Chapter 5

Justice walked to the heavy bedroom door and twisted the brass lock. It clicked shut. She moved to the windows and yanked the thick blackout curtains closed, plunging the room into darkness.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, resting the laptop on her knees. She pressed the power button.

The screen flared to life, casting a harsh blue glow across her face. It didn't load a standard operating system. It booted straight into a black terminal window.

Justice's fingers hit the keyboard. They moved in a blur, the keys clacking in rapid-fire bursts. She typed a sixty-four-character alphanumeric string-a self-destructing password.

Three seconds later, the screen flashed white.

Before entering the global network, she ran a localized script. Her fingers danced across the keys, bypassing the Barnes family's pathetic firewall in less than four seconds. She pulled up the confidential financial reports, estate deeds, and the Barnes family trust. A cold smirk touched her lips as she rapidly cross-referenced the data. Emery Covington. Zero Barnes blood. Zero equity. A mere squatter living on Meredith's allowance. Justice downloaded the unredacted files into a hidden partition; leverage was always useful.

She bypassed six layers of global proxies and logged into the highest-tier bounty board on the Dark Web under the alias 'L'.

The moment her status turned green, the private message icon in the top right corner began flashing violently. The notification ping echoed sharply in the silent room.

Justice clicked the top pinned bounty. The sender's IP was buried under heavy encryption.

The title read: Urgent: Seeking 'Savior' for neurological restoration.

Justice scrolled down. The bounty was set at fifty million US dollars. Attached to the file was a high-resolution scan of a patient's brainwaves.

Justice stared at the jagged lines of the EEG scan. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a cold sneer.

It was the exact same brainwave pattern she had just seen on the monitor downstairs. It was Auguste Aguirre's chart.

Justice didn't hesitate. She moved her cursor to the rejection button and clicked it.

A text box popped up asking for a reason. Justice typed quickly: Not interested in waking people who are pretending to sleep.

She hit send. She immediately ran a wipe protocol, erasing her digital footprint, and slammed the laptop shut. She shoved it back into the hidden compartment of her bag.

Three floors down, buried deep beneath the estate in a windowless, climate-controlled server room, Silas Croft sat staring at a wall of monitors.

Silas wore a headset. He was Auguste's absolute shadow, the head of the Aguirre intelligence network.

Suddenly, a sharp burst of static crackled in his left earpiece.

Silas stiffened. He grabbed a pen and a legal pad. The static came again-short and long bursts of electrical interference.

It was a direct feed from a pressure sensor hidden beneath the mattress in the medical suite. Auguste was tapping his finger against the mattress. Morse code.

Silas translated the taps as they came in.

Investigate Justice Watkins. Highest clearance.

Silas frowned. His stomach churned with confusion. Why was the boss suddenly targeting the uneducated girl Derek Barnes just dropped off?

But Silas didn't question orders. He spun his chair to the main terminal. He typed in his biometric passcode and accessed the global intelligence database.

He typed in Justice's name, her Social Security Number, and the address in the Rust Belt. He hit enter.

The progress bar filled instantly. Justice's file popped up on the screen.

Silas scrolled through it. His frown deepened.

The file was pristine, but in a way that defied all modern logic. She supposedly lived in the same Rust Belt town for the last ten years, yet the municipal database showed absolutely nothing. No utility bills registered in her or her guardian's name. No library records. No medical history, not even a single prescribed aspirin. She existed purely as a name in a local public school's attendance ledger-a complete ghost in the system.

A cold sweat broke out on the back of Silas's neck. His instincts screamed that this file was a manufactured ghost. A perfect cover story.

Silas highlighted the entire file. He encrypted it into a secure packet and added a red-flag note: Target profile artificially sanitized.

He routed the packet to an offline server that only Auguste could access once he officially "woke up."

Silas pressed a button on his console, sending a single, microscopic vibration back to the mattress sensor.

In the medical suite, Auguste felt the faint buzz against his spine. The muscles in his jaw relaxed slightly. The hunt had begun.