Chapter 21: The Invisible War
The war for Veridian City had changed. It was no longer fought with Molotov cocktails and drive-by shootings; it was fought with ones and zeros, with whispers and wire transfers. And Max was winning.
Max sat in the penthouse of the Skyline Hotel—a property he had acquired three hours ago through a complex shell company acquisition that took his new brain exactly four minutes to engineer. The walls were glass, offering a panoramic view of the city he was slowly strangling.
He didn't look like a street thug anymore. He wore a charcoal suit, tailored to hide the dense, corded muscle that made him a physical anomaly. But it was his eyes that had changed the most. They were constantly moving, shifting, processing.
Status: Mastermind's Eye Active.
Data Stream: Vittorio Financials.
Vulnerability Detected: Shell Corp "Apex Logistics" – Laundering Node.
Max typed on a laptop. His fingers were a blur. He didn't just hack; he surgically removed.
"Transferring assets," Max whispered. "Rerouting supply chain orders to non-existent warehouses in the Mojave. Canceling insurance policies on their shipping fleet."
In the last forty-eight hours, the Vittorio Syndicate had lost forty million dollars. They didn't know how. They didn't know who. They just knew their empire was hemorrhaging blood.
Across the city, in the opulent study of the Vittorio Citadel, Kaelen 'Brick' Thorne was smashing a telephone against his mahogany desk.
"What do you mean the accounts are frozen?!" Kaelen roared at his accountant, a trembling man named Weiss.
"I don't know, sir!" Weiss stammered, adjusting his glasses. "It's... it's like a ghost is in the system. Every time we try to move money, it vanishes. The banks are flagging us for fraud. Our own lawyers are being disbarred. It's a coordinated attack, but there's no paper trail!"
Kaelen swept the contents of his desk onto the floor. He was breathing heavily. He wasn't stupid. He knew this wasn't the Feds. The Feds were slow. This was surgical. This was Max.
"He survived the gym," Kaelen muttered, pouring himself a drink with shaking hands. "He survived the gala. Now he's eating us from the inside."
Kaelen walked to a bookshelf and pulled a specific book: Dante's Inferno. The shelf clicked and swung open, revealing a hidden elevator.
"Get out," Kaelen ordered Weiss. "I have to make a call."
Kaelen took the elevator down. Not to the garage, but deeper. To the sub-basement that didn't appear on any blueprints—not even the ones Max had stolen.
The room was cold, lit by candles. In the center was a circle of ash. Kaelen stood at the edge of the circle. He wasn't a Warlock, but he was a man who knew that power had a price.
"I need a specialist," Kaelen whispered into the dark. "The Driver... he has a patron. I need someone who can cut the strings."
The shadows in the corner of the room coalesced. A figure stepped forward. He was tall, gaunt, wearing a tattered priest's collar and sunglasses that hid his eyes completely. He smelled of formaldehyde and old bibles.
"The boy has a contract," the figure said. His voice sounded like tearing paper. "A strong one. The Beast he serves is... ancient."
"Can you kill him?" Kaelen asked.
"I cannot kill the Beast," the figure replied, smiling to reveal rotted teeth. "But I can sever the connection. I can eat the sin that binds them. I am the Sin Eater, Mr. Thorne. And for a price... I will make the boy human again. And then, you can kill him like a dog."
Kaelen pulled a diamond from his pocket—the size of a walnut. He tossed it.
The Sin Eater caught it in a hand that had too many joints.
"Done," the creature hissed.