Chapter 32: Digging Too Deep

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Digging Too Deep

Though, there was no photographs of the interior of the estate and no public tours were granted. Apart from the photo she got, there were almost no information given about the Blackthorn estate, which only made it stranger.

Because in Zoey’s mind, only when something is fishy would you have need to hide it.

"Blackthorne..." She frowned, thinking deeply about it. "But Grant is his surname, how are you related to Alexander, and who is this man that looks exactly like him?"

Her fingers resumed flying across the keyboard. "There has to be a connection."

Another encrypted directory opened, but just as she was about to initiate another deep search, every monitor froze.

"...What?"

The cursor stopped moving, then...without Zoey even touching the mouse to give any directions to it...every open window closed by itself. One after another, after another.

Zoey’s pulse quickened at which she was seeing, and she wondered just what could be happening.

"No..." She grabbed the mouse immediately, trying to stop it’s actions and give it another direction, but nothing was happening at all....the keyboard refused every command she gave it.

And then, just when every file she opened, closed by itself....her screen went black. Utterly, completely black. Zoey stiffened, her hands freezing mid-air.

"What in the...?" She tapped frantically, then hammered at the keys, but the screen remained stubbornly dark.

Then, slowly, agonizingly, white letters began to materialize, one by one, stark against the inky blackness. Not her typing, not her code. It was a message for her...from whoever the bloody hell thought it was funny.

For several long seconds...the room fell silent, except for the sound of Zoey’s heartbeat that was beating loudly in her chest.

Then white letters slowly appeared across the center of the screen.

WHO ARE YOU?

Zoey’s blood ran cold. Her own reflection stared back at her from the black monitor.

"...You’ve got to be kidding me."

Without wasting time, another line appeared.

YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED SEARCHING.

Zoey felt her heart slammed against her ribs at seeing that message. Someone wasn’t simply blocking her. Zoey felt a cold dread trickle down her spine, a prickle of fear spreading across her skin. Her breath hitched. She was being watched.....Some pervert was watching her right now. And she was also being... hacked. Her own domain was breached.

"Shit!" she gasped, a raw, involuntary sound. Without another thought, Zoey lunged beneath the desk, her hand shot out, yanking the network cable free and the power cord from the back of the computer tower with a desperate tug.

The monitors winked out instantly, plunging the room into a sudden, unsettling silence. She remained frozen for several seconds, listening to nothing except her own breathing.

Finally...She sank slowly into her chair and leaned back, her chest heaving, the adrenaline surging through her veins.

"It actually happened..." A nervous laugh escaped her and she rubbed both hands over her face. "I can’t believe that...i just got hacked."

The realization settled heavily in her chest. She got hacked. And by the level of skill required to do so, it was not by some ordinary cybercriminal. Whoever had intercepted her had done so effortlessly. As though they’d been waiting for someone curious enough to look beyond Alexander Grant’s public face.

The hacker got hacked. The irony was almost suffocating.

This man, Alexander Grant, was more than just a billionaire CEO with an enigmatic charm. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, protected by layers of unseen, formidable power. And Zoey, for the first time in a very long time, felt truly, deeply unnerved. She knew one thing with absolute certainty: she was far from done.

Zoey stared at the lifeless monitors. Her fear of what just happened hadn’t disappeared. If anything...it had deepened into something else. A determination to get to the roots of whoever this pervert that hacked her was. And to find out everything she can about this mysterious billionaire.

There is definitely something that he’s hiding, and Zoey could bet with everything she had that this man....this Alexander Grant is hiding a big secret.... something he didn’t want anyone to know about him.

She leaned back in her chair and exhaled slowly. "Alexander Grant..." Her eyes narrowed. "Whatever it is that you’re hiding..." She glanced once more at the unplugged computer.

"...it’s far bigger than a mysterious tattoo. And one way or another...I’m going to find out what."

******

Grant Enterprise — Seattle, Washingtonℯℯ𝘭.

There were buildings in Seattle that commanded attention. There were skylines that drew the eye upward the way a flame drew a moth — helplessly, instinctively. And then there was ....Grant Enterprise....

It did not merely stand among the other towers of glass and steel that crowded Seattle’s skyline. It ....presided.... over them.

The Grant Enterprise building dominated the Seattle skyline like a monument to power. One hundred and twelve floors of seamless, floor-to-ceiling obsidian glass that caught the morning light and fractured it into something cold and magnificent, the way a diamond might — beautiful, yes, but with edges sharp enough to cut.

The structure rose so high that on cloudy days, its upper floors seemed to disappear into the sky, and there was an unmistakable sense of authority surrounding the place.

It was the tallest structure in the city by a margin that felt almost deliberate, as though the architect had been given a single instruction: ....make the gap impossible to ignore.

The building’s facade bore no flashy signage, no garish branding. Only at the base, etched in understated platinum letters into the black marble arch of its entrance, were the words: ....GRANT ENTERPRISE.

That was all it needed.

Grant Enterprise was more than a corporation.....It was an empire.

Ranked as the number one company in the world for the third consecutive year, Grant Enterprise was a name that sat at the top of every financial journal, every global index, every whispered conversation in boardrooms from Tokyo to London.

The company had interests in technology, finance, real estate, energy, security, and several other industries that most people did not even realize were connected to the same organization.

It was widely regarded as the most powerful privately owned company in the world, with competitors constantly attempting to match its influence, but none had succeeded.

It had worthy opponents ..... formidable ones ..... corporations with their own empires and their own legacies. But none had been able to touch it, and the more discerning minds in the business world had begun to wonder why.

Rumors had circulated for years now, quiet and persistent like smoke beneath a closed door — whispers of a connection between Grant Enterprise and the legendary, near-mythical ....Blackthorne Group..., an entity so private and so powerful that even its existence was debated in certain circles.

Whether the two were linked by business, by blood, or by something else entirely, no one had been able to verify. No one had been brave enough to dig deep enough to find out.

It remained exactly what it was — a rumor. And perhaps that was by design...

Inside, the lobby was a cathedral of black marble and polished chrome, so immaculate that every footfall echoed like a small pronouncement.

The staff moved through the space with the quiet, practiced efficiency of people who understood that noise..... unnecessary noise.....was not welcome here.

Oliver Colt stepped out of the private executive elevator on the top floor, that was reserved entirely for one man .... and the doors slid shut behind him with a whisper of precision engineering.

He had a file tucked beneath one arm, slim and neat, its contents anything but. His stride was unhurried but purposeful, the kind of walk that belonged to a man who always knew exactly where he was going, the polished click of his Oxford shoes against the ivory marble announcing his approach before he arrived.

His white suit was impeccable .... Brioni, cut to the precise geometry of his frame .... a blood-red Hermès tie knotted at his throat with the kind of careless precision that took years of practice. On his wrist, a glint of a Patek Philippe dial caught the overhead lighting as he walked.

The 100th floor was a different country from the floors below. Down there, the building was alive with the ambient hum of a company in motion ... keyboards, phone calls, the low tide of professional conversation.

Up here, the air itself seemed quieter, as though sound knew better than to intrude. The carpet that stretched across the corridor was a deep charcoal, so thick it swallowed the echo of his shoes the moment he stepped off the marble landing.

The walls were paneled in dark walnut and brushed steel, lined with original paintings ....not prints, not reproductions, ...originals.....that Oliver had long since stopped trying to appraise. The price of this corridor alone could have bankrupted a small nation.

At the far end of it, seated behind a curved desk of polished white quartz, Miss Dahlia looked up the moment she heard him round the corner, the way she always did — as though she had been expecting him, precisely on time, and would have been quietly alarmed by anything else.