Kidnapped

The city never slept, but it wasn't alive either. ​ Its veins pulsed with electricity, its heart beat in the rhythm of subway trains and traffic lights, but its soul had long since been sold off in pieces—one contract at a time. Chicago was a machine now, a sprawling network of glass and steel, humming with the secrets of the powerful and the desperate. ​ And Alex Vance knew better than most that machines could break.

He had grown up in the shadow of OmnieCorp, the empire his father built from nothing. Elias Thorne was a man of ambition, a master of leverage, and a ghost in his own home. Alex had learned from him, not through lessons but through observation—how to calculate risk, how to find the weak points in a system, how to survive when the odds were stacked against you. ​ But he had also learned something his father never intended to teach: how to see the cracks in the foundation, the places where power faltered and the truth leaked out. ​

The truth was what had brought Alex to the data center that night, though he hadn't known it at the time. ​ He was just looking for parts, scavenging to pay the rent and keep his head above water. ​ But the moment he saw that blinking green light in the darkness, he knew he was about to cross a line he couldn't uncross. ​ The file wasn't just data—it was a weapon, a ticking bomb that could shatter the fragile balance of the city's machine.

And now, as the snow fell in heavy sheets outside the safehouse window, Alex stared at the map Ghost had left him, the list of names and places that promised a new game, a new chance. ​ He thought about his father, about Silas, about the bodies left behind in the wake of his choices. ​ He thought about the file, now scattered across the digital ether, and the chaos it had unleashed. ​

The city was still a machine, but Alex wasn't sure if he was a cog or a wrench. All he knew was that he wasn't done. ​ Not yet. Somewhere out there, the game was still being played, and for the first time, Alex felt ready to make his move. ​