Chapter 3 The First Name

In a high-rise office overlooking the glittering sprawl of the city, Clement Voss poured himself a glass of twelve-year-old Scotch. The ice clinked softly as he swirled it, the amber liquid catching the light like molten gold. Behind him, floor-to-ceiling windows framed the skyline a view reserved for men like him. Powerful men. Untouchable men.

Voss was a political fixer, the man you called when secrets needed burying and reputations salvaged. He didn't get his hands dirty he had people for that. But he gave the orders, signed the checks, tied the knots. That's what the Jayson family had been a loose end. A liability. Something that needed to be erased. He hadn't thought about that night in years. Just another job. Another silent success.

But someone was untying the knots.

He didn't notice the faint hum of the drone outside the tinted glass. Its tiny lenses captured everything his face, his drink, the careless smirk that curled his lips. Signals were being intercepted. Patterns traced. He was being watched, and he had no idea.

From the dark skeleton of an abandoned building across the street, a figure lay prone behind a rusted beam. Matherson adjusted the zoom on his scope, tracking Voss's every movement. He wasn't here to pull the trigger-not tonight. That would be too easy. Too quick. No, he wanted something else.

Names.

A trail.

Answers.

He slipped a gloved hand into the inside pocket of his coat and retrieved a flash drive-scorched at the edges, blackened by the fire that had devoured his childhood home. It had survived, just like him. It was all that remained of his father's legacy a cache of secrets powerful enough to shake governments, topple empires, expose the monsters who wore human skin.

But destruction wasn't what Matherson wanted.

He wanted them to feel.

To feel the weight of what they'd taken from him. The echoing emptiness of loss. The clawing, relentless grip of fear. The slow, soul-deep ache of pain.

Not just Voss. All of them.

One by one.

Voss raised his glass in a silent toast to nothing, took a sip, and turned his back to the window.

The game had already begun. He just didn't know it yet.