Chapter 49 Ghost Wires
Eli’s POV
I woke up with her words still in my chest.
I do not know who I would be in this without you.
The bed beside me was empty now, rumpled where she had been. A faint warmth still clung to the sheets. For a second I let myself sink into that, into the quiet proof that whatever the world thought, in the dark she came to me.
Then my phone buzzed on the nightstand and reality kicked the door back in.
Mila. Three missed messages, one new.
Need you on call. Found something rotten in Ward’s family tree.
By the time I got to the Ward ops floor, she had three monitors up, glasses sliding down her nose, hair bristling like she had been arguing with lines of code for hours.
“Morning,” I said.
“Define morning,” she muttered. “Look at this.”
She yanked a graph into the center screen. Nodes, lines. Names I knew too well.
Security Research Council at the top. Offshoots labeled AegisSight, Helix experiments. And two thinner lines branching down to logos that made my stomach turn.
RyeSec.
And Ward Security Group.
“What am I looking at,” I asked, even though I could guess.
“Seed money flows,” she said. “Council funneled funds into early stage projects through shell companies. One of those shells invested in Ward right after you and Lucas set up shop. Another backed one of RyeSec’s first big contracts.”
I stared. “No,” I said automatically. “Our early money came from a private syndicate Lucas found. Legit firms.”
She flicked to another window. “Same syndicate,” she said. “Different hat. That shell is a partial front for Council cash. Nobody knew what they were doing on the side, I will give you that. But your first serious investors were plugged into the same ecosystem as Helix and Noah.”
My stomach dropped.
I thought of those first months at Ward. Cheap desks. Secondhand gear. Lucas coming in with a sparkle in his eye and a term sheet that would let us hire people, buy better armor, get out of pure gig work.
We had toasted to the deal with bad whiskey. I had not asked many questions about where the money came from, because I trusted my brother and I was too busy trying to make sure no one else failed on my watch.
Now there was a line from that toast back to a council that had used my unit as test animals.
Internal earthquake did not begin to cover it.
“So while they were using my team as a test zone,” I said slowly, “they were buying a piece of the company I built afterward to try to do things differently.”
“Congratulations,” Mila said dryly. “You were their favorite lab rat and their favorite growth portfolio.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Lucas never hid the investor names,” I said. “But he did not know this. None of us did.”
“I know,” she said, softer. “They count on that. Ghost wires. You do not see them until someone turns the power on.”
Later, at a bar that smelled like spilled beer and old wood, I met Marcus because apparently I liked making my life harder.
He was already at a back table when I walked in, nursing something amber. Older. More lines around his eyes. Same watch band, same way of sitting with his back to the wall.
“Well, I will be damned,” he said, standing to grip my hand. “Ward.”
“Marcus,” I said, clapping his shoulder. “You look terrible.”
“Fatherhood,” he said. “Also, capitalism.”
We sat. Made small talk about nothing for a while. Then the usual lies about being fine ran out and the real things started to leak.
“Remember after Amira,” he said, staring into his glass. “How we could not find half our after action reports in the system a month later.”
“Thought it was a filing screw up,” I said.
“Yeah. About that.” He looked up. “I heard things, after I rotated out. Rumors. That our mission was reclassified above our pay grade. That certain test results got folded into something bigger. That units like ours were used as deniable testing grounds for new toys.”
My jaw clenched. “AegisSight.”
He nodded once. “Some of the brass who pushed it left a couple years later. Guess where they ended up.”
“Private firms,” I said. “RyeSec. Sentinel Gate.”
He huffed. “Advisory roles. Board seats. Same men, nicer suits. They build the system, test it on us, then sell us a slimmed down version with a service fee.”
I felt used twice over. First as a soldier, then as a CEO.
“How far does this go,” I asked, the question half to him, half to myself. “Is Ward compromised at its root. Or can we cut out the rot and keep the spine.”
He eyed me. “Depends on if you are willing to admit the house has bad wiring,” he said. “Or if you keep pretending the lights only flicker when it rains.”
I left him with a clap on the shoulder and a promise to call. The air outside felt too thin.
Back in Sloane’s office, the glass walls made everything feel more exposed.
She was at her desk, staring at Avalon Ridge’s name on a screen like she could set it on fire with her mind. When I told her about the ghost wires in Ward’s funding, something ugly flickered behind her eyes.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “The council paid for the tools that killed Amira. They paid for Noah to weaponize my code. They paid for my father to sell my future. And now we find out they also helped pay for Ward.”
“Fun little web, right,” I said. “I built Ward to be the thing that said no. To be the people who did not cut corners. Now I find out some of our seed capital came from the same pool as Helix.”
She stood, came around the desk, leaned against it so we were almost eye level. “You built Ward into something you can be proud of,” she said. “You wrote the policies. You trained the people. You dragged clients out of hell. That does not disappear because rich men tried to use you as a glove puppet at the start.”
I looked at her. “You built Mercer into something that saves people,” I replied. “That does not disappear because your father sold the blueprints.”
We stared at each other, the truth of it hanging between us. For a second, it felt like a bridge instead of a noose.
Our worth was not just in how we started. It was in how many times we had chosen differently since.
My phone buzzed. Her laptop chimed at the same time. Mila.
Found something, her message read. Mariah’s archive had a hidden folder. Invite to a closed summit in London. Security Research Council affiliates only. Guests: Noah Rye, Avalon Ridge, various state security reps. Strategic partner seat reserved for Mercer or Sentinel Gate.
Target. And opportunity, she added.
I turned my screen so Sloane could see. Her mouth set.
“Looks like they are convening the spider’s nest,” she said.
“And they have left one chair empty,” I said. “Either for you.”
“Or for the man who is still trying to crawl back into my systems,” she replied.
We looked at each other again.
I knew then we were going to London.
Not as pawns this time. As the ones walking into the web with a knife.