Master of Lust-Chapter 308 - -

Chapter - 308

The room smelled of old paper, expensive mahogany, and the kind of silence that costs a fortune to maintain. It was a library, technically, though no one had read a book here in forty years. It was a command center disguised as an English gentleman’s study, located in a chateau deep within the Swiss Alps, far above the cloud line and the laws of ordinary men.

Silas Warner sat in a high-backed leather chair that looked more like a throne. He was eighty years old, but he didn’t look frail. He looked like a piece of dried, cured leather stretched over steel wire. His eyes were grey, sharp, and utterly devoid of warmth.

In front of him, hovering in the air, were five holographic panels. Each displayed the face of a person in a different time zone—a Japanese industrialist, a Russian energy magnate, a corrupt American senator, and two people whose faces were blurred by digital distortion.

"The lithium deposits in Bolivia are secured," the Senator was saying, his voice tinny through the speakers. "The coup is scheduled for Tuesday. Stock prices should plummet by Wednesday morning. I suggest you short the market now, Silas."

Silas nodded, a microscopic movement. "Acceptable. Ensure the local media spins it as a grassroots uprising. I don’t want the UN sniffing around until we own the mines."

The door to the study opened. It wasn’t a knock; it was a quiet, urgent intrusion.

Silas didn’t look up. "I am in session."

"Sir," said the man who entered. It was Graves, his chief of staff. A man who had served him for thirty years and had never, not once, interrupted a session of the Inner Circle. "It is... urgent. Extremely urgent."

Silas stared at the holographic faces. "Gentlemen. A domestic matter. We will reconvene in one hour."

He waved his hand, and the holograms winked out, plunging the room back into the gloom of the fireplace.

Silas turned his chair. "This had better be about a nuclear war, Graves. Or my coffee."

Graves looked pale. He walked forward, holding a secure tablet with trembling hands. "It’s... it’s about the Portstown operation, sir. The Tower."

Silas frowned. "Marnus? What has the boy done now? Did he buy another island? Did he crash another prototype car?"

"Sir... there was an incident. An assault. The Tower has been... breached."

"Breached?" Silas scoffed, standing up and walking to the fireplace. "The Tower is a fortress. Marnus has an army. Who breached it? The Feds?"

"No, sir. It appears to have been... a freelance element. Two individuals."

Silas paused, his back to Graves. "Two? You interrupted the Circle to tell me two people broke into my grandson’s playground?"

"Sir..." Graves’ voice cracked. "Marnus is dead."

The silence that followed was absolute. The fire crackled, a log shifting with a shower of sparks.

Silas didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He stared into the flames, watching the orange tongues lick at the soot-stained bricks.

"Say that again," Silas whispered.

"Marnus is dead, sir. We... we have confirmation from the clean-up crew. He was... beaten to death. On the roof terrace. The extraction VTOL was sabotaged. It crashed. He... he didn’t make it."

Silas Warner felt a sharp, cold pain in the center of his chest. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was the feeling of a legacy snapping in half. Marnus was arrogant, yes. He was flashy, he was loud, he wore ridiculous clothes. But he was smart. He was ruthless. He was the only one of Silas’s progeny who had the stomach to run the empire. The rest were weaklings, artists, philanthropists. Marnus was a shark.

And now, the shark was dead.

"Who?" Silas asked. The word was a stone dropping into a deep well.

"We’re... we’re not sure, sir. The security footage was wiped. The servers were scrubbed. But we have reports from the survivors. A man and a woman. The man... they say he fought like a demon. He tore through the Elite Guard with his bare hands."

Silas turned around. His face was a mask of terrifying, frozen grief. His eyes were wet, but his voice was steady as a glacier.

"My boy," he whispered. "My... successor."

He took a breath, a ragged, hitching sound. He walked to his desk and picked up a heavy crystal decanter. He poured a glass of whiskey, his hand shaking so violently the glass clinked against the rim. He downed it in one gulp.

"I want them found," Silas said, his voice rising. "I want this man... this nobody... I want him found. I want him peeled. I want his family peeled. I want everyone he has ever spoken to peeled. Do you understand me, Graves?"

"Yes, sir. We have teams mobilizing—"

The door opened again. A second aide, a young woman, rushed in. She looked terrified.

"Mr. Warner," she squeaked. "I’m so sorry. But... there is a call. On the Black Line."

Silas froze. The Black Line. A phone that hadn’t rung in five years. A phone that only three people in the world had the number for.

He looked at the phone on his desk. It was an old, heavy, black rotary phone. It was ringing. Rrrrring. Rrrrring.

Silas looked at Graves. The grief in his eyes was momentarily replaced by something else. Fear.

He walked to the desk. He picked up the receiver.

"This is Warner."

The voice on the other end was digitized, distorted, impossible to identify. But the tone was unmistakable. It was amused.

"Silas. My condolences. It’s a tragedy. The boy had... potential. Misguided, loud potential. But potential nonetheless."

"Valerius," Silas spat the name. "Did you do this? Is this your play?"

"Me? Heavens, no. I enjoyed Marnus. He was entertaining. No, Silas. This is... a complication. A new variable. The man who killed your grandson... he is not one of mine. He is not one of yours. He is... something else."

"I don’t care what he is," Silas snarled. "I will burn the city to the ground to find him."

"Careful, old friend," the voice purred. "This man... he has friends. Powerful friends. Friends who just seized your servers. Friends who are currently freezing your assets in the Caymans. If you go to war now, you will lose more than a grandson. You will lose the Empire."

Silas gripped the phone so hard the plastic creaked. "Are you threatening me?"

"I am advising you. Lay low. Lick your wounds. Bury the boy. Do not pursue this. The man... ’Rick Smith’... is protected. For now."

"Rick Smith," Silas repeated the name, tasting it. It sounded common. Filthy. "You know him."

"I know of him. And I know that if you send your armies against him right now, Corporate Oversight will dismantle you piece by piece. Let it go, Silas. The game has changed."

The line went dead.

Silas stood there, the dial tone buzzing in his ear. He slammed the receiver down, cracking the base of the phone.

He looked at Graves. He looked at the fire. He felt the weight of his eighty years pressing down on him.

"Sir?" Graves whispered. "The orders? Do we stand down?"

Silas looked up. A single tear tracked through the deep lines of his face. He wiped it away with a thumb that felt like sandpaper.

"Stand down?" Silas whispered. A low, terrible chuckle bubbled up from his chest. "Valerius thinks I care about the money? He thinks I care about the Empire? My blood is spilled on the pavement, Graves."

He walked to the window, looking out at the white, frozen peaks of the Alps.

"Call The Huntsman," Silas said softly.

Graves gasped. "Sir... The Huntsman is... indiscriminate. He is a nuclear option. If we unleash him in a city..."

"I don’t care," Silas roared, spinning around, his face twisted into a rictus of pure hate. "Let Corporate Oversight come! Let the assets freeze! I want Rick Smith dead! I want his head on this desk! CALL HIM!"

Graves swallowed hard. "Yes, sir." He turned and fled the room.

Silas turned back to the window. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass.

"Marnus," he whispered to the snow. "I will make them pay. I will make them all pay."