The storm over Zurich hadn't passed. It had merely learned how to disguise itself.
By morning, the sky was calm. The financial district sparkled like nothing had ever cracked beneath its glass façade. But within the hidden corners of the banking world behind six firewalls, a triple proxy shield, and a vault that didn't officially exist. The Wolves prepared to sink their teeth into the *Valkyrie Trust.
And Elias Thorne was done waiting.
Inside a modest café facing the Grand Opera House, Elias sat with Sienne. She wore sunglasses too big for the morning light, and a coat laced with more wires than fabric.
"Everything's wired," she said. "We're looking at twelve minutes, max. That's if Jude does his job."
"He'll do it," Elias replied, sipping espresso like it wasn't the last peaceful moment he might ever have.
"And Magritte?" Sienne asked.
Elias didn't flinch. "She's the failsafe."
Outside, across the square, Jude was posing as a Draxon courier. His badge was forged. His suitcase carried no papers—just a miniature EMP device and an encrypted transmitter that pulsed once every two seconds.
His target? An access node hidden behind the eastern security panel of Zürich Zentrale Bank.
At that same hour, Valerie Dexter lounged in her private office, halfway through a bottle of vintage Tempranillo. Her assistant read the morning's market reports, but Valerie wasn't listening.
Her mind was elsewhere.
"Did we get eyes on Elias last night?" she asked.
The assistant hesitated. "Not directly. But his PA moved through Lucerne and took the express to Geneva at 03:11."
"Geneva?" Valerie's glass paused mid-air. "They're circling Valkyrie."
"I've increased surveillance."
"No," she said sharply. "That tips our hand."
She stood and crossed to the wall panel. A slow push revealed a safe. Inside it, a single USB stick.
Valerie stared at it for a long time.
"You touch Valkyrie," she whispered, "and you better kill the queen."
At precisely 09:00, Zurich time, Jude triggered the EMP.
Alarms blipped but only for a second. The system rerouted its security loop.
Inside the control chamber of Valkyrie, Sienne patched into the core node, fingers dancing like spells across her keyboard.
"Seven minutes," she hissed. "You better be uploading that worm, Elias."
From the café, Elias watched as the Valkyrie servers flickered on his screen. He initiated the transfer.
Six billion dollars of black-traced wealth.
Twenty-eight shell companies.
A dozen slush funds for bribes and assassinations.
And names so many names.
"It's done," he said.
He leaned back in the chair, just as a text came through.
MAGRITTE, Incoming. Move.
Seconds later, an explosion rocked the east side of the bank.
Sienne grabbed the drive and bolted. Jude was already bleeding when Elias reached him in the alley behind the café.
"Trap," he coughed. "They knew. They knew."
Elias ripped his jacket off, trying to press the wound. His phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't Magritte.
UNKNOWN. You should've left Valkyrie buried. Now, you're next.
From the rooftops, a sniper scope blinked red.
But Magritte was already moving.
Dressed as a museum curator, she slipped through the northern exit, dragging a briefcase that held the *real* data. What Elias had downloaded was a dummy a ghost file seeded by Sienne. The real thing? Encoded onto an optical card the size of a fingernail.
She'd memorized the encryption keys.
She was the failsafe but she wasn't alone.
Two agents followed her onto the bridge.
By the time the first one reached for his gun, she'd disarmed him with a heel to the groin and snapped the other's wrist.
Magritte wasn't just a knife.
She was a storm.
That night, Elias stood before The Wolves.
Jude was alive but hospitalized. Sienne had gone dark. Magritte had sent a single message. "Piece secured. Valkyrie is ours."
But Elias didn't smile.
Instead, he looked at the names on the file.
Valerie wasn't working alone.
There were board members. A retired general. Someone inside the Prime Ministry. And a familiar name buried deep in an offshore fund,
"Landon Crick."
"Get me Magritte," Elias said.
He stared into the fire as it cracked and burned.
"We're going to war."
The city of Zurich fell silent under the weight of night, but Elias Thorne didn't sleep.
He stood at the balcony of a hotel penthouse the suite paid for in a name he no longer legally owned, overlooking a city that had just tried to bury him alive. His suit jacket hung off one shoulder, his shirt half-unbuttoned. The scars from Zurich were fresh. Jude was still in surgery. Sienne had vanished. Magritte was somewhere in the Alps, off-grid.
And yet, Elias felt power blooming in his veins.
Valkyrie hadn't been a failure.
It had been an opening move.
The following morning, the core of the Wolves met in an undisclosed room beneath a centuries-old estate in Lucerne.
Around the table, Elias Thorne, Magritte, Rowan Vee*(head of Eurasian operations), and Tamsin Holt, a British hacker turned financial architect.
Sienne's seat remained empty.
"I decrypted the shell companies," Tamsin said, eyes flicking through three overlapping holograms. "Valerie Dexter moved \$200 million last year to a trust in Dubai under the pseudonym Violet Strand. But what's interesting is that Violet shares banking credentials with someone from your past."
"Landon Crick?" Elias guessed.
Magritte leaned forward. "No. Your mother."
The room went dead silent.
Elias blinked. "My mother's dead."
"Apparently not," Tamsin replied. "Or someone's using her identity. Either way, the Valkyrie Trust isn't just Valerie's. It belongs to someone much, much closer."
Meanwhile, in Abuja, Nigeria, the Prime Ministry held a quiet session far from prying cameras.
A woman stood before them, radiant in a crimson wrap dress.
Her name was Ms. Adebayo financial attaché, global strategist… and former confidante of the original Elias Thorne.
"She's still alive," Valerie said through a secure line.
"She's dangerous," said another voice low, British, grating.
"We both knew this day might come," Valerie replied. "Activate the detachment. If Thorne's alive, he'll come for the Board. And when he does…"
"We'll be ready."
Magritte caught Elias outside a church in Vienna.
She walked with elegance, each step measured, shadowed by secrets.
"You should've told me about your mother," she said.
"I didn't know," Elias replied.
"Don't lie to me, Dime," she snapped.
He turned, eyes narrowing. "I wasn't lying. I've spent my whole life as a ghost. Now I'm haunted by people who shouldn't exist."
She paused.
"Then we make them bleed."
Elias didn't answer. But his gaze turned steel.
That night, Elias played his first public move.
He released the first page of Valkyrie's ledger to the media anonymously. Just enough to start a scandal without showing his hand.
It named three banking officials, one retired military admiral, and a sitting senator. All linked to shell transactions, off-the-books lobbying, and silent shares in Duchesse Corporation.
The press exploded. Markets trembled.
Valerie Dexter screamed into her phone, "Find him! I don't care what it takes!"
But it was too late.
In London, Berlin, Lagos, and Geneva the Wolves were already feeding.
A hotel in Monaco, dim lights. Quiet jazz. A pair of red heels stopped beside Elias at the bar.
He looked up and saw her Sienne.
Alive. Unscarred. Smiling like she hadn't just vanished for a week.
"You left Jude to die," Elias said flatly.
"I saved your mission," she replied.
"You nearly killed it."
She slid a small drive across the table. "Inside are the identities of Valkyrie's deepest shareholders. One of them is funding a secret project Operation NOX."
"What's NOX?" he asked.
Sienne leaned in.
"It's the blackmail of kings."
Back in Zurich, Valerie watched footage of Elias distributing food at an orphanage in Vienna. A gesture, no doubt. But a clever one.
She knew his game. It wasn't about money.
It was influence.
And he was starting to win.
"Kill the goodwill campaign," she ordered. "Leak the scandal about Lewis."
Her assistant hesitated. "But it's not real."
"Doesn't need to be. The people don't need truth. They need fire."
Valerie Dexter smiled.
Then she whispered, "Let's see how long your Queen lasts, Thorne."
Late at night, Elias stared at the encrypted files from NOX.
He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He only read.
And when the sun began to rise, he called Jude recovering but conscious.
"Jude," he said.
"Sir," Jude rasped.
"We're going to Lagos."
"What's in Lagos?"
Elias smiled bitterly.
"The ghosts of our past."