LOGINDon't kill me yet."Abigail Moore pressed her back against the rusted subway tile. Her charcoal suit was a rag. Red soaked through the silk on her shoulder. Behind her, three kids crouched in the dark. Their eyes were too wide. Too yellow. One of them had fur sprouting in patches along his jaw."Give me one reason." I adjusted the webbing across my chest.Caleb’s weight shifted. His head lolled against my neck. His skin was the color of a wet sidewalk. Cold. So cold I couldn't feel his pulse through my shirt."Because the drilling started ten minutes ago." Abigail pointed a shaking finger at the ceiling.The vibration hit my feet. A low, rhythmic thrumming that made the rats in the tunnel shriek and scatter. David’s team. They weren't coming for survivors. They were coming to gut the mountain."I have the map to Sub-Level Zero." Abigail reached into her pocket. She pulled out a cracked tablet. The screen flickered with a blueprint of the Brooks Global vault. "But look at the gate, Eth
"He’s not breathing, Ethan."Abigail Moore’s voice was a flat, metallic rasp. I didn't look at her. I didn't look at the tactical gear she was wearing or the silver-tipped spear in her hand. I only looked at Caleb.He lay on the silk carpet, his body a twisted wreck of grey skin and black veins. His eyes were open. Fixed. The gold was gone, replaced by a dull, human brown that reflected the red emergency lights of the penthouse."Caleb!" I slammed my palms against his chest.Ribs cracked. I didn't care. I pushed my Alpha energy into the palms of my hands, trying to force a spark into a system that had been flatlined by the signal. Through our frayed psychic link, I caught a single, static-filled image: the two of us in the mountain snow. Then, silence. Cold. Absolute."The signal was a culling protocol, Ethan." Abigail stepped over the shattered glass of the window. She didn't look at the body. She looked at the city below. "Your father didn't just want to create new wolves. He wanted
"Is he dead yet?"Caleb’s voice was a rasp, sharp enough to cut the ozone-heavy air in the penthouse. I didn't look up from the terminal. My eyes burned. My skin was a roadmap of sweat and dried blood."My father doesn't die, Caleb. He just rebrands." I swiped a trembling hand across the glass screen. A thousand financial records scrolled past. "He’s been hiding in the ledgers for twenty years. Every bribe. Every merger. Every 'accidental' death. It’s all here.""The satellites are positioning." Caleb stepped closer. His psychic link was a frantic hammer against the back of my skull. "We have forty minutes before the Panopticon hits the zenith over the Atlantic. If you don't find the switch, the world wakes up different.""I’m looking!" I slammed my fist into the mahogany desk. The wood splintered. "He buried it in a maintenance fee. Four cents a transaction for ten years. Disguised as server cooling for Brooks Global.""Four cents?" Caleb leaned over my shoulder. He smelled like gunp
"How much is it?"I didn't turn around. I kept my eyes on the digital ledger projected against the reinforced glass of the penthouse. The numbers were long. Meaningless. Rows of zeros that moved like a slow-moving river of ink."In liquid assets? Or including the real estate holdings in Tokyo?" Caleb’s voice came from the doorway."The total. Everything we took from Abigail.""More than the GDP of Germany." The floorboards didn't even creak as he walked toward me. "We own the lithium. We own the satellites. We own the debt of three major governments.""We won." I looked at my hands. They were human. Pale. The knuckles were still bruised from the boardroom floor. I traced the faint, iridescent scars on my palms—marks left by the silver virus. They shimmered under the office lights. "Why does it feel like I’m sitting in a coffin?""Because you haven't slept in forty-eight hours." Caleb reached into the ice bucket on the side table. He pulled out a bottle of vintage champagne. The cork p
"You're being liquidated, Ethan. It’s a simple market correction."Abigail Moore didn't move. She didn't blink. She just sat there in her charcoal silk suit while the boardroom doors hissed shut. The silver-lined locks clicked. A heavy, metallic sound. My stomach dropped. I looked at Caleb. He was already moving."The hell we are." Caleb's voice was a jagged growl.He lunged. Not at Abigail. He aimed for the two suits standing by the door. They weren't directors. Their jackets sat too tight over their shoulders. Tactical holsters. One of them pulled a black, rectangular device. He pressed a button.A high-frequency whine ripped through the air.It hit my brain like a hot needle. White light exploded behind my eyes. I hit my knees. The obsidian table felt like ice against my palms."Ethan!" Caleb screamed.He slammed into the first guard. The man’s head hit the mahogany paneling with a wet crack. Caleb didn't stop. He grabbed the guard’s wrist and twisted. Bone snapped. The device clat
"You’re three minutes late, Abigail."I didn't look up from the tablet. My thumb swiped through the quarterly projections for the Silver-Oak merger, but the numbers were just static. Noise. The real data was pulsing through the link in my skull. Caleb was a shadow against the floor-to-ceiling glass behind me, his violet eyes tracking the movement of every suit in the room. I could feel his hunger. It was a sharp, jagged thing, tasting of iron and cold mountain air."The mag-lev had a technical hiccup, Mr. Walker." Abigail Moore pulled out a chair at the far end of the long obsidian table. She didn't scurry. She didn't apologize. She sat down and adjusted the cuffs of her silk blazer. "I assume we’re here to discuss the Carpathian Void?""I’m here to discuss why a green-tech startup CEO knows my internal security terminology." I tapped the center of the table.A holographic Void symbol erupted from the obsidian. It pulsed red, casting long, bloody shadows across the faces of the twelve
"Where the hell are we?"Caleb didn’t answer. He slumped against the damp brick wall of the basement, his breath rattling in his chest. The air down here tasted like wet earth and rotted wood. A single, naked bulb flickered overhead, casting long, jagged shadows that danced across his bruised face.
"Hold the door!"Caleb’s boots skidded on the polished concrete of the service lobby. I jammed my shoulder against the heavy steel frame, the metal groaning. Behind us, the elevator bay was a throat of roiling chemical fog. The tactical flares I’d kicked off hissed like angry snakes, spitting thick
"Is the encryption holding?"Caleb didn't look up from the three monitors glowing in the darkened loft. His fingers drummed a frantic, rhythmic code against the keys. The only light in the room came from the scrolling green lines of the Ghost Protocol reflecting off his sweating forehead."The Broo
"Are you really going to kill a six-year-old’s father?"Caleb’s voice sliced through the medicinal reek of the guest wing. He stood in the doorway, a shadow against the dim amber glow of the hall. I didn't stop pacing. My boots hit the Persian rug with a rhythmic, muffled thud. The room was a museu







