Married To The Ruthless Billionaire For Revenge-Chapter 163: Six Hours

Chapter 161: Six Hours

The timer began ticking the moment the message appeared.

05:59:42

05:59:41

05:59:40

The numbers dropped steadily on the bottom corner of every screen in the operations center.

Marcus didn’t move for several seconds.

He simply stared at the countdown, trying to process what it meant.

Six hours.

Someone had just synchronized with the city’s infrastructure network and then calmly given them a countdown to whatever came next.

Adrian finally broke the silence.

"Tell me that’s fake."

Marcus shook his head slowly.

"No."

Elena stood beside the central display, her expression unreadable.

"Can we remove it?"

Marcus tried immediately.

He opened the system command panel and attempted to isolate the program generating the timer.

The command returned an error.

He tried again.

Same result.

"It’s embedded," Marcus said.

"Where?" Adrian asked.

Marcus scanned the architecture.

His stomach tightened.

"Everywhere."

Adrian frowned.

"What do you mean everywhere?"

Marcus expanded the system diagram.

The timer wasn’t running from one server.

It was mirrored across the entire network.

Power grid.

Logistics system.

Construction scheduling.

Transportation control.

Communication hubs.

Every subsystem carried a copy of the countdown.

Elena’s voice was quiet.

"They distributed it."

Marcus nodded.

"If we shut one node down, the others keep it running."

Adrian muttered under his breath.

"So they made sure we couldn’t stop the clock."

The timer continued ticking.

05:56:12

05:56:11

05:56:10

Outside the operations center windows, the city remained unaware.

Morning sunlight had already spread across the skyline.

Workers were arriving at construction sites.

Supply trucks rolled through the logistics corridors.

Office towers filled with employees starting their day.

Everything looked normal.

But inside the system, a silent countdown had already begun.

Marcus quickly began scanning the infrastructure logs again.

"If they synchronized the system, they must have planted something."

Adrian crossed his arms.

"A trigger."

"Yes," Marcus replied.

"But we don’t know where."

Elena looked at the massive city map.

"Then we search everything."

Marcus nodded.

"I’m starting a full network diagnostic."

Adrian glanced at the timer again.

"Do we even have enough time?"

Marcus didn’t answer.

Across the city, engineers and administrators began receiving alerts from the operations center.

Every department was instructed to monitor their systems carefully.

Logistics supervisors double-checked route schedules.

Power grid technicians inspected electrical substations.

Transportation engineers watched traffic control systems closely.

The entire city had suddenly become a watchtower.

But no one knew exactly what they were watching for.

At the eastern housing construction zone, the foreman noticed the first sign that something unusual was happening.

His tablet notification system suddenly updated.

A new status icon appeared beside the project timeline.

Network synchronization active

The foreman frowned.

"What does that mean?"

One of the engineers leaned over his shoulder.

"I’ve never seen that before."

The foreman tried tapping the icon.

The tablet froze for a moment.

Then the screen returned to normal.

But the icon remained.

Quiet.

Unexplained.

The foreman looked up toward the skyline.

"Something’s wrong."

Back at the operations center, Marcus’s diagnostic scan began returning results.

Thousands of system files flashed across the monitor.

Most were normal.

Routine infrastructure commands.

Data logging.

System monitoring.

But buried deep inside the communication layer...

Marcus saw something.

He zoomed in.

A cluster of new code fragments.

They hadn’t existed yesterday.

Adrian leaned over his shoulder.

"What is that?"

Marcus didn’t answer immediately.

He opened the code.

Several lines of instructions appeared.

They were encrypted.

But the structure looked familiar.

Marcus felt his pulse quicken.

"It’s not a virus."

Adrian frowned.

"Then what?"

Marcus whispered.

"A control script."

Elena stepped closer.

"What does it control?"

Marcus ran the partial decryption algorithm.

The first piece of readable code appeared.

System Access Node: Transportation

Adrian stared at the screen.

"Traffic control?"

Marcus nodded.

"And rail systems."

Elena’s eyes moved to the timer again.

05:12:48

"Can it override them?" she asked.

Marcus scanned the rest of the script.

"Yes."

Adrian ran a hand through his hair.

"So Phase Two starts by shutting down the city’s transportation?"

Marcus shook his head slowly.

"Not shutting it down."

He pointed at another line of code.

Adrian read it.

Then his expression changed.

"...Rerouting."

Across the city, vehicles continued moving through their normal routes.

Delivery trucks headed toward construction sites.

Commuters drove toward downtown offices.

Public transit trains followed their scheduled paths.

But deep inside the transportation control system...

Something had already been inserted.

Waiting.

Sleeping.

Counting down.

Marcus continued decrypting the control script.

More lines appeared.

Each connected to a different subsystem.

Transportation.

Power grid.

Emergency services dispatch.

Communication relays.

Adrian whispered.

"They didn’t just infiltrate one system."

Marcus nodded.

"They infiltrated all of them."

Elena spoke quietly.

"But only one activates first."

Marcus glanced at the timer.

04:48:10

"Yes."

Adrian looked at him.

"Transportation."

Marcus nodded.

"Phase Two begins with traffic control."

A silence filled the room as the realization settled in.

If someone controlled the city’s transportation network...

They could paralyze movement.

Emergency vehicles couldn’t reach hospitals.

Supply trucks couldn’t deliver materials.

Public transit could shut down entirely.

The city would grind to a halt.

Adrian exhaled slowly.

"That’s not sabotage."

Marcus nodded.

"No."

Elena finished the thought.

"It’s a demonstration."

Meanwhile, in a dark room somewhere in the city, the same countdown appeared on another screen.

The mysterious man who had been watching the infrastructure map leaned back in his chair.

Beside him, the second figure spoke again.

"They’ve discovered the transportation script."

The man nodded calmly.

"Of course they have."

"Will they stop it?"

The man’s lips curved into a faint smile.

"They will try."

Back in the operations center, Marcus was already attempting to isolate the transportation control layer.

"If we cut the system connection before the timer reaches zero..."

Adrian interrupted.

"The countdown is mirrored across the network."

Marcus sighed.

"Yes."

Elena stepped forward.

"But the script itself must have a central trigger."

Marcus looked at her.

"You’re right."

He opened another network trace.

And this time...

He found something.

A small command node hidden inside the infrastructure communication server.

Marcus leaned closer to the screen.

"This is it."

Adrian frowned.

"That tiny thing?"

Marcus nodded.

"The trigger for Phase Two."

Elena asked quietly.

"Can you remove it?"

Marcus typed rapidly.

For a moment...

Nothing happened.

Then the system responded.

Access Denied

Adrian muttered.

"They locked it."

Marcus tried another command.

Same result.

The script refused every override attempt.

The timer continued counting.

04:02:55

04:02:54

04:02:53

Marcus leaned back slowly.

"They built this to survive our interference."

Adrian slammed his hand lightly against the table.

"So what do we do now?"

Elena looked at the timer.

"Find the person who built it."

The room fell quiet again.

Because that answer raised another problem.

They didn’t know who the attacker was.

They didn’t know where they were.

And the system countdown continued dropping.

Three hours.

Fifty-nine minutes.

Fifty-eight minutes.

Marcus suddenly froze.

Adrian noticed immediately.

"What?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Marcus pointed at the network log.

A new signal had just appeared.

The same repeating pulse they had seen earlier.

But this time...

It wasn’t moving quietly across the network.

It had stopped.

Adrian leaned closer.

"Where is it?"

Marcus zoomed the map.

The signal rested on a single point in the city.

A location marker blinked.

And when the address appeared on the screen...

Marcus felt his chest tighten.

Adrian read it aloud.

"Kane Group Headquarters."

The room went completely silent.

Because that was the building they were standing in.

Elena’s voice lowered.

"You’re telling me..."

Marcus nodded slowly.

"The control signal for Phase Two..."

He looked around the room.

"...is coming from inside this building."

Adrian’s eyes hardened.

"That’s impossible."

Marcus didn’t argue.

But the system map wasn’t wrong.

The signal pulsed again.

Right beneath them.

Somewhere inside the headquarters network.

And the countdown timer kept falling.

03:32:10

03:32:09

03:32:08

Someone inside the building was controlling Phase Two.

And no one in the operations center had any idea who it was.

End of Chapter 161