The city buzzed with aftershocks.
By the next morning, Talon Digital's explosive boardroom drama had evolved into a full-blown media frenzy. News headlines screamed across every platform—TikTok creators made drama breakdowns with flashy transitions, while finance YouTubers analyzed Damon's comeback like a chess grandmaster returning to reclaim his throne.
But the truth?
Damon didn't feel victorious.
He felt watched.
---
"Jas," he muttered, lowering his voice as he stepped into the sunlit kitchen, shirtless, grey sweatpants clinging to his hips. "You closed the blinds last night, right?"
She looked up from her laptop. "Yeah. Why?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out his phone and opened the security app.
One of the cameras in the basement garage had glitched around 3:13 AM. Two seconds of static. No explanation.
He felt it in his gut.
Someone had been there.
Watching.
Or worse—planting something.
---
Hours later, Damon arrived at a sleek, mirrored building in midtown. The name "ARKANE" was engraved discreetly on the front stone.
To the public, ARKANE was a software firm specializing in blockchain architecture.
To insiders?
It was a high-level digital fortress. A shadowy cybersecurity syndicate Damon had helped fund years ago—before Talon, before the glamour.
Inside, the place was pure silence and glass. Suits walked quietly down white halls. Screens shimmered with code and infrared maps.
He met with Reza, the founder—a cryptographer with steel grey eyes and fingers that never stopped twitching.
"They were probing your system. Not just Talon's firewall," Reza said, tapping on a screen. "They were scanning your biometric locks. Your private folders. Even that deep vault with the Omega contracts? Someone's digging."
Damon frowned. "Lena?"
Reza shook his head. "No. This is bigger. Her IP was routed through petty crypto laundering chains in Serbia. This?"
He zoomed in.
"It's clean. Precision work. Military-grade."
Damon's blood ran cold.
"What do they want?" he asked.
Reza hesitated. "You. Or more specifically—your inheritance. The stuff that never made the papers."
Damon stepped back.
Few people knew about it.
He'd always kept that part of his life buried—what his father left behind after dying in a silent yacht explosion off the coast of Istanbul. His real fortune. The trillion-dollar empire no one publicly associated with him.
---
Back at the penthouse, Jasmine sat in the reading lounge scrolling through student forums.
She still helped manage student unions under a pseudonym—"JayBabe"—a role that kept her grounded. But today, something strange caught her eye.
A thread titled:
"Anybody else notice weird Bitcoin wallet pings last night?"
Dozens of students at the university—most of them broke tech enthusiasts—shared screenshots of micro-amounts of crypto landing in their wallets. Nothing huge. But the pattern? The timing? Exact. Coordinated.
She dug deeper. All the wallet addresses were connected to the same transaction chain. And the IP address linked back to a dorm room—
In Block C, the same building where Jasmine had once stayed.
And worse?
The room belonged to Yelena—a student influencer who used to be Damon's biggest critic online before going suspiciously quiet.
Jasmine didn't hesitate.
She grabbed her leather jacket and keys.
Somehow, the campus and the corporate world were bleeding into each other again.
And someone was trying to trigger a war from the inside.
---
Back at ARKANE, Damon sat down in a private vault room with soundproofed walls and dark lighting. He opened a sealed black box.
Inside was a single, polished ring.
A family heirloom.
But not just jewelry.
It was encrypted with his DNA and contained a chip—one that could open secret offshore accounts, purchase private islands, or unlock weaponized AI codes that were once offered to world governments but rejected for being "too unstable."
Only one other person had the credentials to even attempt unlocking it.
His twin brother.
The one who died when they were thirteen.
Or so he thought.
Reza leaned forward, eyes wide. "You think he's alive?"
Damon clenched his jaw.
"I think someone wants me to believe he is."
---
Jasmine arrived at Block C, blending in with students. She knocked on Yelena's door—no answer.
She tried the handle. Unlocked.
Inside, the place was abandoned. Papers scattered, laptop screen cracked, and on the wall?
A message scrawled in red lipstick:
"I know what you are."
And beneath it, a printed picture of Damon kissing Jasmine on the balcony.
Someone had been watching them.
Closely.
For days.
Weeks, maybe.
Jasmine's breath caught. She backed up slowly, hand on her taser. But as she turned to leave, the hallway was silent.
Too silent.
And in the far corner, a dark figure in a hoodie stood perfectly still.
Watching her.
She bolted.
---
By sunset, Jasmine and Damon were back in the penthouse.
Both shaken. Both silent.
But when their eyes met, they didn't need to speak.
The game had changed.
No longer about boardroom politics or petty sabotage.
This was personal.
Global.
Damon sat down, running a hand through his hair. "We're being baited."
Jasmine nodded. "Into what?"
"A reveal," he said. "Someone wants the world to see what we're hiding."
She leaned in, brows furrowed. "Then maybe it's time we stop hiding."
He looked at her, something breaking open in his chest.
They were tired of shadows.
Tired of pretending.
She was his partner—not just in crisis, but in everything.
"Ride or die?" he whispered, half smiling.
She touched his cheek. "Ride or die."
Their kiss was fire this time.
Not relief. Not survival.
This was war paint.
And together, they were unstoppable.
---
Far across the city, in a dark room lit by nothing but neon fish tanks and crypto dashboards, a man sat at a glass desk.
He watched Damon and Jasmine through hacked penthouse footage.
He smirked.
Next to him, a child's drawing sat in a plastic folder. Two boys—twins—one smiling, the other burning in flames.
And written in messy scrawl beneath:
"Only one of us gets to be king."
---