The cool air of Port Sterling bit at Liam Feng's face as he stepped out of Kian Huo's penthouse building, leaving behind the suffocating opulence. Elara's words, spoken with forced lightness, echoed in his mind: "Kian has been so supportive of my dance career, just as he was for my mother."
It was a message meant for invisible ears, a desperate plea for him to understand that Kian Huo was anything but supportive. And he understood.
He gripped the white camellia she had given him, its petals soft and fragile in his palm. It was a stark contrast to the cold steel of the Huo empire, a reminder of the Elara he knew—the one trapped behind those impossibly high walls. He remembered her face when she looked at the hidden camera, the barely perceptible shift in her eyes. It was a signal. She knew something.
His car, a modest sedan dwarfed by the luxury vehicles of Huo's residents, felt like a cage of a different sort. His family, the once-proud Feng dynasty, had teetered on the brink of ruin five years ago. Kian's father, the Huo Patriarch, had "saved" them with a mysterious investment. A bailout that had felt more like a takeover. The Fengs had lost their autonomy, their prestige. Liam, fresh out of business school, had inherited a legacy of debt and a crushing sense of emasculation.
That humiliation had gnawed at him for five years, a festering knot in his gut.
He wanted it back. All of it. The power, the respect, the unshakeable foundation his ancestors had built. And he felt, deep down, that reclaiming it meant finding the chink in Huo's armor.
He remembered the anonymous message he'd received weeks ago, a single, cryptic line: "They bought your father, they silenced Liana. Ask about Project Phoenix." It had sounded like a baseless accusation then, from a disgruntled insider.
But Elara's coded message, combined with the flower—a symbol of unspoken truths—made the chilling implication undeniable.
A cold certainty settled in his gut.
He drove aimlessly for a while, the city lights blurring past. The vibrant energy of Port Sterling, a city he loved, now felt like a veil over something ugly.
He had to be careful. Kian Huo didn't just own businesses; he owned secrets. And those who probed too deeply often disappeared without a trace. He could recall the whispers, the hushed rumors of "accidents" or "disappearances" that followed anyone who dared challenge the Huos.
Liam pulled into his small, functional office in a less flashy part of the city. He rarely used it; most of his work was done online, quietly rebuilding the fragments of his family's shipping network. But tonight, it felt like a bunker. He needed to dig.
He fired up his desktop, a custom-built machine with robust encryption. He began his search, not for "Project Phoenix" directly—that would be too obvious, leaving a digital trail for Huo's security to follow. Instead, he started with the financial records of the shell corporation that had "saved" the Fengs five years ago. The one whose legal representative had ties to Huo Enterprises.
The data was a labyrinth, layers upon layers of offshore accounts and phantom companies. His eyes swam through the complex web. He traced the money, following the digital breadcrumbs he knew were always left behind.
And then he hit a dead end, a firewall too sophisticated, too heavily encrypted for his usual methods.
A cold certainty settled in his gut: they'd been waiting for him.
He leaned back, frustrated. He needed help. Someone who operated in the shadows, someone who knew how to unravel these digital knots. A name he'd heard whispered in certain circles surfaced—Marco Tanaka, a former Sterling IT guru, known for going off the grid after a "nervous breakdown." A hacker, a whistleblower. Risky. But he felt risks were becoming unavoidable.
He remembered a fleeting interaction from the Huo gala a few months prior, where he'd briefly seen a sharp-eyed woman talking animatedly to a few journalists. Celeste Vaughn, a reporter with a reputation for digging up dirt on corporate giants. She'd nearly exposed some of Huo's shady dealings before her story was mysteriously quashed – mysteriously being the key word, he thought bitterly now. He'd scoffed at her then, seeing her as an amateur tilting at windmills. Now, she might be an unexpected ally.
Liam's phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number. He opened it, his heart thumping.
"You're digging too close to the ashes, Feng. The Phoenix protects its own. Stop."
He stared at the screen, a cold dread seeping into his bones.
They knew.
They were watching him. Just as they were watching Elara.
The text wasn't a warning; it was a promise.
A silk-gloved hand wrapped around his throat.
The initial fear quickly turned into a burning indignation. They thought they could intimidate him? The Fengs had survived centuries of political intrigue and cutthroat competition. He wasn't some weak-willed executive.
He picked up his phone, his thumb hovering over a contact. Not Marco yet. Not Celeste. He needed more information first. More proof. He couldn't afford to make a move that would jeopardize his family's fragile recovery, or, he realized with a pang, jeopardize Elara.
His hand drifted to the camellia on his desk. He thought of Elara, trapped in her gilded cage, sending out subtle signals, fighting a silent war. He had scoffed at her "theatrics" when she chose ballet over a more "sensible" career. Now, he saw the strength in it, the defiant refusal to break.
A new surge of resolve hardened his features. His quest for revenge against Huo, for the restoration of his family, had just gained a new, unexpected layer. It wasn't just about the Fengs anymore. It was about Elara. And about the chilling truth hidden behind the name Project Phoenix.
He began drafting an encrypted message, a feeler to a less direct, more obscure contact in the dark web. He needed information about Sterling Dynamics's "Project Phoenix" and its "original architects." He needed to find out who else might be looking into this. He needed to find out if his father had made a deal with the devil, and what that deal truly entailed.
The game had indeed gotten infinitely more dangerous.
But Liam Feng, the wild card, had just decided to play his hand.