2025-04-17 19:14:49CHAPTER 5: Mirror in Red
Rowan stood motionless at the doorway of Cooper Enterprises’ boardroom.
‘MATCH FOUND: GENETIC TWIN SIGNATURE. 84% COMPATIBILITY. STATUS: APPROACHING.’
He squinted at the notification blinking in front of his eyes.
His system never exaggerated. That made it worse.
Twin?
A part of him froze, trying to picture it, was it a man? A woman? Older? Younger? Alive? Dangerous?
But just as fast as the thought arrived, Rowan pushed it away.
“Not now,” he muttered.
‘Recommendation: Investigate immediately. Potential threat or ally.’
“No,” Rowan said out loud. “Let them come to me.”
The notification blinked twice and faded.
He had more urgent business.
Revenge.
The real kind.
The kind that left paper trails and corporate bodies in its wake.
*******
Back at the safe house,Rowan rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt, fingers flexing over the digital keyboard projected from his system interface. The room was dimly lit, quiet, perfect for precision hacking. His system was now synced enough to project multiple screens at once, floating around him in soft white-blue glow.
‘Target: Carson Donovan – Email Server / Cloud Repository / Financial Logs
System Access Level: 92% – Firewall Active – Breach in 14 seconds’
“Let’s dance, Carson,” Rowan murmured.
The server cracked open like a rotten egg.
Lines of code unfolded, decrypted, and poured out data financial statements, internal chat logs, untraceable transactions.
Then, gold.
A hidden folder marked: A.C. / Payoffs & Projects.
Rowan’s eyes narrowed as he clicked in.
It was filled with bribery records. Receipts of hush payments to judges, partnerships with foreign law firms, blackmail logs. Everything Carson and by extension the Coopers tried to bury.
Rowan’s grin was slow, cruel.
“Gotcha.”
He extracted the files, attached metadata to trace the sources, and rerouted everything through an anonymous leak portal set to drop the documents into inboxes of two dozen major legal authorities including the IRS, the Department of Justice, and every bar association Carson had ever dealt with.
But he didn’t stop there.
He found a video.
Carson, in a heated call with Aurora.
Carson: “Don’t push me, Aurora. Your marriage to that guy was a business arrangement. Don’t act like you’re in love now.”
Aurora: “We agreed. Pin the baby on him, wait for him to turn 20, and inherit his father’s company, bleed him dry, and walk away. What makes you think I'm catching feelings?. I can't stand the bastard”
Rowan didn’t blink as he uploaded the video into a timed drop to go live on Cooper Law Firm’s website homepage the next morning.
‘System Alert: Scheduled Release Set – 06:00 AM.’
The final touch?
He inserted a bug into their law firm server that would auto-flag their case records to multiple government audit systems.
‘Damage Level: 67%. Estimated PR Fallout: Catastrophic.’
Rowan leaned back in his chair, a breath escaping his lips.
“System,” he said quietly, “we're just getting started.”
‘Mission Complete. Reward Granted: System Sync 17.5% – New Skill Unlocked: Pulse Decryption.’
*********
NEXT MORNING
Screaming.
There was Utter chaos.
Aurora burst through the firm’s entrance, high heels clicking furiously across the marble floor.
“Hey you!”
The receptionist looked up from her laptop, pale and wide-eyed.
“Ma’am... the homepage... you need to see it.”
Aurora rushed behind the desk, her hands flying to the mouse.
She clicked, and there it was.
A blurry video clip, Carson’s voice. Her voice. Her words.
Playing. On. Loop.
Clients were already watching. Phones were ringing off the hook. Social media was exploding with hashtags like:
#CooperConspiracy
#LegalLiesUncovered#StormontRisingAurora’s blood went cold.
“Where is Carson?!”
The receptionist flinched. “He’s in the server room trying to shut it down.”
She stormed toward the room, flung the door open, and found Carson frantically typing.
“I don’t know how he did this,” Carson growled. “There’s malware buried in everything. Your server is messed up”
Aurora grabbed a chair and smashed it against the wall.
“He was a househusband, Carson! How the hell did he become this?!”
“I don’t know,” Carson muttered. “But whoever he is now... he’s dangerous.”
******
Conrad poured two glasses of dark whiskey and handed one to Rowan.
“To your first strike,” he said.
Rowan clinked the glass. “May the second hit harder.”
He sipped, let it burn down his throat, then leaned against the window, watching New York City glow beneath him.
“You know,” he said, “when I was younger, I used to think if I just tried hard enough, loved enough, stayed quiet long enough, they’d accept me.”
Conrad watched him closely.
Rowan’s lip twitched.
“But now?” His voice darkened. “I want them ruined. Not just disgraced. Not just arrested. Erased.”
‘System Sync: 18.6% – Emotion Recognition Calibration Unlocked.’
Rowan’s system blinked again.
Incoming File Detected – Unidentified Source.
Play? Y/NRowan clicked Yes.
A message opened. No video. No text.
Just an audio file.
He pressed play.
A man’s voice spoke cold, confident, sharp as a blade.
“Hello, Rowan. I see you've started playing. Good. About time.”
Rowan froze.
“It’s your uncle, Kane Stormont. We’ll be seeing each other soon. Let’s see if your father trained you well.”
The message ended.
‘System Alert: Bloodline Match Detected – Secondary Stormont Signature Confirmed.’
Rowan’s hands slowly clenched the whiskey glass.
“Uncle?”
Conrad’s expression shifted slightly.
“I was going to tell you,” he said carefully. “Eventually.”
Rowan turned to him. “You knew?”
“I didn’t know he’d reach out so soon.”
‘New Mission Unlocked: Investigate Kane Stormont. Status: High Risk.’
Rowan's pulse quickened.
Uncle Kane.
The man he’d never met. The man who was supposed to have vanished after his parents’ deaths.
The man whose voice sent chills down his spine without ever having seen his face.
“System,” Rowan said slowly, voice low.
‘Ready.’
“Show me everything you have on Kane Stormont.”
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