The screen's light flickered against Liam's face, casting deep shadows beneath his eyes. His apartment was silent except for the low hum of the fan overhead.
Jin's encrypted message was still open on the second phone. Attached were five corporate profiles—bland names with forgettable logos, the kind meant to be ignored.
Except Jin didn't ignore them.
She researched deeper than he expected. Each one was a failed company—or at least, that's how they appeared on the surface. Bankruptcy filings, liquidated assets, dormant for years. But when Jin traced the routing numbers, the offshore accounts, and the odd surge of internal transactions before their collapse, a pattern emerged.
All five were connected to Kieran Maddox, and all five had ties to Maddox Industries—his father's legacy.
Liam scrolled through Jin's notes.
[Shell One: Miris Tech Solutions – Claimed to develop smart farm sensors, last project was a logistics drone that never reached market.
Shell Two: Yurei Systems – Surveillance contracts in the Baltics, burned out in under a year.
Shell Three: Gantner Payloads – Military-grade storage, disappeared after one faulty shipment.
Shell Four: Norwave Dynamics – AI traffic control software. Acquired, then dissolved.
Shell Five: AvantLoop – The oldest, rumors of silent DARPA bids.]
Each company had failed on paper, but Jin's metadata tracking told a different story. Code reuse, matching internal IPs, shuffled engineers, redirected patents.
"They weren't failures," Liam muttered. "They were labs for testing whatever Kieran was up to."
He leaned back, processing the information. His father had hinted at something like this before—companies used as covers for early-stage weapon systems, especially during global tension spikes. No press, no audits. Just funding funneled into black boxes until the tech was proven or discarded.
And now Maddox was sitting at the top of this forgotten empire of ghosts.
Later that evening, Liam adjusted the cuffs of his blazer in the mirror. The investor dinner was hosted at the rooftop of a glass hotel downtown—the kind where everyone smiled with their teeth but watched with their hands hovering over knives.
He wasn't invited, but he was expected.
The system phone chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the message.
[Passive Skill Activated: Social Engineering - Vantage Veil
Effect: Calm disruption aura, elevates suspicion toward selected targets. Lowers resistance to whispered rumors.]
He stepped into the banquet hall like he owned it. People turned, and whispers followed. Half-recognition, half-curiosity.
Near the back of the room, a silver-haired man nursed a glass of wine. Malcolm Brand, former board member of Maddox Industries. He'd led the push to oust Liam's father in his final months.
Liam crossed the floor with quiet confidence, weaving through clusters of investors and corporate sharks.
Laughter echoed under the chandeliers, crystal glasses clinked, everyone here was dressed in layers of deception—tailored suits, backhanded smiles, and rehearsed charm.
He wasn't here for the party, he needed information on the files they discovered
Malcolm Brand glanced up as Liam approached, his expression tightening for a split second before stretching into a polite mask.
"Well," Malcolm said, swirling the wine, "if it isn't the ghost of Maddox's past."
Liam smiled, cold and easy. "You always did have a way with words, Malcolm."
"I'm surprised you got in."
"I wasn't invited," Liam said. "But it was expected I would come, wasn't it?"
Malcolm's eyes narrowed, but he gestured to the empty seat across from him. "You've got five minutes. Then I pretend I don't know you."
Liam sat down and folded his hands on the table. "Let's talk about Miris, and Yurei, and Gantner. Want me to go on?"
Malcolm's hand paused mid-sip, glancing at him for a while.
"I don't know what you think you've found," he said carefully, "but you're digging in places that don't concern you, little boy."
"They concern me more than you think," Liam said. "Especially since all five companies trace back to Maddox. And by extension, to my father."
"That was a long time ago."
"Funny how the paper trail says they failed, but the internal data shows asset transfers, shared personnel, mirrored codebases. You didn't shut them down, you simply relocated them."
Malcolm set his glass down. "You're playing with fire, boy."
"Good," Liam said. "I've already been burned before, and it doesn't hurt much now."
Silence stretched between them, taut and brittle. Liam could feel the system phone humming inside his pocket, amplifying the tension like a tuning fork.
[Vantage Veil: Effect increased. Emotional dissonance detected. Opponent's composure faltering.]
Malcolm leaned in. "Do you really want to know what your father built?"
"Seems like I don't have a choice."
Malcolm shook his head, almost sad. "Then you're already in deeper than you can swim."
He stood. "Enjoy the wine, Mr. Maddox. You won't enjoy what comes next."
He walked away without another glance.
Liam sat still, his heart steady but his jaw tightened. He hadn't come for approval, he came for leaks to the case—and Malcolm had just provided him with one.
He stood up and moved toward the exit, nodding slightly as a pair of investors tried to catch his eye. The system's passive skill faded as he stepped out into the night air. The sky was overcast. The city below buzzed with artificial light and the city's noise.
"This is bigger than I thought," he whispered to himself. "And it looks like I'm deep in it now. Well, I wasn't expecting less when I decided to get revenge for what they did to me... and now, my father's death."
"What else have they been up to while my father built this whole empire? Probably gonna hear they ship drugs too, soon enough." He chuckled at his comment.
The night was over—at least to him. He had gotten the information he needed to go in further. Now he would simply leave the rest to Jin to uncover more lies and secrets.
Now he wasn't simply trying to get his revenge. He was going to save his father's empire one way or another—and from the looks of things, he's going to get into so many dirty acts to get it done.
He stared up at the night sky, admiring the night's beauty. "Kieran Maddox, what have you gotten yourself into?".