Chapter 4

Liam shuffled over, his face a mixture of guilt and defiance. He looked tired, the illness already carving hollows under his eyes.

"So, the great Ethan Miller is too busy launching another world-changing app to talk to his old friends?" Chloe sneered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She hated my work, always seeing it as a competitor for my attention and money.

"Something like that," I replied, not giving her the satisfaction of a reaction.

"You're coming to the wedding, Ethan," she said. It wasn't a question. It was an order. "And you are going to be Liam's best man. We're going to show everyone that we're all mature adults here. That there are no hard feelings."

I looked at her, truly seeing the depth of her delusion. She didn't want to show maturity. She wanted to orchestrate a public spectacle of my humiliation. She wanted me to stand there, smiling, as she and Liam flaunted their betrayal. She probably thought it would be the ultimate power move, solidifying her narrative that she had simply "upgraded."

And more than that, I realized, watching her dote on the sickly Liam, she needed my presence. My success, my stability, my reputation. She wanted my stamp of approval on her new life, a way to legitimize the mess she had made. She was still trying to use me.

"And if I say no?" I asked quietly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Then I'll tell everyone the real reason we broke up. That you're a jealous, controlling monster who couldn't handle my success. My followers love a good story of a woman escaping a toxic relationship. It would do wonders for my brand. And it would destroy yours."

It was a hollow threat. My reputation was built on solid products and years of hard work, not on public opinion curated by likes and shares. But it showed her hand. She was still playing the same old games.

I had to get out of there. I needed to think.

"Fine," I said, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. "I'll be there."

Her face relaxed into a triumphant smirk. Liam just looked away, unable to meet my eyes.

"Good," she said. "I knew you'd see reason."

I gave a tight nod and walked away, not looking back.

That night, I couldn't sleep. Dr. Evans' words about an "underground network" echoed in my head. On a hunch, I opened my laptop and started digging. I went to Liam's social media pages, scrolling back months, then years. It was a wasteland of self-pitying posts about his "artistic struggles" and blurry photos from dingy bars.

But then I found something. A tagged photo from about six months ago. It was a group shot from a "wellness retreat." Liam was in the center, looking healthier than he did now, with his arm around a man I vaguely recognized. I clicked on the man's profile. It was private, but his profile picture was clear enough.

My blood went cold. It was the man from the news report Dr. Evans had mentioned. The one who had intentionally spread the K-Syndrome virus at a party.

I used my own company's data-mining software, tools I normally reserved for market analysis, and pointed them at the digital ghost of this man. It didn't take long. I found his burner accounts, his posts on encrypted forums. I found the name of the group: "The Phoenix Society."

Their philosophy was twisted and terrifying. They believed the K-Syndrome was a "purifying fire," a gift that freed them from the constraints of a mundane life. They saw themselves as enlightened, and it was their duty to "share the gift" with the "unworthy" masses who didn't appreciate the lives they had. They were a death cult.

I kept digging, my fingers flying across the keyboard. I cross-referenced member lists with names of other new K-Syndrome cases. The connections were undeniable. They were recruiting newly diagnosed, desperate people, preying on their fear and turning it into a weapon.

And then I found the final, horrifying piece of the puzzle. In a password-protected section of their main forum, I found their internal hierarchy.

The founder and leader of the Phoenix Society, the one they called "Prometheus," was Liam O'Connell.

My childhood friend. The struggling musician. The weak, dependent man who had clung to Chloe. It was all an act. He wasn't weak. He was a monster.

The forum had detailed plans for their next big "event." They were going to turn the wedding, my wedding, into a mass-infection site. They saw it as the ultimate act of poetic justice. The guests, a collection of the city's tech elite, influencers, and investors-my entire world-were their targets.

My hands were shaking. This was so much bigger than a cheating fiancée. This was an act of domestic terrorism.

I picked up my phone. I didn't call Chloe or Liam.

I called the police.

I spent the next two hours on the phone with a detective from the domestic terrorism unit, feeding him everything I had found. The names, the forum posts, the plans. We formulated a strategy. They needed to catch them in the act, to round up the entire network.

That meant the wedding had to go forward.

And I had to play my part.