Chapter 4 : The Ghost Protocol
Chapter 4 : The Ghost Protocol
For three days, the estate was a tomb. Julian operated on autopilot, attending board meetings and signing documents, all while his mind mapped the digital and physical weaknesses of the house. He knew he couldn't break through the front door, so he decided to poison the foundation.
He began by feeding Clara misinformation—subtle, high-stakes errors in their latest corporate maneuver. He knew she would investigate the source of the "mistakes," and he needed her attention on his work, not on his movements. Under the guise of fixing the errors, he accessed the central security hub, a fortress of code she had locked behind layers of biometric encryption.
But he had a secret weapon: the "Ghost Protocol," a backdoor he had programmed into the system years ago, back when he had been the one defining the terms of their lives. He initiated the sequence, not to disable the cameras, but to create a loop. For anyone watching the monitors, the house would appear perfectly calm, business as usual.
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He slipped into the lower levels, the scent of damp earth and stale ozone filling his lungs. He found Elena in the auxiliary quarters, shivering, her hands bandaged. She didn't scream when she saw him; she looked at him with a mixture of terror and hope that broke his heart. "They’re watching," she whispered, looking toward the vent.
"They're watching a simulation," Julian murmured, pulling a small, encrypted drive from his pocket. "We have to leave, but we can't just run. If we leave, they’ll kill us before we hit the gate. We have to make them believe we’re still here, and we have to make them fear what happens if they come for us."
