Celeste reached into the inner pocket of her silk robe and retrieved a device that looked like a standard, high-end civilian smartphone, but whose internal architecture was a custom, military-grade satellite transceiver encrypted with quantum-resistant algorithmic protocols.
She bypassed the interface screen, entering a twelve-digit numeric string by touch, and pressed the call button.
The connection routed through four offshore proxy servers in Singapore, Zurich, and the Cayman Islands before clicking open on the second ring.
“Sector Four Command. Talk to me.”
The gruff, gravelly voice of Commander Vance, crackled through the encrypted earpiece.
Even across three thousand miles and multiple proxy relays, the veteran warlord sounded like he was currently sitting in a room full of munitions, chewing on an unlit cigar.
“This is Nemesis,” Celeste said softly, her voice dropping into the cool, authoritative frequency of the underworld.
Her posture on the balcony was rigid, her dark eyes scanning the perimeter sightlines of the manor’s grounds out of ingrained habit.
“Sit-rep: Civilian insertion complete. Initial family contact established without kinetic incident.”
“Celeste!” Luis’s voice immediately lost its gruff military bark, rising an octave into his familiar, boisterous, overexcited roar.
“You’re calling from the manor! I’ve been sitting by the secure terminal for six hours waiting for your telemetry! How did it go? Did the styling kit work? Did your mother cry? Did you use the leveraged palm-strike on anyone yet?!”
“Negative on the physical violence, Luis,” Celeste replied, her lips twitching with dry amusement as she leaned against the stone balustrade.
“The pink chiffon dress remained in Sector Four. I conducted the insertion in black wool. However… your domestic drama briefings were accurate regarding the behavioral profiles. Mother exhibited significant cardiovascular distress and weeping; the three older male siblings displayed classic defensive alienation and tsundere posturing; and the illegitimate aunt posing as an adopted sister initiated a standard Green Tea victimization protocol within ten minutes of my arrival.”
“Ha! I knew it!” Luis barked triumphantly, the sound of him slapping a metal desk echoing through the earpiece.
“I told you episode twelve of The Kind Mother’s Secret Grief was a tactical blueprint! What did you do? Did you let her frame you?”
“And I allowed the youngest biological heir, my younger brother, Noah, to blow her social standing at the dinner table while Father fired her internal domestic spy in the east wing.”
There was a five-second pause on the line before Luis let out a thunderous, uproarious laugh that nearly clipped the audio receiver of the transceiver.
“You still speak too rigily. You used a ten-year-old child as your primary counter-offensive proxy while enjoying a banquet?! Celeste, you truly are a cold-blooded tactical monster! How was the duck?”
“Fruitwood-roasted. Exceptional fat-to-lean ratio. The kitchen operating standards here are Tier-One,” she reported seriously.
Then, her tone cooled, her dark eyes narrowing as she looked toward the eastern skyline of the city, where the old-money estates of Old Patriarch Archibald Hartwell’s Main House sat cloaked in darkness.
“Put Ghost on the line.”
“Hold,” Luis grunted.
There was a shuffling of chairs, the clicking of mechanical keyboards, and then a new voice came over the encrypted frequency, smooth, rapid, and vibrating with hyper-focused digital intensity.
“Ghost here, Boss,” The Hacker said, his fingers flying across his terminals in the background.
“I’ve been monitoring your manor’s local network and the digital footprint of the Hartwell Group since you crossed the capital perimeter this afternoon. I saw the HR termination order your father logged for housekeeper Cui at 16:42. You want me to dig into her accounts?”
“Already anticipated, Ghost,” Celeste said coldly.
“What did you find?”
“Dirty money, Boss. And not just from the white lotus sister,” Ghost reported, his voice dropping into a serious, professional cadence.
“I traced Evelyn’s secondary offshore accounts. Over the past four years, she’s received semi-annual transfer deposits totaling roughly two million dollars. The routing accounts trace back through three shell companies registered in Macau, but the initial seed capital originated from a commercial real estate holding firm controlled by your eldest uncle from the Main House.”
Eldest Uncle.
Old Master Archibald Hartwell’s favored son.
‘The man whose financial incompetence eleven years ago caused the trafficking deal that traded my life for Rosalle’s.’
“They were paying a housekeeper to monitor my father’s branch estate,” Celeste murmured, her voice dropping into a freezing, lethal register that would have made an underworld cartel boss drop to his knees.
“And they used her to deliberately sabotage my living quarters today to test our family’s internal cohesion.”
“That’s the pattern, Boss,” Ghost confirmed.
“The Main House is bleeding cash. Their traditional manufacturing stocks are down eight percent this quarter, while your father’s clean-energy patents just secured a massive government contract. Old Master Hartwell knows that if your father’s household remains united and independent, the Main House won’t be able to leverage your family’s assets to cover their debt. Rosalle Hartwell is their anchor inside your walls. They want your family divided.”
“They are eleven years too late,” Celeste said softly.
Her pale hand gripped the stone balustrade of the balcony, her knuckles turning white as the terrifying, blood-soaked authority of the King of Hell radiated outward into the capital night.
“Listen to me, Ghost. You will maintain continuous, twenty-four-hour digital overwatch on the Main House’s executive servers and Rosalle Hartwell’s communication channels. Archive every financial transaction, every illicit transfer, and every piece of blackmail data they generate.”
“You want me to leak it to the capital media, Boss? I can crater their stock by tomorrow noon,” Ghost offered eagerly.
“Negative,” Celeste commanded.
“We do not initiate kinetic or digital strikes while the family is stabilizing. My youngest brother is currently sleeping twenty feet away from me. I will not have the atmosphere of this manor polluted by media scrums and high-society hysteria during his summer vacation. We will archive the ammunition and wait for the right time to strike.”