Dominic’s POV
The truth was never meant to be clean. It’s a weapon, useful only if you’re willing to cut with it. I’ve been sharpening mine for weeks.
Stanley has built his empire on deception, ghost subsidiaries, off-ledger transfers, neural research hidden under humanitarian grants. But the rot started long before Elia. It started with money. So I decide to dig where it hurts most.
By dawn, I’m in my safehouse. The room is dark except for the blue glow of my screens. The deeper I dig, the clearer it becomes: Stanley’s been manipulating the stock since before the merger. He’s been siphoning funds under the names of dormant investors, people too dead or too distant to notice.
I find what I need in a folder buried under six layers of encryption: “Synthesis-Preliminary_Finance.xls.” It’s
