Chapter 26 - A Fleeting Ghost
As Liam delved into the murky depths of Marcus’s financial history, he unearthed a piece of intelligence that made the blood freeze in my veins. A highly encrypted trail from an offshore, anonymous banking account revealed that Ethan, despite being locked away in a maximum-security federal penitentiary, was maintaining regular, clandestine communication with his half-brother. The conduit was a notoriously corrupt defense attorney who abused attorney-client privilege to pass handwritten directives and strategic insights from a jail cell straight to the Apex boardroom.
That night, the suppressed trauma violently resurrected itself. I jolted awake in the pitch blackness, my chest heaving, the phantom sound of shattering glass and Ethan’s enraged screams echoing relentlessly in my mind. I was drenched in a cold, shivering sweat, my hands desperately clutching the bedsheets.
Liam was instantly awake. He snapped on the bedside lamp, wrapping his arms securely around my trembling frame, his hand gently stroking my damp hair as I gasped for air. "He is locked in a cage. He is miles away. He cannot touch you ever again," Liam whispered repeatedly, a steady anchor in the storm. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to take long, deliberate breaths, violently wrestling the panic down into submission. This nightmare was nothing but the dying echo of a defeated monster. I would shatter their remaining hopes once and for all.
