Rain blurred the Hart mansion's leaded windows, streaking the library's mahogany shelves like tears. Evelyn Hart stood motionless, the wedding photo cold in her hands. Leo's smile in the frame – hopeful, unbroken by three years of her family's poison – felt like an accusation.
"You called my wife's beauty 'wasted.' You called me 'trash.'"
Leo's distorted voice from the alley clawed at her memory.
A crash echoed from the foyer. Glass shattered. Her father's slurred howl followed.
"GHOST! HE'S A GHOST!"
Evelyn flinched, her fingers tightening on the photo frame. She'd found Richard an hour ago, crumpled in his Bentley, reeking of bourbon and alley filth. His Armani suit was stained with gutter water and something darker – blood? – at the collar. He'd babbled of dumpsters, cleavers, and Leo's voice cutting through the rain like a knife. Impossible. Leo was gone. Broken. The man who'd stared at her with such betrayal as the guards dragged him out couldn't wield that kind of cold, terrifying power. Could he?
She traced Leo's face in the photograph. The emerald earrings she'd worn that night – his desperate, scrapped-together anniversary gift – felt suddenly heavy, burning against her skin. Her silence then had been a wall. Now, it felt like a tomb.
---
Obsidian Tower | 8:17 PM
Leo watched Evelyn's isolation on a high-definition monitor. The feed, hacked from the Hart security system, showed her standing in the rain-lashed library, the wedding photo trembling in her grip. Her face was pale, eyes hollow. The emerald earrings glinted under the lamplight – a twist of the knife.
"Petrovich is en route to the Hart residence," Silas stated, materializing from the penthouse shadows. He held a slim dossier. "With instructions to collect Volkov's… interest. Richard's pinkie finger."
Leo didn't turn from the screen. The cold fury that had sustained him since the docks flared, hot and vicious, seeing Evelyn's distress. Good. Let her feel a fraction of his abandonment. "Ensure she hears it," he commanded, his voice rough.
"The cellar," Silas replied. "Soundproofed, but screams carry up the service duct. She'll hear enough."
A muscle feathered in Leo's jaw. He focused on the monitor. Evelyn lifted the wedding photo, her knuckles white. For a heartbeat, her expression wavered – raw pain, regret? Then she hurled it against the fireplace. Glass exploded. Leo's hopeful face vanished into the flames.
Silence stretched, thick with the ghost of breaking glass.
"And Frost?" Leo finally asked, tearing his gaze from Evelyn's slumped shoulders.
"Digging," Silas said, opening the dossier. "He traced the Phoenix Holdings shell to a holding company registered to a derelict office above Maya's fish market. He's circling."
A photo slid onto the console: Sebastian Frost, crisp in a tailored overcoat, standing on the rain-slicked dock, staring up at the grimy windows above Sanchez & Sons Seafood. His sharp eyes missed nothing.
"He's smarter than Richard," Leo acknowledged, a grudging respect in his tone. Frost was a predator, not a bully. A worthy opponent. "Let him dig. But Maya is off-limits."
"She's already in his sights," Silas warned. "His people have asked questions. Offered money."
Leo's gaze returned to the monitor. Evelyn was picking up shards of glass, blood welling on her fingertip. A tiny echo of the pain Petrovich's cleaver would soon inflict.
"Protect Maya," Leo ordered, the command absolute. "Divert Frost. Feed him a false trail… to Claudia."
Silas inclined his head. "And the Hart residence?"
Outside the tower, lightning split the sky, illuminating Cresthaven in stark, brutal white. Leo's reflection in the window overlapped the city – a specter of vengeance.
"Let the darkness taste their fear tonight."
**---**
Hart Residence | 9:48 PM
The power died with a soft sigh. Not a flicker, but a sudden, absolute plunge into blackness.
Evelyn froze in the library doorway, a shard of glass biting her palm. Rain hammered the windows. No streetlights pierced Harmony Heights' velvet gloom. Only the frantic hammering of her heart filled the silence.
"GHOST! HE'S COME!" Richard's shriek tore through the house from the direction of his study. Panic, raw and unhinged.
Beatrice's answering wail was pure terror. "Richard! LIGHTS! WHERE ARE THE LIGHTS?"
Evelyn stumbled forward, guided by memory. The grand staircase. The cold marble floor. The oppressive weight of antique furniture crowding the dark. She reached the study doorway.
Candlelight flickered within. Richard crouched behind his mahogany desk, a crystal decanter of brandy clutched to his chest like a shield. His face was ashen, eyes wide and wild. Beatrice hovered near him, her silk robe trembling.
"It was him, Evelyn!" Richard gasped, brandy sloshing. "In the car! Leo! He spoke! He owns that debt! He sent those animals!"
"Don't be absurd!" Beatrice snapped, though her voice trembled. "That gutter rat is sleeping in a ditch! He—"
THUD.
The sound came from the front of the house. Heavy. Deliberate. Like a body hitting the reinforced oak door.
Silence.
Then the distinct, horrifying scrape of metal on metal. A lock being methodically forced.
Richard whimpered, shrinking lower behind the desk. Beatrice clutched his arm, her knuckles white.
Evelyn backed away, her bloodied hand pressed to her mouth. The alley's stench seemed to flood the hallway – wet garbage, fish, and the coppery tang of fear. Leo's words echoed: "Look where you kneel now, Richard."
Screeeech.
The front door's deadbolt gave way.
Heavy footsteps entered the foyer. Slow. Measured. Leather soles scraping on marble. Two pairs? Three?*
"Richard Hart," a voice rumbled. Ivan Petrovich. Evelyn remembered it from the alley – gravel wrapped in ice. "Volkov sends regards. And requests… interest."
Richard scrambled backwards, knocking over the decanter. Brandy spread across the Persian rug like blood. "NO! I PAID! PHOENIX OWNS IT NOW! ASK LEO!"
Petrovich appeared in the study doorway, a monstrous silhouette against the candlelight. He held a long, heavy cleaver loosely at his side. Rain glistened on his leather jacket. "Phoenix says Volkov can still collect the vig. Hand."
Beatrice screamed. Richard scrabbled for the desk drawer, fumbling for the antique revolver he kept there.
Petrovich moved with terrifying speed. He crossed the room in two strides, his massive hand closing over Richard's wrist. Bone crunched. Richard shrieked. The gun clattered to the floor.
"Kitchen," Petrovich ordered his men, hauling the sobbing Richard upright. "Table's cleaner."
"EVELYN!" Richard wailed as he was dragged past her. "HELP ME! FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S YOUR HUSBAND'S DOING!"
Petrovich's dead eyes flicked to Evelyn. Recognition? Indifference. He shoved Richard towards the kitchen.
Beatrice collapsed, sobbing hysterically onto the brandy-soaked rug.
Evelyn stood frozen, Leo's name echoing in the terror-filled house. Her husband's doing. The boy who'd saved her from a runaway carriage at the Spring Gala. The man who'd worked three jobs trying to please her father. Had her silence truly forged this? A monster who sent thugs to mutilate her father?
A low, guttural cry of pure animal fear tore from the kitchen. Richard.
Evelyn turned and ran. Not towards the sound. Away. Down the back stairs. Into the cellar's cold, wine-scented darkness. She slammed the heavy door, fumbling with the old iron bolt.
THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.
Something heavy and wet hitting wood.
A choked, wet gasp. Then a high-pitched, keening wail that dissolved into ragged, hysterical sobs. Beatrice.
Evelyn slid down the cellar door, pressing her hands over her ears. She couldn't block it out. Richard's raw, breathless scream ripped through the house, a sound of pure, unendurable agony. It clawed up the service duct beside her, vibrating through the wood against her back.
"AAAAAAAAAGH! MY HAND! MY HAAAAAAND!"
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears finally breaking free. The emerald earrings bit into her skin as she pressed her face into her knees. Leo's voice, cold and pitiless, seemed to whisper from the shadows:
"You were silent, Evelyn. Now listen."
**---**
Sanchez & Sons Seafood | 10:15 PM
Sebastian Frost stepped over a puddle of oily water, ignoring the reek of fish guts and brine. The narrow alley behind the bustling fish market was deserted now, lit only by a flickering bulb above Maya Sanchez's back door.
His tech specialist, a wiry woman named Jinx, crouched by the door, her tablet glowing. "Security system's a joke. Basic motion sensor. Camera feed loops every ninety seconds. Whoever uses the office upstairs," she jerked her chin towards a rusted metal staircase leading to a second-floor door, "doesn't want digital footprints. They come and go like smoke."
Frost scanned the grimy windows above. Phoenix Holdings. A billion-dollar ghost haunting a fish market. It reeked of misdirection… or desperation. His eyes landed on a faded sticker on Maya's door: a cartoon fish with "Sanchez Pride Since 1948" beneath it.
"The girl," Frost murmured. "Maya Sanchez. What's her connection?"
Jinx tapped her screen. "Runs the market with her ailing father. Bankrupt. City's trying to seize the land for waterfront condos. Developers made offers. She refused. Called them 'vultures.'"
Frost's lips thinned. A stubborn girl clinging to a sinking ship. An unlikely associate for a financial phantom. Unless…
A figure emerged from the market's side door – Maya. She hauled a heavy trash bin towards the alley dumpsters, her movements weary but strong. Rain glistened in her dark braid. She didn't see them in the shadows.
Frost watched her, his mind calculating. Protection? Leverage? Or was she simply a convenient shell?
His phone vibrated – an encrypted alert. He glanced at the screen. A financial tracer ping he'd set on Claudia Vance's offshore network had just flagged a suspicious transfer. To a Phoenix-linked account? Too neat. Too obvious. A diversion?
Jinx hissed. "Motion sensor triggered inside the upstairs office. Right now."
Frost's head snapped up. The grimy window above was dark, but Jinx's tablet showed a heat signature moving within. Someone was there.
"Can you breach?" Frost demanded.
"Looping the camera feed now," Jinx whispered, fingers flying. "Give me thirty seconds. We go in silent."
Frost drew a compact stun pistol from his coat. The ghost was home. Time to clip its wings.
As Jinx worked, Frost's gaze lingered on Maya, now wrestling the heavy bin lid closed. An innocent caught in a billionaire's crossfire? Or the key to the phantom?
The rusty upstairs door handle turned with a faint screech.
Jinx nodded. "Feed looped. Go!"
Frost moved like shadow up the metal stairs. He pressed himself against the wall beside the door as it opened inward. Dim light spilled out. He caught a glimpse of a sparse room – a desk, a flickering monitor.
A figure stepped out onto the small landing, silhouetted against the light inside – a man, tall, pulling up the hood of a dark raincoat.
Frost lunged, stun pistol raised. "Phoenix Holdings! Hands where I can—"
The man moved with shocking speed. Not away, but into Frost's lunge. A forearm like iron slammed into Frost's wrist, knocking the pistol clattering down the stairs. A fist drove into Frost's solar plexus, driving the breath from his lungs. Frost staggered back, gasping, against the wet railing.
The hooded figure didn't pursue. He vaulted the railing with effortless grace, landing silently on the dumpster below, then melting into the alley's deeper darkness.
Gasping, Frost pushed off the railing and stumbled into the empty office. The monitor glowed, showing a simple transfer confirmation screen: $50,000.00 SENT TO: Sanchez Docks Preservation Fund.
A note was taped to the screen, handwritten in bold, block letters:
"LOOK ELSEWHERE, FROST. SHE'S NOT YOUR PREY."
Below, Jinx cursed, retrieving the stun pistol. Maya Sanchez stood frozen by her trash bin, staring up at Frost in the lit doorway, her eyes wide with fear and defiance.
Frost crumpled the note, his knuckles white. Not Claudia. Not a random shell. The phantom had protectors. And they'd just drawn blood.
He looked down at Maya, a new, dangerous curiosity replacing frustration.
"Find the fishmonger's daughter," he ordered Jinx, his voice tight with adrenaline and rage. "She's the only thread we have. Pull it hard."