playing games.”

He glared directly at the team leader, a middle-aged man who kept his head bowed, unable to meet Cassian’s eyes.

“What exactly is taking so long?” Cassian demanded, his voice dangerously low.

The man opened his mouth but no words came out.

Cassian let out a short, angry laugh. “Since you have nothing to say, visit HR right now and process your resignation. By evening, I want you out of this company.”

The entire room went deathly silent.

Cassian turned to Victor, who stood quietly near the door. “Post an urgent notice on the company website. We need a new Software Engineer immediately. If the candidate can write the missing code for this project within 42 hours, the starting salary will be one million euros.”

Victor nodded without hesitation and began typing rapidly on his laptop.

Everyone in the room could feel it — Mr. Hale was in an extremely bad mood this morning. He had arrived late, which was rare, and now this meeting had turned into a bloodbath.

Cassian stood up abruptly, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the table. Without another word, he walked out of the conference room and headed straight to his private office.

He didn’t sit down.

Instead, he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the Berlin skyline. His hands were clenched behind his back.

The real reason for his anger wasn’t just the team’s failure.

Earlier that morning, he had spoken with Darren Fletcher. Darren had called from the airport, fresh off his flight from China. His voice had been impatient.

“Cassian, the investors are getting restless. One of them just told me your rival company is ready to send their own AI model for testing. If they launch before us, all your sleepless nights will be wasted. Fix this. Fast.”

To make things worse, someone had leaked details about the new AI project to the internet. Now the whole tech world was watching and waiting. The pressure was mounting, and his own employees were testing his patience to the limit.

He hated it.

Cassian hated losing control. He hated delays. And most of all, he hated the feeling that everything he had built could slip away because of incompetence.

His mind briefly drifted to the girl now living in his guest house — Hazel Lett. The fragile, innocent-looking orphan who had crashed into his life two nights ago. For some strange reason, thinking about her calmed the storm inside him a little.

He shook the thought away.

This was not the time to get distracted.

A soft knock sounded on the door.

Victor entered. “Sir, the job posting is live. We’ve already received over three hundred applications in the first ten minutes.”

Cassian nodded once, still staring out the window. “Screen them carefully. I want the best. No excuses.”

“Yes, sir.”

Victor paused before leaving. “Also… Mrs. Hale called. She wants to know when you’ll be home tonight.”

Cassian’s jaw tightened. “Tell her I’ll be late. I have work.”

As Victor left, Cassian finally sat down at his desk. He opened the project files again, frustration building.

Forty-two hours.

That was all the time he was willing to give.

If no one could deliver the missing piece, heads would continue to roll.