“Lock every door,” Nathaniel Graves commanded. “No one leaves this building.”

The morning sun cast a brilliant golden glow across Graves Tower, but inside the executive briefing room on the thirty-fifth floor, the atmosphere was冰-cold.

Nathaniel stood at the head of a sleek glass conference table, staring down at a tablet displaying a decrypted intelligence report. Beside him stood Miller, his chief of security, whose face was set in a grim, weathered line.

"Are you certain of this source?" Nathaniel asked, his voice dangerously low.

"Positive, sir," Miller replied, tapping a key on his own encrypted device to pull up a security log. "The data leak didn't come from our core servers. It came from an access point in the lower parking garage—specifically, a maintenance RFID card assigned to an external vendor we hired last month for HVAC repairs."

"An external vendor," Nathaniel repeated, his eyes narrowing. "Who owns them?"

"A shell company registered in the Cayman Islands," Miller said flatly. "Tracing back the ultimate beneficial owner leads straight to Victor Sterling."

At the sound of that name, a heavy silence fell over the room. Victor Sterling was Nathaniel’s oldest and most ruthless rival—a man who controlled the shipping ports on the East Coast and had spent the last decade trying to muscle in on Graves Holdings' financial networks. Sterling was a ghost who rarely left his fortified estate in upstate New York, operating through proxies, shell companies, and organized crime syndicates.

"Sterling has been quiet for two years," Nathaniel murmured, walking slowly toward the window. "I thought our last arrangement taught him to stay out of my territory."

"He didn't make a move when you were just a billionaire playing corporate chess," Miller pointed out. "But finding out you have an heir—a biological daughter—changes the entire chessboard. Sterling knows that an asset like Ruby gives you a human vulnerability. He sees blood in the water."

Nathaniel’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. The glass pane before him seemed to ripple with the tension radiating from his frame. "Where is Clara and Ruby right now?"

"They’re inside the penthouse, completely locked down," Miller assured him. "Electronic countermeasures are active, airspace above the tower is restricted under private transit clearance, and I have twelve armed operatives stationed on their floor alone. Nobody gets near them."

"That's not enough," Nathaniel snapped, spinning around. "Sterling doesn't play by corporate rules. If he wants to send a message, he won't come through the front door with a gun; he'll target our supply chains, our financial partners, or worse—he’ll try to create a panic that forces us out into the open."

"What are your orders?" Miller asked, his posture straightening.

"Double the perimeter guard. I want every vehicle entering the underground garage searched manually, no exceptions. And Miller?"

"Sir?"