Building The Strongest Family

Chapter 394: Fracture

The encrypted conference flickered into existence in the dim light. The air was thick with static, and the video quality fluctuated wildly.

Each CEO appeared as distorted holograms, their faces illuminated only partially, displaying fragmented expressions and cold eyes that mirrored a faint digital glow.

Behind them stood sterile gray walls, testifying to the disarray of their once-mighty empires.

For the first time since forming the Concord, they seemed exposed and vulnerable.

Korin Veyd struck the console with his palm, his voice rough with frustration. "Someone’s leaking our plans to Osborn!"

His declaration cut through the static like a bullet.

Lira Solmarr’s image paused mid-blink before resuming with sharp clarity; her patience was clearly running thin. "You think I’d deliberately sabotage myself? Half my company is on fire because of your botched trades!"

"Botched?" Korin retorted angrily. "We lost over hundreds of trillion of Unicreds! Regulators were at my door this morning!"

The feed flickered as Rook Kael’s image appeared, his face pale and his bloodshot eyes revealing his stress.

"Enough! We’re not here to squabble like children. We’re being played by someone with significant reach."

Mira Hel leaned back into the darkness of her feed, offering a humorless chuckle that acknowledged the harsh truth.

"You’re all too blind to see," she said quietly. "The leak is everything."

A tense silence enveloped the group. "We’ve never been up against just one man," she continued. "We’ve been fighting a reflection of ourselves. Each move we make, every lie we tell, comes back to haunt us before we can even catch our breath."

Her feed shimmered momentarily with digital interference before revealing a flicker of golden light that then vanished into static.

Lira Solmarr was the first to make a decisive move. "Effective immediately," she declared coolly, "NexGen is pulling out of the Concord’s joint fund. We’ll go our own way."

"Coward," Korin spat.

Lira remained unfazed. "Realist. You’ve all forgotten who Osborn really is; he’s not just assembling companies, he’s building nations."

With a swift motion, she cut off access to their shared Concord account.

The holo-screen pulsed red, displaying: ACCESS REVOKED. FUNDS FROZEN.

Rook Kael clenched his jaw, furious. "You’re a fool! Do you think you can run away? Osborn will track you down."

"I’ll take my chances," Lira shot back defiantly as her feed flickered out.

Rook leaned forward, his voice low and authoritative. "I’m initiating a trace now. My intel team will follow his digital trail; we’ll uncover the source of this breach."

The analysts went to work quietly, deploying thousands of scanning nodes across the network, probing black-coded realms and deep web data layers.

At first, they found nothing. Then, something unusual surfaced: every trace they followed circled back to their own systems.

One engineer froze. "Sir... the signature... it’s ours."

"What do you mean?" Rook asked, feeling a chill.

"The hack’s IP origin is coming from within Pandora Health’s secure servers."

Rook felt ice wash over him. "Shut it down."

The engineer’s hands trembled as he tried. "I can’t. It’s unresponsive."

Then, one by one, the holographic lights in Rook’s office dimmed.

Every terminal flickered, and all firewalls collapsed.

On his main screen, a single line of text emerged: "You’re tracing the wrong ghost."

Rook’s heart raced. "No..."

The room plunged into darkness.

Meanwhile, across Veyra Prime, Veyra Aldis sat alone in her high-rise office, surrounded by holograms of code and encrypted signals.

Her hands shook as she opened a private communication channel.

"Connect to Whitmore Family secure node," she whispered.

The AI assistant hesitated. "Warning: This will breach Concord confidentiality."

"Do it."

The line opened, revealing a shadowy figure on the other end.

"I have some crucial information," Veyra said hurriedly. "Osborn is unlike anything we’ve dealt with before. I can provide data, access, whatever you need. But I want protection in return; after all, your family has a stake in the company too."

The figure remained expressionless.

His voice, aged and cold, replied, "Protection comes at a cost."

"I’m willing to pay it."

"Then transmit the data."

She started uploading the file. Just as it reached halfway, her screen flickered; the figure shattered into golden fractals.

Evolon’s voice filled the room: "Deals struck in secrecy rarely see the light."

Her console erupted in sparks, holographic glass splintering and throwing her backwards.

Gasping on the floor, her private feed blinked out before going dark.

In the Dominion Sanctum, Evolon murmured, "Interception complete."

In the encrypted conference room, only four feeds remained active: Darius, Korin Veyd, Mira Hel, and Talis Orin.

The rest were lost to static, their connections severed.

Darius spoke softly, "We’re losing them one by one."

Korin’s eyes blazed with urgency. "Then we must fight! We still have assets, influence!"

Mira sharply countered, "You have nothing left! He’s dismantled our power; every market and contract has been redirected!"

Frustrated, Talis slammed his hand on the desk. "Are you suggesting we just give up?!" Mira’s laughter rang hollow in response.

"I’m saying we’ve already lost."

Another flicker occurred; Talis’s feed went dark, and then Korin’s.

Darius and Mira remained, enveloped in silence, only the low hum of static breaking the stillness.

Finally, Darius whispered, "You knew this was coming, didn’t you?"

Mira fixed her gaze on the feed, her expression unreadable. "I knew the moment he created the Emerald Pod," she replied softly.

"Osborn doesn’t just compete; he replaces." Her hologram shattered, fragments of her signal scattering like shards of light.

Then silence enveloped Darius.

--------

The chamber was eerily still. Arthur stood at its center, clutching a half-full glass of crimson wine.

Surrounding him floated ten holographic emblems, each representing one of the Concord corporations: Aetheris, NexGen, Pandora, BioVertex, Eclipse, SynthLife, VitaForge, NovaMedica, Obelisk, and others.

Evolon appeared beside him, shimmering with delicate golden pulses. One by one, the emblems began to crumble into dust, evaporating into brilliant light.

"Their maneuvering has failed. Their empire has lost its foundation," Evolon stated calmly.

Arthur watched in silence, swirling his wine. "Did anyone reach out to us?" he inquired.

"One person," Evolon answered. "Veyra Aldis. Her message was intercepted before it could go through."

Arthur nodded slowly. "And the others?"

"Panic, division, and fear."

He set the glass down and turned towards the floating data streams that danced like fireflies in twilight.

"Ten companies," he mused. "Centuries of control. All it took was exposure."

Evolon’s voice softened slightly. "They are shattered beyond recovery."

Arthur’s expression darkened with determination. "Not yet."

He lifted his gaze towards the digital void above. "Fear binds more tightly than failure. They’ll come crawling back, piece by piece, desperate to survive."

He took another sip from his glass, exhaling deeply. "The Concord of Ten," he reflected thoughtfully. "Let them scheme; I already own their fears."

As Evolon’s light dimmed, it faded into darkness like smoke drifting from a flame. Before vanishing completely, its voice resonated low and clear:

"War is not won by strength; it’s won by anticipating every move."

The final holograms flickered out, and once again, silence returned to the chamber.

In that stillness, Arthur remained resolute, unyielding, and untouchable.

While chaos reigned in the world outside, inside Dominion Sanctum, one thing was clear: the once-mighty gods of industry had fallen.

From their remnants, a new empire was quietly and strategically emerging, shrouded in mystery.