Chapter 2: The Digital Guillotine
Julian smirked, misinterpreting the older man’s calm for defeat. He dialed the number for his contact at the press, his thumb hovering over the ‘Send’ command on his phone. He wanted the world to see the fall of a titan.
"You’re bluffing," Julian snapped. "The servers are offshore, decentralized. You can't touch them."
"I don't need to touch your servers," Silas replied, stepping into the golden light of the chandelier. "I need only to manage the narrative."
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Suddenly, the massive LED screens lining the ballroom walls flickered. The laughter in the room died. Instead of the incriminating files Julian expected to see, the screens began to play a series of audio-visual logs. It was Julian—on every occasion he had attempted to embezzle funds, bribe regulators, or sabotage his own cousins. It was a career’s worth of betrayal condensed into a five-minute montage of incompetence and malice.
The heir looked down at his phone, startled. His signal was gone. The encrypted connection had been rerouted to an internal, secure server—the very one Silas controlled. He wasn't the hunter; he was the primary exhibit in his own trial.
