Julius stayed up late into the night, combing through the child abduction cases Alyssa had also been working on. His superior had told him to rest and keep his family safe — but Julius had been given permission to look into it, and he wasn’t one to let time go to waste.

He was grateful Elliot had been saved. He knew it, deeply. But he also knew that gratitude would come at a cost.

Now, as he worked through the cases the police had already built, the weight of what he was reading settled over him.

They already had a significant lead.

Ghost.

It explained why the long-haired man had raised the possibility of hacking. If it were Ghost, breaking into a government system or wiping road CCTV footage would be trivial. On top of that, every piece of evidence from the recent cases pointed to the same person.

The problem was that no one knew who Ghost actually was.

No name. No face. No gender. Nothing. A complete blank.

"Of all people," Julius murmured, leaning back in his chair. The room was dark, his face lit only by the glow of his computer screen. "It just had to be..."

He clenched his jaw, staring at the case file.

"Why?" he asked himself. "Why would Ghost do this?"

There was only a thin line between the underground world and those who enforced the law. The police were just as aware of the underground’s movements as the underground was of theirs — the big names, the organizations, the patterns of destruction. Ghost, in particular, had always been an anomaly.

The name said it all.

But what made Ghost genuinely interesting — even among people in the underground — was the duality. Ghost was an individual who had committed both crimes and something resembling good deeds in equal measure. Large criminal organizations, corrupt politicians, dirty cops — Ghost had a way of targeting all of them. There had been cases where Ghost inadvertently helped Interpol, and others where Ghost had made their work considerably harder.

"But this is different," Julius muttered, frowning as he skimmed through the file. "This doesn’t feel right."

He wasn’t defending Ghost’s activities — he would still put handcuffs on that person the moment he got the chance. But after years of dealing with the worst kinds of criminals, this felt deeply out of character.

"And it feels like..." he trailed off, staring at close-up photos of the signatures left at each crime scene. "...they were left on purpose."

His expression darkened. He was torn between his instincts and the evidence the police had already stacked against Ghost.

"If this really is Ghost — what’s the motive?" he wondered. "Why leave traces now, after never doing it before?"

He kept scrolling, and something stopped him cold.

"What?" His brows knitted together. "How did I miss this?"

The next report detailed Ghost allegedly joining Dominion. And given that Julius had been actively working against Dominion — on top of turning every hospital upside down looking for the Black Dragon over the past several days — this could very well be a direct warning aimed at him.

His heart dropped at the thought.

He’d already considered it earlier, but reading it now felt like a boulder landing on his shoulders.

Silence filled the room as he leaned back, staring at nothing.

Then his phone lit up on the desk.

He reached for it, only to see an unknown number.

He stared at the screen. Slowly, his expression shifted, something in his gut screaming at him not to answer.

He didn’t have a good feeling about this.

But he pressed the green button anyway.

He brought the phone to his ear without a word. Silence on the line. He waited a full minute before he spoke.

"Who is this?" he asked quietly.

The question hung in the air. The tension in the room thickened. Another long moment passed before a deep voice came through.

"It’s not me," said the voice. "Stay out of it."

Clack.

Julius pulled the phone away and stared at it.

He sat like that for an entire minute.

"Ghost," he breathed. "It’s definitely Ghost."

It wasn’t surprising that Ghost could reach him. This person was among the best hackers in the underground world. If any contact had already been compromised, getting a number was nothing. But the question gnawing at him was different.

Why Julius specifically?

Why would Ghost personally call him just to claim innocence and tell him to stand down?

His gaze drifted back to the last page he’d been reading — the report on Ghost’s alleged affiliation with Dominion. He narrowed his eyes as a new possibility took shape. One that was neither surprising nor beyond the realm of reason.

Because the underground, much like any other world, had its own politics. And Dominion was no exception.

"If this is all just politics to them," his jaw tightened, hands curling into fists, "then innocent lives are being used as pieces on a board."

His shoulders tensed. The feeling in his chest wouldn’t go away. For Dominion, this was likely just another move in a longer game. But for Julius, for the police — there were already too many children who had paid for it.

"I’m going to catch them."

*****

Meanwhile, Ashley lowered her hand to her lap. She sat on the edge of the bed, letting out a slow exhale.

"That won’t change his mind," Lucian said from behind her.

"I’m not trying to change his mind." She exhaled and shifted, crawling back to lean against the headboard. She stared at her phone. "I just planted a seed. If he’s going to involve himself in this case, all I need is for him to doubt something — even slightly. That’s enough."

Lucian studied her for a moment. "Good thing you had someone watching his son," he said quietly. "If not..."

He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Julius had come after them with everything he had, just to avenge his son. Grief had a way of burning through a person’s judgment.

"Don’t worry about all of this," Lucian said, nodding at her. "These things — I can handle them."

Ashley looked back at him. "Thanks."

"No." He shook his head. "Don’t."

If anyone should be expressing gratitude right now, it was Lucian — to Ashley. Her plate was overflowing precisely because he had to step back and focus on his recovery.

"Don’t think about the smaller things," he added. "Focus on what needs to come first."

Ashley sighed and moved to his side, wrapping her arms around him. "My husband is the sweetest. How did I not see that sooner?"