The first crack didn’t look like a crack.
It looked like a routine alert.
But in Ramos Stuart’s world, nothing was ever routine.
⸻
Inside the Stuart Group headquarters, the private executive floor was unusually quiet. The glass walls reflected the cold glow of monitors displaying financial dashboards, offshore accounts, and internal compliance reports.
Ramos sat in his chair without moving.
His cigar had gone out.
On the screen in front of him, three separate alerts were blinking red.
Not public exposure.
Not media leaks.
Internal inconsistencies.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Bring me the audit feed,” he said flatly.
His assistant hesitated. “Sir… it’s already running. The system flagged unauthorized access patterns from within the network.”
Ramos didn’t blink.
“From where?”
A pa
