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Chapter 68 – Tier Zero

ผู้เขียน: Raphella Herbert
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-07-05 13:47:35

The Kamchatka Peninsula was nothing but snow and fire.

Volcanic ranges cut through the tundra like jagged teeth, and below the frozen expanse, Lena’s black-badge team touched down in silence. There were no cities here. No ports. Just geothermal vents, extinct research stations, and the oldest Echo vault left unspoiled.

Tier Zero.

Lena stepped off the transport sled, her boots crunching on frozen ash layered beneath the ice. The wind howled like it had a soul, and every breath came with a bite. Carson and Ruth followed behind her, their gear silent, signal cloaks already active.

“This place shouldn’t exist,” Ruth muttered, scanning the horizon. “There’s no record of it anywhere. Not even in Corelight’s main archive.”

“That’s the point,” Lena replied. “Tier Zero isn’t just off-grid. It was built for one thing only—survival after collapse.”

A sharp beep pinged on her wrist module. The entrance beacon was still active—meaning someone, at some point, had returned.

Or never left.

Faiza’s vo
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  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 73: The Collapse

    Smoke curled above the skyline of Lisbon like a wound that refused to close.The Echo safehouse one of only three with remaining Tier Zero conduits was gone.Reduced to fire, ash, and memory.In Geneva, the war room was silent except for the low hum of encrypted streams. Ruth stood over the central table, eyes red but focused.“They hit us with coordinated timing breach, detonation, and signal wipe all inside a ten-minute window. Two agents dead. One critical. Local responders are compromised we’ve confirmed at least one of them is on The Valcourt Group’s payroll.”Lena sat in stillness, hands clenched tight. “Was it Phoenix?”Ruth shook her head. “No digital trace. No signature interference. This wasn’t Calix.”Carson stepped beside Lena, jaw tight. “It’s her.”“Stephanie,” Lena said aloud, as if naming the fire might tame it.“She didn’t get the narrative she wanted in Vienna,” Carson said. “Now she’s burning the script.”Faiza broke in over comms from Bucharest. “We intercepted cha

  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 72:Broken Oaths

    The letter came at 2:47 a.m.Hand-delivered.No return name. Only a wax seal on the envelope—crimson, imprinted with the emblem of The Valcourt Group, a corporate advisory shell Lena hadn’t heard from in years. It had been dormant since Echo’s earliest expansion phases, known for back-channel dealings, deep-tech investment laundering, and—for those who knew how to look—its real operator: Stephanie McMahon.Carson found it first. Then handed it to Lena in silence.Inside, a single sentence:“What we built in shadows is now offered in the light. Choose your oath.”Below, a time and place:Vienna. 72 hours. One seat. No guards.Lena folded the paper slowly. “She’s calling the circle.”Ruth, already awake and scanning Echo’s comm logs, glanced up. “She’s summoning you to a reconstruction tribunal?”“No,” Lena said. “She’s staging a coronation. And wants me to kneel or burn.”“She wants a choice that isn’t a choice,” Carson muttered. “Force your hand publicly, and claim your silence as sur

  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 71 – What Remains

    The message ended, but its echo clung to the corners of Lena’s mind like smoke that wouldn’t clear.“Some legacies aren’t inherited—they’re chosen.”Calix’s voice wasn’t taunting this time. It wasn’t mocking. It was… tired. And that worried her more than rage ever could.Back in Geneva, Lena reviewed the recorder with Carson and Ruth in the sealed chamber beneath the strategy wing. No digital trace. No beacon ping. The message had been hand-fed into the device—deliberate, intimate, untraceable.“Why now?” Ruth asked. “Why reveal the daughter, then speak like this?”“Because he’s not trying to win,” Lena said quietly. “Not anymore.”Carson frowned. “Then what is he trying to do?”Lena turned toward the large wall map, where each of Echo’s compromised regions pulsed in amber. Cape Town. Prague. Jakarta. Lagos. Nairobi.“He’s trying to ensure we survive… differently. He wants to force Echo to become what he couldn’t control.”“And if you won’t change Echo on his terms,” Ruth added, “he’l

  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 70 – Fire and Thread

    The first strike came in Cape Town.An Echo data relay station one of only five remaining unencrypted hubs was hit with a cyber-pulse that mimicked Echo’s own backup signal. The system opened automatically, believing it was receiving a trusted update. By the time the safeguard protocols activated, it was too late.Fifteen terabytes of internal communication logs wiped.No trail. No alarms. Just silence.But that wasn’t the worst part.Buried in the system logs was a short video, fragmented and corrupted but Lena recognized the voice before the image even stabilized.Calix.“Thread by thread,” he said, staring directly into the lens. “Let’s see how long it takes for the fire to reach your hands.”He didn’t yell. He didn’t gloat. He simply watched the camera like a man reciting history.Back in Geneva, Lena sat in her private ops room, the screen paused on a single detail—a patch on Calix’s shoulder. Weathered, cracked, but unmistakable.Echo Field Unit 4.His old team. The one Lena her

  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 69: Inheritance

    The flight back to Geneva was silent.Lena sat alone near the tail of the jet, Rafael’s journal in her lap, the final page still open to the word that hadn’t left her since Kamchatka:“Daughter.”Calix had a child. A daughter hidden under an alias, tucked away in a school system built on forged documents and forgotten nonprofits. It wasn’t a vulnerability Lena had expected. It wasn’t even a weapon. It was a revelation.For all the destruction, for all the chaos he unleashed, Calix had still protected something.And that meant he could still lose.But it also meant he wasn’t completely lost.Ruth slid into the seat across from her, offering a slim tablet.“Interpol confirmed the coordinates,” she said softly. “The girl exists. Name: Emilia Varga. Age thirteen. Enrolled in a private academy just outside Bucharest. Dual citizenship. Raised by a guardian registered under a defunct aid organization tied to one of Calix’s earliest ghost accounts.”Lena studied the photo. The girl was sittin

  • The billionaire’s contracted wife   Chapter 68 – Tier Zero

    The Kamchatka Peninsula was nothing but snow and fire.Volcanic ranges cut through the tundra like jagged teeth, and below the frozen expanse, Lena’s black-badge team touched down in silence. There were no cities here. No ports. Just geothermal vents, extinct research stations, and the oldest Echo vault left unspoiled.Tier Zero.Lena stepped off the transport sled, her boots crunching on frozen ash layered beneath the ice. The wind howled like it had a soul, and every breath came with a bite. Carson and Ruth followed behind her, their gear silent, signal cloaks already active.“This place shouldn’t exist,” Ruth muttered, scanning the horizon. “There’s no record of it anywhere. Not even in Corelight’s main archive.”“That’s the point,” Lena replied. “Tier Zero isn’t just off-grid. It was built for one thing only—survival after collapse.”A sharp beep pinged on her wrist module. The entrance beacon was still active—meaning someone, at some point, had returned.Or never left.Faiza’s vo

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