Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT THE TOWER WENT DARK
The darkness lasted only eight seconds.
But eight seconds was enough.
Emergency lights activated.
Security doors locked.
Elevators stopped.
The entire tower fell silent.
Then Titan barked.
Once.
Twice.
Dorian grabbed Marin's hand.
“Stay with me.”
They moved toward the security command center.
Gabriel was already there.
“Someone breached the internal network.”
“How?”
“Remote access.”
Dorian's jaw tightened.
“Who?”
“Unknown.”
Sofia entered behind them.
“It isn't random.”
Everyone turned.
She pointed at the screens.
“Look at the elevator logs.”
Gabriel opened them.
A service elevator had moved from the parking level to eighteen.
No badge.
No authorization.
No camera footage.
Marin felt cold.
“Someone is inside.”
Dorian nodded.
Security teams moved.
Titan ran ahead.
He stopped at the eighteenth-floor corridor.
The same place where he had first found Marin.
His body stiffened.
Then he growled.
Dorian followed.
A door at the end of the corridor stood open.
Inside was Marin's old office.
The room had been searched.
Files scattered.
Drawers opened.
Nothing obvious stolen.
Then Marin noticed something.
Her desk.
The photograph of Daniel.
Gone.
She froze.
Dorian looked at her.
“Did you keep it here?”
“Yes.”
“Why would they take that?”
Marin stared at the empty frame.
“Because it has something they need.”
Sofia understood.
“The photograph.”
Marin shook her head.
“No.”
She pointed to the back of the frame.
“There was a memory card.”
Dorian looked at her.
“When?”
“Daniel gave me the photograph before he died.”
“You never mentioned a card.”
“I forgot.”
“Forgot?”
“It was taped behind the frame.”
Gabriel searched the room.
Nothing.
Dorian's phone rang.
A distorted voice answered when he picked up.
“Mr. Vance.”
“Who is this?”
“You've been digging where you shouldn't.”
Dorian said nothing.
The voice continued.
“Your father understood the cost of curiosity.”
“You don't know my father.”
“I know him better than you ever did.”
Dorian's eyes narrowed.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“You don't have it.”
“Not yet.”
Dorian looked at Marin.
The voice laughed softly.
“You think you're protecting them.”
“I'm protecting the truth.”
“No.”
The line went dead.
Gabriel traced the call.
“Burner.”
“Location?”
“Downtown.”
“Get it.”
Within minutes, security found the phone abandoned in a trash container.
The message was obvious.
The person wanted them to chase shadows.
Dorian refused.
Instead, he returned to the office.
Marin stood beside the window.
“What are you thinking?”
“That they aren't after the money.”
“Then what?”
“The evidence.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because the money can be replaced.”
“The evidence cannot.”
Sofia nodded.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“My father used to say the network wasn't built for profit.”
Dorian frowned.
“What was it built for?”
“Protection.”
“Whose?”
“People with power.”
Marin's stomach turned.
“So the construction fraud was a side effect.”
“Exactly.”
Sofia looked at the ledger.
“They created layers of companies so nobody could trace who was protecting whom.”
Dorian understood.
The eighteen million dollars was not the center.
It was one branch.
The real system was influence.
Settlements.
Silence.
Political donations.
Business favors.
Regulatory pressure.
People making problems disappear.
Daniel had accidentally seen the machinery.
That was why he became dangerous.
Dorian turned to Gabriel.
“Find every beneficiary.”
“Already working.”
“And find the memory card.”
“We don't know where it went.”
Marin suddenly looked at Titan.
The dog was sitting beside the desk.
Staring at a drawer.
She walked over.
Opened it.
Nothing.
Then Titan scratched the bottom.
Marin frowned.
“Move.”
She emptied the drawer.
There was a false panel.
Behind it sat a small black memory card.
Dorian stared.
“How did he know?”
Marin smiled faintly.
“Titan knows.”
The card contained seventeen files.
Audio recordings.
Videos.
Photographs.
One file was labeled:
FATHER.
Dorian opened it.
His father's voice filled the room.
“If you're hearing this, I'm either dead or somebody wants you to believe I am.”
Dorian stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“I built the first version of the network.”
Marin looked at Sofia.
“I did it because I believed money could protect people.”
The voice paused.
“I was wrong.”
Dorian closed his eyes.
His father's confession continued.
“I became afraid of the people I had empowered.”
“Martin Hale.”
“Marcus.”
“Victor.”
“Rachel.”
“All of them.”
“I tried to dismantle the system.”
“I failed.”
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“The person who ultimately controls it is not one of them.”
Dorian leaned closer.
“Then who?”
His father's voice answered.
“It's the person who inherited my private archive.”
The recording ended.
Silence.
Marin looked at Dorian.
“Who inherited it?”
Dorian stared at Sofia.
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then Elena entered.
She was pale.
“There is something you need to see.”
She placed a document on the desk.
It was an old inheritance record.
Dorian read it.
Then looked up.
“My father left the archive to me.”
Elena nodded.
“But that's not the problem.”
“What is?”
“The archive was accessed yesterday.”
Dorian's blood ran cold.
“By whom?”
Elena turned the paper.
The access authorization carried Dorian's signature.
Marin stared.
“You didn't sign this.”
“No.”
Dorian looked at Sofia.
Someone had copied his signature.
Again.
Just like Daniel's.
The same method.
The same network.
The same obsession with forged documents.
Dorian suddenly understood.
The person behind everything wasn't merely stealing money.
They were building false realities.
Documents.
Signatures.
Records.
Deaths.
Identities.
They could make anyone appear guilty.
Or dead.
Or responsible.
And now they had forged Dorian's signature.
Sofia whispered—
“They're setting you up.”
The tower lights flickered again.
Then every screen in the command center turned on.
May you like
One sentence appeared.
DORIAN VANCE WILL TAKE THE FALL.
