The upper executive floor felt wrong the moment John stepped off the lift. Not silent. Not empty. Not chaotic. Just wrong. The air was heavy with a quiet tension that clung to the walls like fog. Rita leaned on him as they crossed the polished floor, her steps slow but steady enough to keep moving. Celine remained close behind, every sense sharpened for danger.
The doors to John's private suite opened at his touch. The lights flicked on. Everything looked exactly as he left it.
Except for one thing.
A porcelain cup sat on his desk.
Fresh.
Still steaming.
Placed in the exact centre of his workspace.
Celine froze. "Someone was here minutes ago."
John set Rita carefully on the couch and crossed to the desk. He touched the cup's rim. Warm. The scent rising from it was sharp and bitter.
Black tea.
John never drank black tea.
He looked around the suite slowly, feeling eyes that were no longer there. Someone had stood in his office. Someone who knew the floor plan. Someone confident enough to leave a calling card in plain sight.
Rita shivered. "Adrian."
"No," John said quietly. "He wants us to think it was him. This was someone else."
Celine scanned the room with narrowed eyes. "The Circle is signalling that they have already stepped inside your throne room."
John faced her. "Then I will show them why that was a mistake."
He lifted the cup and smashed it against the wall. Ceramic shattered across the floor.
Rita flinched.
Celine simply nodded. "Good. They need to see you are not a man they can intimidate."
A soft chime echoed from the wall monitor.
An encrypted message request.
Unknown sender.
John crossed the room and opened the channel.
A single phrase appeared on the screen.
He should never have given you the cube.
John felt the floor tilt under his anger. He typed nothing. The message responded anyway, as though reading him.
Your father made many errors. Trusting you was his final one.
Celine stiffened. "John. Disconnect."
He closed the channel. The monitor went black.
The room seemed to exhale with the disappearance of the message, but tension still crawled in every shadow. Someone inside The Crest was communicating with him through a private channel that should have been impossible to access.
This was no ordinary traitor.
John turned to Rita. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Just my hands," she whispered.
He knelt beside her and inspected them. The skin was bruised and scraped, but nothing was broken. She forced a smile.
"I am fine. Really."
John's jaw softened for only a second before hardening again. "Do not ever try something like that again."
Rita's eyes dropped. "I wanted to protect you."
"I know. But protection requires precision, not panic."
She nodded slowly, absorbing the reprimand like someone who had been expecting it.
Celine cleared her throat. "We should bring Morgan into this discussion. He has been trying to reach you."
John straightened. "Where is he now?"
The answer arrived before anyone could speak.
The suite doors swung open.
Morgan stood in the entrance, breathing hard, his coat half undone as if he had run through several hallways to reach him. His eyes locked on Rita first, relief crossing his face.
"You are alive," Morgan said.
"Barely," Rita replied.
Morgan stepped forward. "John, why did you not respond to any of my calls. The alarms triggered half the security division. The board has been knocking at my door. Adrian is walking around the building like he owns the place. And I just found three senior administrators who claim they received a message from someone using your clearance code."
John and Celine exchanged a glance.
"The Circle," Celine said.
Morgan crossed his arms. "Then we have a serious problem."
Rita shifted on the couch. "We already knew that."
"No," Morgan said sharply. "We have an even bigger problem."
John stepped toward him. "Explain."
Morgan lowered his voice.
"Someone impersonating your clearance granted access to the archive room on Floor Twelve. They took nothing."
John frowned. "Then why enter?"
Morgan looked him straight in the eye.
"To place something."
John felt a cold weight settle in his chest. "What did they leave?"
Morgan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small object.
A silver ring.
Simple. Polished. With a symbol engraved along the inside.
Rita inhaled sharply. "John. That is your family crest."
Celine's face drained of colour. "No. That is not the Raymond crest."
He turned the ring in his hand.
"It is the original symbol of the Founding Circle."
John felt something ignite inside him.
Rage, cold and complete.
Morgan handed it to him. "This was left on your personal shelf. Whoever entered the archive wanted you to find it."
John closed his hand around the ring.
"They want a war," he said quietly.
Celine nodded. "And they want you to know they are already inside your walls."
Rita whispered, "What do we do now?"
John looked at each of them.
Rita.
Morgan.
Celine.
His circle.
His frontline.
His first line of fire.
Then he turned toward the shattered cup on the floor.
"We stop reacting," John said. "We strike."
Morgan's brow lifted. "At who?"
John opened his hand. The silver ring gleamed in his palm.
"First, we identify the traitor working inside this building," he said. "Then we dismantle everyone who is protecting them."
Celine stepped closer. "This will not be clean. It will not be quiet. And it will not be safe."
John's eyes darkened.
"Good."
He placed the ring on his desk.
"Because I am done playing their game."
He looked at the three of them.
"From now on, we make the rules."