While the echoes of gunfire faded in a Marseille marketplace, a quieter but far more dangerous drama was unfolding in New York. David Rockefeller sat in his spacious, book-lined study, a room that felt more like a university library than a banker's office. Across from him, Harrison Lee spread out a series of corporate ownership charts on the polished table. They were examining the financial entrails of "Trans-Continental Logistics," the ghost company that connected Ezra's empire to the tragic story of James Peters. The work was slow, painstaking, a hunt for a single, definitive proof in a forest of legal fiction.
Their methodical work was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. David's personal security chief, a discreet man named Thompson, entered. His face, usually a mask of professional calm, was tight with an unreadable urgency.
"Sir," Thompson said, his voice low. "An urgent message has come through a… non-standard channel. I believe it requires your immediate attention."
He placed a single sheet of paper on the desk. It was a decoded transcript of a shortwave burst transmission, a method of communication reserved for the deepest levels of espionage. David and Lee leaned forward, their eyes scanning the cryptic text.
UNCLE'S EUROPEAN ASSET IS A LIABILITY. UNCONTAINED. DANGER TO ALL FAMILY INTERESTS. REQUIRE CONTACT. S.
The message was a bombshell. David read it once, then again, his mind struggling to process the implications. "S," he murmured, his eyes wide. "It can't be."
"Sullivan," Harrison Lee breathed, the name hanging in the air like smoke. He looked at David. "It has to be. He's the only 'S' at that level. Ezra Prentice's right hand. His shadow."
They were both stunned into silence. Sullivan—the fanatically loyal, unquestioning, immovable pillar of Ezra's inner circle—had just reached out to them, to the designated enemies of his master. The sheer impossibility of it was staggering. It was as if the Archangel Michael had just sent a secret message to Lucifer, suggesting a private chat.
Their minds immediately raced through the possibilities. "It's a trap," Lee said, his journalist's skepticism kicking in. "It has to be. Ezra is trying to lure you into the open, David. To frame you for attempting to suborn his most trusted employee. It's exactly the kind of move he would make."
David considered it. The logic was sound. It was precisely the kind of intricate, treacherous game his uncle would play. But then he looked again at the words on the page. DANGER TO ALL FAMILY INTERESTS. That was the key. It wasn't just a warning about Ezra; it was a plea to protect the family itself.
"No," David said slowly, shaking his head. "I don't think it's a trap. I think it's a mutiny." He looked at Lee, his expression grim. "Think of the kind of man Sullivan is. A soldier. A man of absolute loyalty. For him to do this, to break that oath… he must believe that Ezra himself has become the greatest threat to the empire he's sworn to protect. He must have seen something, something so monstrous that it forced him to commit the one act he would have considered unthinkable."
He recognized the immense potential, and the immense risk. If Sullivan was genuine, he was the ultimate insider, the one man who could provide them with the irrefutable proof they needed to expose Ezra's entire shadow government. But if it was a trap, David would be walking into his own political and legal annihilation.
He made his decision. "We have to take the risk," he said, his voice firm with a new resolve. "The potential reward is too great. But we will do it on our terms."
He and Lee began to devise a response, a cautious, multi-layered protocol for establishing contact, a dance of spies learned from old intelligence manuals. They would use a system of "cut-outs"—trusted intermediaries who would pass messages without knowing the identity of the principals. They would communicate through a series of coded advertisements in international newspapers, a bridge of whispers built across a chasm of distrust. Their goal was to arrange a secret, face-to-face meeting, but in a place so neutral, so secure, that the risk of a trap would be minimized. They proposed the one city in the world built for such encounters: Geneva, Switzerland.
The high-stakes game of establishing contact between these two sworn enemies had begun.
While David and his new ally were carefully laying the first stones of their secret bridge, Ezra's world was about to be rocked by the aftershocks of his own paranoia. His domestic surveillance team, the one he had tasked with watching Harrison Lee twenty-four hours a day, was performing its duties with chilling efficiency. They had tailed the reporter, photographed his meetings, and, most importantly, had placed a sophisticated bug on his home telephone line.
The report that landed on Ezra's desk was a transcript of a series of encrypted, coded telephone calls between Lee and an unknown European source. The source was clearly cautious, the communication method sophisticated. It was obvious they were in the process of setting up a clandestine meeting.
This was a dangerous new development. Who was this new player? Who in Europe had the knowledge and the motive to be feeding information to his nephew's pet reporter? Ezra gave a single, cold order to his lead cryptographer. "Break it. I don't care what it takes. I want the identity of that source."
For hours, his best codebreakers worked, attacking the complex cipher used in the calls. It was a formidable system, but it had one flaw. It was based on a familiar mathematical structure. Late that night, Ezra was summoned to the communications room. His lead cryptographer, a man who was usually brimming with the arrogant confidence of his craft, looked pale and shaken.
"Sir," the man began, his voice barely a whisper. "We've broken the encryption."
"And?" Ezra demanded. "Who is the source?"
The cryptographer swallowed hard. "Sir, the cipher… it's a variation of an old Prentice Standard military encryption key. A cipher that, according to our own security protocols, is only issued to the highest level of your personal security detail. The 'Praetorian' level."
The implication was sickeningly, brutally clear. Ezra's mind flashed through the short, exclusive list of men with access to that cipher. There were only three names on it. Two of them—Ezra himself and his head of domestic security—were standing in that very room. The third was in Europe.
Sullivan.
The name echoed in the silent, cold room, a thunderclap of betrayal. The one man. The one person in the entire world whom he had believed was unconditionally, absolutely loyal. The soldier who had stood by him through everything, who knew his darkest secrets. His shield. His sword. His friend.
The betrayal was so profound, so absolute, it felt like a physical blow, a knife twisting in his gut far sharper and more painful than David's public attacks or Hoover's manipulations. This was not strategy; this was sacrilege.
He was left reeling, the architect standing in the ruins of the one relationship he had thought was built on bedrock. His first, ice-cold instinct was rage. To dispatch von Hauser's new assassins, to have Sullivan erased, to punish the treason with a swift and final finality.
But then, the strategic mind reasserted itself, wrestling with the raw, wounded fury. Killing Sullivan was easy. An emotional release. But it didn't solve the core problem of David and his crusade. A new, more terrible, and more elegant possibility began to form in his mind.
What if he allowed the meeting to happen? What if he used this ultimate act of treason as the ultimate weapon? He could use it as a trap, a grand stage upon which he could destroy both the traitor and his hated nephew, once and for all.
His fury was at war with his strategic genius. The fate of his most loyal friend, and his greatest family enemy, hung in the balance.
To be the first to know about future sequels and new projects, google my official author blog: Waystar Novels.