Chapter 118: The Name in the Code

The thirty-six-hour mark came and went without another ghost call, without a new sabotage. The silence was worse. It was the pause before a predator pounced. Sabatine moved through the penthouse like a specter of focused dread, his every sense tuned to a frequency Anton couldn’t hear. He checked and re-checked the physical security of the penthouse, his modified glasses scanning for new signals, his mind running scenarios.

Anton, meanwhile, had channeled the aftermath of the kitchen into a cold, relentless energy. He was restructuring the Milan trap, making it leaner, meaner, less dependent on vulnerable external links. He worked with the grim determination of a general fortifying a city he knew was already besieged. He noticed Sabatine’s hyper-vigilance but attributed it to the general threat level, to the kiss, to his own confessed fears. He saw a partner on high alert, and it reassured him even as it worried him.

The breakthrough came from Leon, not as a triumphant shout, but as a digital whisper so dangerous it barely made a sound.

Sabatine was in the war room, now stripped of its holograms and lit by a single task lamp, reviewing the fragmented data from the ghost call’s satellite bounce. His own secured device chimed with a priority alert—a single, encrypted data packet from an anonymous node. Leon’s signature was in the metadata, a ghost’ fingerprint.

He opened it. There was no text. Just a string of forensic data: server logs, access times, encrypted header information from the call’s point of origin before it hit the satellite scramble. Leon had done the impossible—he’d back-traced a ghost.

And the trail didn’t lead to Macau, or Moscow, or a cyber-bunker in Iceland.

It led to a residential IP address in Knightsbridge. An apartment in a discreet, palatial building favoured by old money and discreet power. The building was owned by a trust. The trust was linked to a family office. The family office managed the wealth of one of Rogers Industries’ most respected, longest-serving board members: Sir Malcolm Thorne.

Seventy-two years old. A war hero turned merchant banker. A voice of tradition and stability on the board. The man who had handed Anton the ceremonial gavel when he’d officially taken over from his father. A man Anton spoke of with genuine, if distant, respect.

Sir Malcolm Thorne was the throat behind the modulated voice.

The conspiracy didn’t just have a financial architect in Silas and operational moles like Finch and Croft. It had a figurehead. A source of legitimacy from within the very institution Anton was fighting to save. Thorne could sway other board members, access the deepest sanctums of corporate governance, lend the weight of history and honour to Silas’s quiet coup. He was the final piece—the moral camouflage for a financial predator.

The revelation was a physical blow. Sabatine sat back in his chair, the blood roaring in his ears. This wasn’t just a war for a company; it was a war for its soul. Silas wasn’t just stealing it; he was having it handed to him by its own guardians.

And the ghost call, the personal, intimate threat against Anton and him… that had come from Thorne. The old knight had personally delivered the ultimatum. The brutality of that—the use of his stature to deliver such a vicious, intimate threat—was a new level of coldness.

Sabatine’s first, furious instinct was to storm into Anton’s study and show him. To watch the last vestige of trust in his inherited world evaporate from his eyes. To finally have a name, a face, a target for all the diffuse fury and fear.

But he stopped himself, his hand hovering over the interface to summon Anton.

Share his fate.

Thorne was close. Impossibly close. He wasn’t a hacker in a distant country; he was a phone call away. He was on the board Anton would have to face. Exposing him now, without ironclad, public-proof evidence, would be a declaration of civil war within Rogers Industries. It would be Anton’s word against a legend’s. It would create chaos, sink the stock, and play right into Silas’s hands. It might even trigger the “messy” end Thorne had promised.

They needed more. They needed Thorne’s direct link to Silas. They needed proof of his coordination with Finch and Croft. They needed to trap him in the act.

Sabatine closed the data packet, sealing it in a digital vault only he could access. He took a series of deep, steadying breaths, forcing the operative’s calm over the man’s outrage. Then he got up and went to find Anton.

He found him not at his desk, but standing before the large map of Europe, a red marker in his hand. He’d drawn a new, aggressive line through the Alps, bypassing Milan altogether.

“We pivot,” Anton said without turning, his voice taut with concentration. “We let Milan stutter. We create a new priority. A phantom acquisition in Stuttgart. Something flashy, personal, that will draw Croft’s focus and resources. We stretch them thin.”

“It’s a good play,” Sabatine said, his voice remarkably even. “But we have a new piece on the board.”

Anton turned, the marker freezing in his hand. “What?”

“The ghost called. Leon traced it.”

Anton’s eyes sharpened, all his focus laser-pointed on Sabatine. “Who?”

Sabatine didn’t flinch. “It originated from a residence in Knightsbridge. The owner of the residence is a trust. The beneficiary of the trust is Sir Malcolm Thorne.”

For a long moment, Anton didn’t react. He just stared. Then, very slowly, he placed the marker down on the table. The sound was deafening in the quiet room. All colour drained from his face, leaving him pale as marble.

“Malcolm,” he whispered. The name was a burial. All the fond, distant respect crystallized and then shattered. “He… he gave the eulogy at my father’s funeral. He told me I had his ‘full confidence.’” A hollow, disbelieving laugh escaped him. “He was the one who told me to beware of ‘new friends’ like Silas when he first appeared.”

The betrayal was absolute. It wasn’t the hot, furious betrayal of Evelyn or Marcus. This was colder, deeper—a betrayal of legacy, of a shared history. It was the past itself turning against him.

Anton walked to the window, his back rigid. “So it’s not just an invasion. It’s a… usurpation. From within the court.” He turned, and his eyes were no longer haunted; they were the flat, merciless grey of a winter sea. “This changes the game.”

“It does,” Sabatine agreed. “We can’t expose him yet. Not without proof that links him directly to Silas and the sabotage. He’s too entrenched. It would be your word against his, and he has a lifetime of credibility.”

“Then we get the proof,” Anton said, the words a vow. “We use the Stuttgart play. But we add a layer. We make it something Thorne would have to personally endorse, to get his hands on. A deal so sweet, so aligned with his old-fashioned ideals of ‘industrial legacy,’ that he can’t resist inserting himself. We bait the knight with his own honour.”

The plan unfolded in Anton’s mind with terrible, beautiful clarity. The CEO was gone. The strategist was gone. This was the warlord, preparing for a war of annihilation against a traitor in his own ranks.

“We’ll need to be perfect,” Sabatine said. “He’ll be paranoid. He just made a threat. He’ll be watching for a reaction.”

“He’ll be watching me,” Anton corrected, a grim smile touching his lips. “He’ll be looking for the emotional, compromised young CEO. He won’t be watching for the ghost working beside him.” He looked at Sabatine, the trust absolute, the partnership now a blade they would wield together. “You found the link. The money trail, the communications. You get me something I can take to the rest of the board that cannot be refuted. I will draw him into the open.”

The division of labour was clear, brutal, and perfect. Sabatine, the ghost, would haunt the digital and shadow world, gathering the knife for the back. Anton, the king, would face the traitor in the light of day, and plunge it in.

The conspiracy had tightened, revealing its heart. And in response, Anton Rogers didn’t flinch. He didn’t rage. He simply began preparing for the only kind of war left: a war to the death, for the soul of everything he’d ever believed was his. The name was in the code. The final battle had a face. And for the first time, Anton looked eager for the fight.

—-