Chapter 5 - GHOSTS IN THE MACHINEAlexander.

The name struck Julian like a physical blow, a phantom bullet to the chest. He hadn’t heard that name in three years. Not since the private jet crash over the Atlantic that had supposedly vaporized his older brother.

"Impossible," Julian whispered, snatching the phone from Sterling’s trembling hands. The text message on the screen was a single image: a live feed of Julian’s underground panic room at the estate.

Julian’s blood turned to ice. They had a backdoor into the new security system.

"Maria, get a tactical team to the estate right now!" Julian barked, drawing his weapon right there in the boardroom. "They're going after Leo!"

"Sir, the estate is guarded by twenty of our best men," Maria said, already tapping furiously on her encrypted tablet. But her face drained of color a second later. "Julian... the feeds are going dark. One by one. Someone is dismantling our grid from the inside."

"We're leaving," Julian snapped, spinning on his heel. He paused at the door, glaring back at the terrified board members. "If any of you leave this room before I return, I will hunt you down myself."

The helicopter ride from Vance Tower to the Long Island estate took twelve minutes. For Julian, it felt like a century. He checked his ammunition, his jaw set in stone. If Alexander was alive, it meant the entire last three years of Julian's life—the grief, the rise to power, the vulnerable marriage to Victoria—had been orchestrated.

The chopper landed on the scorched lawn. The estate was terrifyingly quiet. No guards patrolling the perimeter. No dogs barking.

Julian and Maria breached the front doors, weapons raised. The foyer was still a mess from last night's bloodbath, but new bodies had been added. Julian’s elite guards lay scattered, incapacitated by non-lethal shock darts.

"They didn't kill them," Maria noted, her boots crunching on the glass. "It's a message."

They sprinted down to the subterranean levels. The massive titanium door of the panic room was blown wide open. Julian’s heart stopped. He rushed inside.

The crib was empty.

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