PART 11: THE SHADOW IN THE WOODS
The security grid went dark at 3:14 AM.
It wasn't a system crash.
It was a deliberate, localized blackout on the north perimeter of the Viet Tri compound.
Alejandro was awake before the backup generators even kicked in.
His hand silently moved beneath his pillow, his fingers wrapping around the cold steel of his weapon.
Beside him, Camila opened her eyes, her breathing calm, perfectly attuned to the subtle shifts in the house.
"The north wall," she whispered.
"Stay with the children," Alejandro replied, his voice a low vibration in the dark.
He slipped out of bed, moving through the shadows of the villa like a ghost returning to familiar hunting grounds.
Outside, the air was heavy with the scent of pine and oncoming rain.
The estate's automated floodlights suddenly flared back to life, cutting through the darkness.
There was no body on the grass.
There were no cut fences.
Instead, resting exactly in the center of the gravel path, was a polished silver box.
Alejandro approached it with his weapon drawn, his eyes scanning the tree line.
He used a tactical blade to flip the lid open.
Inside lay a single, gold-plated coin bearing the emblem of the Varga Syndicate—the very organization Alejandro had dismantled to build his legitimate empire.
A piece of paper was folded beneath the coin.
It contained a single sentence written in elegant calligraphy:
The debt has matured, Alejandro.
By the time Alejandro returned to the study, Camila had already bypassed the main server block to analyze the blackout logs.
"It wasn't an external hack," she said, her fingers typing rapidly.
"Someone inside gave them the bypass codes."
Alejandro placed the gold coin on the desk.
Camila stared at it, her face hardening as she recognized the symbol from the files she had archived years ago.
"I thought they were gone," she said.
"Men like Varga never disappear completely," Alejandro murmured.
"They just wait for you to build something worth stealing."
He looked toward the hallway where Sofia and Lucas were sleeping under the watchful eyes of three armed guards.
"They aren't targeting my ports anymore, Camila."
"They're targeting our house."
Camila closed her laptop and stood up, her jaw set.
May you like
"Then we change the locks," she said fiercely.
"And we hunt the wolf inside our walls."
