Daniel Ended His Wedding After Vanessa Humiliated Emily, Then One Guest’s Recording Revealed Why His Sister Had Been Targeted Earlier

The encrypted terminal reconnected inside the back of the moving Suburban as they sped away from the burning safehouse toward Manhattan.

Arthur Sterling’s face reappeared on the screen, his expression dark as a thunderhead.

"You have the chip," Arthur stated, having observed the tactical camera feed transmitted from Cross’s lapel.

"Why didn't you tell me about Thomas?" Daniel challenged, his voice laced with venom. "You let me believe he was a ghost from family folklore. You let me believe this was just corporate greed from Eleanor and Julian. But this is a family blood feud, isn't it, Dad? You built Ares, but Thomas wrote the original architecture!"

Arthur closed his eyes for a brief, agonizing moment on the screen. When he opened them, the cold corporate titan was replaced by a man haunted by thirty years of guilt.

"Thomas was brilliant," Arthur admitted, his voice rough. "Far more brilliant than I ever was. But he was unstable, Daniel. In 1994, he wanted to use the prototype algorithm to bankrupt the Bank of England and siphon sovereign debt into private Swiss numbered accounts. I couldn't let him do it. I betrayed my own brother. I coordinated with British intelligence to seize his assets and fake his death in Victoria Harbour."

"He didn't die," Emily said, tears glistening in her eyes. "He survived. And he spent three decades building the Vanguard Syndicate just to destroy everything you built."

"Yes," Arthur whispered. "And now he has activated the Ares countdown. The microchip Vanessa was carrying contains the secondary decryption key. But the primary terminal—the server that controls the final release of the algorithm—is located in only one place."

Daniel felt the hair on his arms stand up. "Sterling Tower. The executive penthouse vault."

"Thomas isn't hiding in London, Daniel," Arthur said, his eyes filled with genuine dread. "He arrived in New York under a diplomatic passport three hours ago. While you were rescuing Vanessa on Long Island, Vanguard’s private paramilitary contractors took control of Sterling Tower. They have seized the forty-fourth floor."

Daniel grabbed the edge of the terminal. "The servers are completely air-gapped! How can he trigger the launch without my retinal scan?"

"He doesn't need your retinal scan if he has the physical chip you just took from Vanessa's ring," Arthur replied grimly. "And if he deploys the algorithm at midnight, five trillion dollars of commercial credit will vanish from the New York Stock Exchange before the opening bell. The Sterling name will be branded as the greatest financial terrorist in human history."

Daniel looked out the rain-slicked window. In the distance, rising through the low-hanging storm clouds like an obsidian monolith, the illuminated spire of Sterling Tower pierced the Manhattan skyline.

The countdown clock on the dashboard displayed 11:34 PM.