Chapter 14: Shadow and Shattered Trust

Billy Roy stared at the ruined terminal screen, its faint blue glow replaced by a single blinking cursor and then—nothing. The café lights flickered again. Then died.

Darkness.

For three seconds, it was utterly silent. Then a chair scraped behind him.

Instinct kicked in. Billy grabbed his bag and spun, backing toward the wall. No one was there.

Too quiet.

He burst through the back door into a smoky alley, nerves frayed. The driver was gone—vanished. In his place stood a woman with short-cropped silver hair, her stance military. A faint scar ran along her cheek. A pistol rested against her hip, hand relaxed, but ready.

"Mr. Roy," she said, calm as a surgeon. "Come with me."

Billy didn't move. "Start with a name."

She tossed him a black card. A silver sigil shimmered on its surface: a mechanical serpent wrapped around a broken crown.

His pulse quickened. The Obsidian Coil. A name whispered once in Roy family archives. Disbanded. Buried. Supposedly dead.

But this was no ghost story.

"Who the hell are you?"

She met his gaze. "Seraphine Vale. Former intelligence, now private counter-ops. I don't answer to anyone who sells their family out."

Billy narrowed his eyes. "You think I did?"

"No," she said. "But someone very close to you has."

One Hour Earlier

Back in the tech café, Billy had done what he swore he wouldn't.

He accessed Rin's activity logs.

And there it was: an encrypted login made from this very region—two weeks before the breach at Roy Industries HQ. She hadn't told him she'd been here.

He'd been trying to clear her name.

Now he wasn't so sure.

But Rin wasn't the only ghost in his head.

There was Ron, his older brother—always distant, always calculated. Once Omio's golden son, now buried in obscure projects no one at Roy Industries dared audit. Projects too protected, too secret. Projects with no paper trail… or too many.

He always hated playing second to me, Billy thought grimly. Is this his move?

And then there was William Smith—head of rival conglomerate Smith Dynamics, known for his charm, ruthlessness, and a personal vendetta. He'd once publicly declared the Roy family "a dynasty waiting to collapse under its own ego."

William had motive. Power. And whispers tied him to mercenary tech groups that didn't just play dirty—they erased competition.

But Billy had no proof. Just instincts.

And instincts weren't evidence. Not yet.

Back to the Present

Inside the black car, Seraphine drove fast and silent, weaving through city traffic like a phantom. Billy kept glancing at the black card in his hand.

"You work for the Coil?" he asked.

"I work against chaos," she said. "And right now, your family is walking into the eye of a storm none of you see coming."

Billy stared at her. "Then show me."

She nodded.

The Revelation

They arrived at an abandoned bank on the edge of the city—vault doors rusted open, security glass long shattered.

Down two levels of concrete steps, they entered a hidden war room: holographic maps, redacted dossiers, flickering surveillance feeds from across the globe.

And there—on the center screen—was a still image.

Ron Roy, shaking hands with William Smith in a private hangar.

Billy's mouth went dry.

"This was three days before your systems were breached," Seraphine said. "No press. No records. But we intercepted the drone feed."

Billy staggered back, thoughts racing. Was it real? Was it doctored?

"Why would Ron work with William?" he demanded.

"That's what you're going to find out," she said. "But first, you'll need to decide something."

She walked toward him, her tone sharp but measured.

"Can you trust your sister?"

Billy didn't answer.

He didn't know.