Chapter 13

Tension crackled through the Blackwood Group headquarters like static before a storm.

Ethan Young's furious voice echoed across fifty floors. "Two days! Two damn days and none of you can stop this breach? What the hell do I pay you for?" His fist slammed against the conference table. "Our clients' data is leaking like a sieve. Fix this now or clean out your desks!"

As Nathaniel Blackwood's right-hand man, Ethan carried the weight of the crisis on his shoulders.

The cyberattack had hit without warning. For forty-eight sleepless hours, every tech specialist in Newport City had been battling the relentless digital assault.

Antony Gray, head of cybersecurity, wiped sweat from his brow. "This isn't about competence. The hacker's using military-grade encryption. Their IP bounces across servers in different countries every ninety seconds." His voice turned defensive. "My team includes three national coding champions. If we can't crack this, nobody can."

Then a quiet voice spoke from the back of the room.

"There is a solution."

All heads turned toward the bespectacled junior analyst.

Ethan's eyes narrowed. "Spit it out."

The young man adjusted his glasses. "We wait. Three more days and the virus self-destructs."

"You're joking." Ethan's face darkened like thunderclouds.

"Explain." Nathaniel's icy command cut through the tension. The Blackwood CEO lounged in his chair, idly spinning a Montblanc pen between his fingers. His calm demeanor somehow made the room feel ten degrees colder.

The analyst swallowed hard. "The code structure matches the signature of Scarlet Phoenix. Legendary hacker. Untraceable. Their malware always has a five-day expiration."

Murmurs rippled through the room.

"Scarlet Phoenix vanished years ago. Why resurface now to target us?"

"Some say they're a teenage genius. Others claim it's a sixty-year-old Russian."

"Once their code activates, resistance makes it worse. Like fighting quicksand."

Nathaniel's lips thinned. He remembered Isabella's warning at the hospital. Five hundred million dollars already lost. The woman was either psychic or...

"Scarlet Phoenix." Nathaniel tested the name on his tongue. It tasted like defeat - a flavor he refused to swallow.

His pen snapped in half.

"Ethan." Nathaniel's voice could have frozen hell. "Put a two-hundred-million-dollar bounty on Phoenix's identity. I want this ghost dragged into the light."