The attack didn't start with an explosion. It started with silence.
A minor subsidiary Ashford Renewable Logistics missed a quarterly payment to a global partner. Nothing major. Nothing loud. But enough to raise eyebrows in the right circles. Enough to make the stock twitch.
Charlotte stood in the operations hub, her face lit by three screens, each displaying a ripple in the water. Numbers off by fractions. Emails timestamped seconds apart. A last-minute redirection of funds no one signed off on.
She didn't speak right away. Just stared.
Then, flatly: "He's started."
Upstairs, Liam was mid-call with a key investor when the update came in. Charlotte's message lit up his phone with a single line:
Graham moved. Quiet. Clean. Surgical.
He hung up, heart thudding not with fear with fury.
In the lounge outside the boardroom, Vivian sat beside her aunt, who'd come to drop off fresh clothes for Daniel. She looked tired. Worn.
"He's doing okay," her aunt said, eyes gentle. "Still doesn't understand why he can't go home."
Vivian nodded. Her throat tightened. "Thank you for everything."
Her aunt hesitated, then lowered her voice. "There was a man watching the building this morning. I don't know if it means anything. But it felt… off."
Vivian's fingers clenched around her mug. "We'll move again."
"Are you sure?" her aunt asked. "He's just starting to feel safe again."
"No one's safe while Graham's out there."
The weight of it pressed on her chest mother, executive, target.
She rose slowly. "Let Charlotte know. And make sure Daniel doesn't feel the tension. He picks up on more than we think."
By midday, Charlotte confirmed the sabotage. A siphoning scheme. Thin enough to go unnoticed, sharp enough to bleed them over time.
"Classic Graham," she muttered. "He's testing our reflexes. Trying to measure how fast we respond."
Liam crossed the room. "Then let's give him a reason to flinch."
Vivian stepped in then, eyes darker than usual. "We need to bait him. Set a trap. Make it personal."
Charlotte looked up. "We already are. My team's been feeding false intel into one of Evelyn's suspected pipelines. If Graham bites…"
"He will," Liam said. "He likes to win. But he likes to gloat even more."
That night, Ashford's lights burned late. Vivian paced near the glass wall while Liam stared down at an old photo in his hand one he hadn't looked at in years.
It was of him, Evelyn, and Graham.
Younger. Smiling. Before the empire turned into a battlefield.
Vivian noticed. "What is it?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then: "There was a time I thought Graham was my brother. Not by blood. By bond."
She walked closer. "What happened?"
"I chose the company. He chose my mother."
Vivian's voice was quiet. "And now he's back to finish what they started."
Liam met her gaze. "Not this time."
By morning, the trap was sprung.
Charlotte stormed into Liam's office, tablet in hand. "He took the bait. Started rerouting a ghost contract one we planted under a dummy shell. We have timestamps, IP logs, offshore links."
"Can we tie it to Evelyn?" Liam asked.
Charlotte hesitated. "Maybe. But there's something worse."
She turned the tablet.
New metadata.
New logins.
A second actor.
Vivian stepped in just as Charlotte spoke the words:
"He's not working alone."
The room fell into a hush, but it wasn't still. It was the kind of silence that carried weight, like the air had thickened with the realization.
Vivian stepped closer to the tablet, her brow furrowed. "Who else is in this with him?"
Charlotte didn't look up right away. She was already moving, fingers tapping fast over the screen, pulling up another window. "I'm trying to isolate the second signature. Whoever it is, they're masking themselves behind layers of encryption… but this isn't freelance. It's coordinated."
"Could it be Evelyn again?" Liam asked.
"Not directly," Charlotte muttered. "She doesn't code like this. Too neat. Too clean. This feels... newer."
Vivian's voice lowered. "Or younger."
Charlotte glanced at her, surprised but then nodded. "Maybe. Someone groomed for this. Someone we haven't seen coming."
A beat passed. Then Charlotte added, "I'll trace it. But we need to assume they're watching us now. Everything we do from this point? Eyes are on it."
Liam's shoulders straightened. "Then we give them a show."
That afternoon, Ashford Tower shifted from defense to strategy.
Charlotte's tech team moved underground not literally, but operationally. Air-gapped systems. Off-network backups. No chatter unless encrypted and signed.
Vivian took the lead on family security, again. She rotated Daniel's location under the radar, this time pulling in a trusted contact from her side of the family an old cousin who owed her father his life.
Liam leaned into damage control with their highest-value partners, reinforcing ties, reassuring allies.
But even as they moved, Charlotte's words echoed in all of them.
He's not working alone.
That night, Charlotte knocked quietly on Vivian's door. It was late, and Daniel was asleep in the next room.
"I have something," she said quietly, holding up her tablet.
Vivian waved her inside, heart already rising in her chest.
Charlotte pulled up a blurred image from an airport security feed grainy, low-resolution, but unmistakable.
Graham.
But next to him, a younger man. Tall. Confident. Dark hair. Smiling like he knew exactly what he was doing.
"Who is that?" Vivian whispered.
Charlotte hesitated. "We don't know yet. But he's been traveling with Graham for at least two weeks. Different names. Different credentials. But same route. Always trailing behind one of our vulnerable assets."
Vivian stared at the screen, pulse rising. "You think he's the second actor?"
"I think he's more than that," Charlotte said. "I think he's the insurance policy."
Meanwhile, Liam stood alone on the penthouse balcony, the wind brushing against his face like a warning.
His phone buzzed. A private line.
He answered.
"You're running out of time," a calm, unfamiliar voice said.
"Who is this?"
The voice laughed, quiet and smooth. "Not the ghost you're hunting. But close enough."
Liam's eyes narrowed. "You made a mistake. Reaching out."
"No," the voice replied. "You did. Years ago. And now we're here."
The line went dead.
Liam lowered the phone slowly.
And for the first time since Graham resurfaced…
He wondered who else he'd let slip through the cracks.