Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Bloodbath
The next morning, Silas left the twins under the watchful eyes of Mercer and three armed guards. He arrived at Thorne Global HQ radiating a lethal, quiet energy.
The emergency board meeting had been called at 9:00 AM.
Twelve men and women, the titans of the energy sector, sat around the mahogany table, murmuring nervously about the sudden network lockout. When Silas walked in, the room fell dead silent.
He didn't sit down. He paced slowly behind their chairs.
"The Vanguard Project," Silas began, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it carried to every corner of the room. "A subsidiary initiative we shuttered three years ago due to logistical failures. Or so I was told."
He stopped behind Richard Sterling, the Chief Operations Officer. A man Silas had mentored for a decade.
"Richard," Silas said, placing a heavy hand on the man's shoulder. "How is your offshore portfolio doing?"
Sterling visibly swallowed. "Silas, what is the meaning of this? You’ve frozen our access—"
"I asked a question, Richard. Because someone resurrected Vanguard. Someone is weaponizing our kinetic battery patents and selling them to paramilitary groups in Eastern Europe. And someone," Silas leaned down, his voice turning to ice, "sent a strike team to silence the auditor who found out."
Panic flickered in Sterling's eyes. "That's absurd. You have no proof."
Silas tossed a thick, printed ledger onto the table. It was the data from the USB drive. "I have the ghost ledger. And I have the routing numbers tracing directly to your Caymans account."
Sterling went pale. Several board members gasped, pushing their chairs back.
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"Security!" Sterling shouted, a desperate, animalistic sound.
"Security works for me," Silas said smoothly. Two heavily armed corporate guards stepped into the room, locking the doors from the inside. "You have exactly two minutes to tell me where Clara Vance is, Richard, or I will ensure you spend the rest of your natural life in a federal black site."
