~CHARLES~
The correctional facility had a unique sll. It was a mix of bleach, old sweat, and the coppery scent of despair.
I adjusted my spectacles and smoothed the lapel of my cheap, ill-fitting suit. To the guards, I was Mr. Arthur Evans, a court-appointed attorney here to discuss a plea deal. To the world, Charles Watson was a ghost, a fugitive who had vanished into the wind.
But I wasn’t just a ghost, I was a father.
"Client is in room four," the guard grunted, buzzing the heavy steel door open.
I walked in. The room was a concrete box with a bolted-down table. And there she was, Cassandra, my beautiful girl.
She looked diminished. Her hair, which was usually glossy and perfectly styled, was limp and tied back with a rubber band. Her skin was sallow, stripped of the expensive creams and treatments she was used to. She wore a shapeless grey jumpsuit that hung off her frame and it took every ounce of my willpower not to scream at this version of her.
Layla did this.
Axel O’Brien did this.
They took my legacy, my money, and my daughter, and they threw them into the trash.
Cassandra lifted her gaze, her eyes seemly empty and void of life. But as soon as I spoke in my normal voice, her eyes widened in recognition.
"Cassandra Watson."
Her breath hitched. "Dad?" she mouthed, looking at the two-way mirror.
"Mr. Evans," I corrected smoothly, sitting opposite her and opening a file folder. "I’m here to discuss your case."
I leaned in closer, dropping my voice to a whisper. "Don’t react. Don’t cry. They are watching."
Cassandra’s lip trembled. "You ca back. I thought... I thought you left ."
"I never left you, Cassie," I whispered, reaching across the table to grip her hand. Her skin was rough, and her nails were bitten down. "I had to regroup and secure our future."
"There is no future," she hissed, tears spilling over. "I’m looking at a lifeti in his hellhole, Dad. I’ll be here for life! Layla won. She’s in the penthouse. She’s the CEO. She has everything I was supposed to have."
"She has nothing," I said coldly. "She has a temporary lease on a life that belongs to us."
I squeezed her hand until her knuckles turned white.
"I have a plan, Cass. A master plan. I’ve been quiet, letting them think they won. I’ve let them get comfortable in their little glass tower in the city. However comfort makes people sloppy."
"Axel is untouchable," Cassandra sniffled. "He has security everywhere."
"Axel O’Brien is a man who thinks with his ego," I sneered. "He thinks he stripped of my assets because he found a few offshore accounts and spoke to that rat Daniel, he knows my whole hand."
I leaned back, a dark smile playing on my lips.
"He doesn’t know about the network I built before he was even born. He doesn’t know I’m watching him. I’m going to break him, Cassie. And when he’s broken, I’m going to drag Layla down into the dirt right beside him."
"Get out," she begged. "Please, Dad. I can’t take this place anymore. The food is terrible. The other inmates, they know who I am, what I did, and they hate ."
"I will get you out," I promised, squeezing her hand. "When the city is burning, and O’Brien is scrambling to save his precious wife, I’ll co for you. Just hold on. Revenge is coming."
The guard knocked on the door. "Ti’s up, counsellor."
I stood, smoothing my suit. I looked down at Cassandra one last ti. "Be strong. We will be in touch."
"When?" she whispered desperately.
"Soon," I said. "Very soon."
—
An hour later, I was back in the safety of my temporary base of operations.
It wasn’t a penthouse; it was a basent unit in a nondescript building in Queens, rented under a shell corporation that led to a dead man in Poland. It was damp, dark, and perfect.
I sat in front of my laptop, more like a custom rig with encryption so heavy the NSA would have trouble cracking it.
I logged into the "Ghost Server."
It ca to life, and a beautiful stream of data scrolled across the screen.
Axel and Layla were currently holed up in the penthouse. My surveillance confird they weren’t travelling. Good. It ant they were stationary targets.
I opened the command terminal. They thought they had cut off my funding. They thought they had isolated . But they didn’t know about the backdoors I had installed in the Eclipse Beauty supply chain database three months ago.
I typed in a command string.
Execute: Project Blackout.
It wasn’t a bomb, no, it was far more elegant.
Within twenty-four hours, the quality control logs for Eclipse’s European and Asian manufacturing plants would flag a catastrophic contamination error.
The system would automatically notify the regulatory boards in all major countries to which they supply. The stock would free-fall, and the board would panic.
Axel, as the majority shareholder and the "saviour" of the company, would be forced to react. He would have to leave the penthouse. He would have to go to the headquarters to manage the crisis. He would have to separate from Layla.
And that was when I would strike.
I pulled up the blueprints of the O’Brien Tower. I knew the security rotations better than Tye did. I knew the blind spots and that the cameras had a three-second delay. I knew which guards could be bribed and which ones couldn’t.
"Enjoy your night in the penthouse, Layla," I whispered to the screen, watching the code compile. "Sleep tight."
I chuckled, the sound echoing in the empty basent.
They had no idea. They thought they were the hunters because they found Daniel and squeezed him for information. They didn’t realise that Daniel was just a pawn I had allowed to fall—a sacrifice to make them feel powerful.
I hit Enter.
A notification popped up on my screen: CONTAMINATION ALERT SCHEDULED: 0800 HOURS TOMORROW.
Perfect.
I leaned back in my chair, visualising the look on Layla’s face when I finally walked through that penthouse door. She thought she had taken my life? That she had escaped ?
No. I was about to take hers.
I opened another window on my laptop and it showed live feeds from the caras I had manage to hack around the O’Brien Tower. There were four angles: the lobby, the parking garage, the service entrance, and the penthouse elevator.
I watched Layla and Axel return from what looked like a gala. She was wearing a stunning gown and Axel in a tuxedo. They both looked like royalty.
But royalty always fell. History had taught that.
I zood in on Layla’s face as she laughed at sothing Axel said. She looked happy, relaxed and safe.
"You shouldn’t feel safe, my dear," I murmured. "Safety is an illusion I’m about to shatter."
I closed the laptop and stood up, stretching. Tomorrow would be a big day.
The contamination alert would hit Eclipse at 8:00 AM. By 9:00 AM, the stock would be plumting. By 10:00 AM, Axel would be in crisis mode.
And by noon?
I would have Layla exactly where I wanted her.
Alone.
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