Geneva by night was a different beast. The clean lines and glittering facades of daylight faded into soft shadows and disciplined silence. Ethan and Darius drove without headlights through the affluent outskirts, winding up a narrow hill toward the Alden estate—once the heart of Marcus's influence in Switzerland.
The house emerged slowly from the treeline.
A cold mansion of stone and steel, wrapped in ivy and memory, its silhouette against the starlit sky looked more like a mausoleum than a home. A wrought iron gate sealed the property, flanked by stone lions whose eyes had seen decades of secrets. The Alden crest was carved at the center: a hawk above a fractured crown.
Ethan stepped out first, crunching the gravel beneath his boots. The air was colder here, heavier. Like the house exhaled the weight of everything it had witnessed.
Darius moved to the gate's lock panel. "Still wired," he muttered. "But not to the city grid. Someone rerouted the power."
"Ghost 02?"
"Most likely."
They bypassed the system using a low-frequency bypass tool. The gate creaked open—slow, reluctant.
They passed through.
The estate grounds were vast—once manicured lawns now grown wild. The fountain at the center of the circle drive no longer ran, its stone basin dry and cracked. The front doors were tall and dark, flanked by dormant security lights. Above them hung stone gargoyles, their faces weathered, their watch unbroken.
Ethan paused before the threshold.
He stared at the doorway, feeling a strange tug in his chest. "I've seen this before," he muttered. "Somewhere. Maybe in a dream."
Darius glanced at him. "Could be a childhood imprint. You were five, right?"
"Yeah," Ethan said. "I don't remember much... just flashes. Maybe this place stuck in my head somehow."
"Marcus may have brought you here—briefly. Enough to leave something behind."
Inside, the scent of cedar and cold paper still lingered. The entry hall stretched upward three floors, a chandelier hanging dead above like the bones of an ancient bird. Ethan's boots echoed against marble tile as they stepped into the dark. Curtains hung heavy at the tall windows, unmoved for years.
They passed through familiar thresholds—at least to Darius. To Ethan, the place felt like a memory half-formed. Every step stirred something in him: not quite recognition, but déjà vu soaked in dust and silence.
The dining room was cavernous, long table bare, chairs turned slightly as if vacated in haste. The kitchen was frozen in time. One glass in the sink. A rusted knife. Utensils still lined the walls like soldiers waiting for orders.
They entered the corridor leading to Marcus's private study. Along the way, Darius paused at a photograph: Marcus holding a child.
"That you?"
Ethan nodded slowly. "Must be. I have no memory of that moment... but that's me."
In the study, dust lay thick across the desk and bookshelves. But the monitor embedded in the far wall glowed faintly. Still active.
The air was dense with stillness, as if the room were holding its breath.
Ethan approached slowly.
Darius pointed to the corner of the desk. "Fresh fingerprint smudge. Within the last forty-eight hours."
Ethan reached for the console. The monitor flickered.
ACCESS NODE 12C — SECURE ARCHIVE
A login screen. Ethan entered Marcus's old cipher key—the same sequence he saw in Zurich. A click. Then silence. Then—
A video feed. Blurry. Static-laced. A figure sitting where Ethan now stood. Only visible from the back. The outline of a woman.
Darius froze.
"Pause it," Ethan said.
He enhanced the frame. The figure wore black gloves. A patch on the shoulder—barely visible. A faded emblem.
A hawk.
"Same crest," Ethan said slowly. "Ghost 02's watching from inside the legacy."
Darius looked uneasy. "She was here. Not long ago. Maybe hours."
They backed out of the study, sweeping the room one last time. Nothing else moved.
Then—a soft tone.
Motion alert. Third floor.
They ascended silently, guns drawn. Ethan followed the stairs, uncertain whether his steps were guided by memory or instinct. The house echoed around him like a forgotten language.
At the end of the hallway: Marcus's private library.
Door: ajar.
Inside, someone had placed an object on the center table—a single chess piece. The black queen.
Ethan approached it carefully. Next to it lay a piece of torn paper.
"You're moving too slow, heir. Step faster."
Below the note: a drive. Small. Sleek.
"Trap?" Darius asked.
"Message," Ethan replied.
Back downstairs, they secured the door and ran the contents of the drive through a quarantined reader.
Video loaded.
Ghost 02, masked. Voice altered.
"You were never meant to be here. But now you are. And now the whole board shifts. What Marcus kept buried is about to rise. Walk away, Ethan. Or this legacy will bury you."
"You have five days."
Static.
Then a file directory appeared. Dozens of codenames. Project branches. And one folder labeled:
HELIX
Ethan stared.
Darius whispered, "That's the third failsafe."
Ethan nodded slowly. His voice low.
"Then we don't have five days. We have one."
He closed the file.
Before they left, Ethan was drawn to a door near the cellar—something about it called to him. He opened it and found a dusty storage room filled with old trunks and crates. In the back, a false wall.
He hesitated.
"I don't know why I know this, but... try pushing here."
The panel shifted inward. Behind it: a chamber of sealed records, hard drives, and files labeled with Marcus's symbol.
They exchanged glances.
"We bring this with us," Ethan said.
Darius lifted a case marked with the Alden crest. "This was never just a house. It was a vault."
Ethan looked around one last time. "And maybe a tomb."
Outside, snow began to fall again—quiet and knowing.
The ghosts had spoken.
And Ethan was done listening.