Billy descended the stairwell in silence, his footsteps barely a whisper against the reinforced steel steps. The air inside Kane Industries was sterile, humming with the distant thrum of security systems, servers, and machinery.

  This wasn’t just a corporation.

  It was a war machine.

  The deeper Billy went, the more he noticed subtle details. The walls weren’t just concrete—they were lined with composite plating, designed to withstand heavy fire. The air smelled faintly of ozone and oil, a sign of high-end tech at work.

  And then there were the cameras.

  Sleek, barely visible, tucked into the corners like mechanical eyes. Billy knew better than to trust the blind spots—Kane Industries had next-gen tracking systems, the kind that could detect anomalies in body heat and movement patterns.

  This wasn’t just corporate security.

  This was military-grade.

  Billy followed the digital map on his stolen key card, guiding him toward the archives—the likeliest place to find Kane’s hidden secrets.

  The floor plan was unusual. Instead of typical office spaces, the 27th floor had reinforced storage units, encrypted data vaults, and isolated server racks. The lighting was dim, casting a cold, artificial glow over the brushed metal surfaces.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  This wasn’t an office.

  This was a containment zone.

  Billy exhaled slowly. He’d seen installations like this before—classified sites meant to store black project data. Governments, megacorporations, intelligence agencies—anyone with power had a place like this.

  The question was, what was Kane hiding?

  Billy reached the final door.

  Keypad access. Fingerprint scanner. Facial recognition.

  He was about to bypass the system when a faint click echoed behind him.

  A gun being cocked.

  “Step away from the panel.”

  Billy didn’t flinch.

  He turned slowly, his hands at his sides.

  The woman standing across from him wore a sleek black combat suit, lightweight but reinforced. A sidearm was trained on his chest, steady and professional. But it was her eyes—sharp, calculating, golden—that gave her away.

  Not a corporate goon.

  A hunter.

  “Didn’t think I’d have company,” Billy said casually.

  The woman’s expression didn’t change. “That makes two of us.”

  Her free hand lifted a holographic badge. A symbol flickered into view—an iron sigil, shaped like a three-pronged spear.

  Billy felt his pulse slow.

  He recognized it.

  The Cerberus Initiative.

  A shadow faction that dealt with threats no one else could. If they were here, then Kane Industries was hiding something far worse than military weapons.

  The woman tilted her head. “You’re not on our list.”

  Billy smirked. “I never am.”

  Silence.

  Then, from the depths of the facility, an alarm blared—deep, mechanical, wrong.

  The woman’s jaw tightened. “Too late.”

  Billy glanced at the panel behind him. Whatever was in this facility, it wasn’t staying contained anymore.

  And now, the real game was about to begin.