Chapter 115 Tik Tok

Chapter 115 Tik Tok
They bring the text straight to David, who reads it once, his face going flat and unreadable in the way Elias has learned means he’s already three moves ahead of everyone else in the room.
“Marcus,” David says. “Trace it.”
It takes Marcus the better part of an hour, hunched over three monitors with a focus that doesn’t break for anything, before he finally leans back and delivers the answer.
“Got it,” Marcus says. “The signal originated from a fixed transceiver located at Warehouse 14 along the primary shipping docks. What’s more, the signal is still active. The device that sent that text is sitting inside that structure right now.”
“So he’s careless,” Lucia says.
“Or he wants us to think that,” Elias responds. “A man who’s evaded every trace we’ve run for weeks doesn’t suddenly leave his own device sitting active in one place unless he wants it found.”
David pauses, considering. “You think it’s a trap.”
“I think Ghost is too smart to make an amateur mistake like this,” Elias says. “I think this is exactly what he wants us to believe it is right up until it isn’t.”
“I agree,” David says, and Elias watches something tighten behind his eyes. “But we still have to find out for certain. If there’s even a chance he’s actually there, we can’t afford to let it pass. Marcus, grab the tactical kits from the lower armory. We move in ten minutes.”
A small team is assembled fast and they move within the hour while Lucia and the others staying behind on comms.
The shipping dock sits quiet under low sodium lights when they arrive, several cars parked haphazardly near the main entrance with no visible movement from inside. Elias moves with David’s team through the perimeter, their weapon raised, every sense straining for something that doesn’t fit.
“Visual check,” Marcus’s voice crackles through Eli’s ear-piece. “I have three vehicles parked directly in front of the primary bay door of Warehouse 14. Two dark SUVs and a commercial panel van. No heat signatures detected inside the vehicles, but the terrain is obstructing my ground sensors.”
“Copy that,” David replies softly into his collar mic. “Eli, take the left. We approach the primary pedestrian entrance. Maintain tight coverage.”
Lucia’s voice comes through the comms line. “Be careful down there. The structural maps of dock fourteen show two exit corridors near the loading bays. If he’s inside, he could flank you.”
David reaches out to push the steel door open further, stepping forward to clear the entryway.
Eli’s gaze drops for a fraction of a second, catching a thin, almost invisible strand of braided wire stretched low across the threshold, anchored to a small black canister mounted against the inner frame. Attached directly above it, hidden in the shadow of the door hinge, are two commercial-grade plastic explosive blocks wired to an instant impact detonation cap.
“Stop!” Eli roars.
Before David’s foot can hit the concrete floor inside, Elias slams into him from the side, both of them going down hard onto the concrete outside the doorway. The world erupts a fraction of a second later, the entrance collapsing inward in a wall of fire and noise that swallows two of the men who were still moving through it, killing them instantly, the blast wave rolling over Elias and David both where they’ve landed just outside the threshold.
For a moment there’s only ringing, the same specific silence that follows an explosion in an enclosed space, and then the sounds of the world flood back in, shouting, someone coughing hard, the crackle of fire settling into the wreckage.
David lies there for a second longer than necessary before he pushes himself up, staring at the collapsed entrance and then at what’s left of the two men who didn’t make it out.
David looks at Eli, opening his mouth like he’s about to say something when through the ear-piece, Lucia’s voice explodes into a frantic, terrified scream. “Dad! Eli! Answer me! What was that explosion? Marcus, what just happened?”
“We’re here,” Eli gasps into his mic, his voice raspy from the smoke. “We’re alive. The entrance was rigged.”
“Dad?” she asks, her voice trembling violently over the speaker. “Is my dad okay?”
“I’m here, Lucia,” David speaks directly into his collar, his tone remarkably steady despite the shock. “Eli pulled me back. I’m standing.”
Before they can fully pull themselves up, the sound of slow, splashing footsteps approaches from the darkened alley between the adjacent warehouses.
Eli draws his sidearm instantly, bringing the sights up to cover the shadow approaching through the smoke. “Hold it right there! Don’t move!”
A man emerges into the dim amber light of the dockyard lamps. He is wearing a plain dark raincoat, his head bowed, his hands held high in the air away from his body. He isn’t carrying a weapon. In his right hand, he holds a single white envelope sealed inside a clear plastic bag to protect it from the rain.
The man stops ten feet away, trembling visibly, his face pale as paper under the flickering light.
“Step back!” Marcus orders, stepping up beside Eli with his own weapon raised. “Who are you?”
The man doesn’t speak. He simply kneels on the wet pavement and places the sealed envelope on the ground in front of him, and slides it forward across the wet asphalt toward David’s boots. He keeps his head down, tears actively mixing with the rain on his cheeks.
Marcus keeps his gun trained on the man while Eli steps forward, reaching down to pick up the plastic bag. He inspects it quickly for wires or triggers before sliding the paper out of the casing and handing it to David.
David takes it, unfolds it, and reads it aloud, his voice flattening with every line.
“I thought sending you your guard dog’s head in a box was enough to get you to back the fuck off. But since you insist on testing my patience, I have a little surprise for you when you get home. You’d better hurry.”
The words land like a second explosion.
“Who sent you?” Marcus snarls, pressing the barrel of his gun directly under the man’s chin. “Speak! Who gave you that envelope?”
The man opens his mouth, but no sound comes out except a pathetic, wet choking noise. Tears stream down his face as he looks at Marcus with pure, unadulterated terror. He slowly opens his mouth wider, leaning his head back against the van, and Elias understands why he hasn’t spoken a full half second before Marcus does.
The man’s tongue has been forcibly pulled back and sewn directly to the roof of his mouth with black surgical thread. And tucked tightly beneath the pinned muscle is a small, folded square of paper, damp with saliva and blood.
Marcus pulls it free carefully, unfolding it slowly so it doesn’t tear from the moisture already soaking through it.
It simply reads:《Tick tock, David.》
“Lucia!” David roars into his comms unit, turning away from the messenger entirely. “Lucia, lock down the house! Where are you right now?”
The comms line crackles with heavy static, the explosion near the warehouse having disrupted the local repeater. “Dad? I can barely hear you… the signal is cutting out… Mom is down in the main living room… she found something…”
“Lucia! Stay in the study! Lock the security doors!” David screams, but the signal dies entirely into a wall of high-frequency white noise.
“We have to go,” Eli says, already turning and sprinting toward the armored transport van. “Now!”
The drive back to the estate is a blur of high speed, running red lights, and wet tires screeching over pavement. David sits in the front passenger seat, repeatedly trying to hit the house landline on his satellite phone, but every attempt routes directly to a busy signal. Eli handles the wheel, pressing the accelerator flat against the floorboards while Marcus tries to stabilize the secondary comms link from the back seat.
They find Nora in the living room when they arrive, pale, sitting perfectly still on the edge of the sofa with a cardboard box resting on the coffee table in front of her.
“David,” she mutters, her voice barely holding together.
“Nora,” David says softly, lowering his weapon as he crosses to her immediately. “Are you hurt? What is this?”
“These were left on the front porch ten minutes ago. A courier dropped them off and drove away before the gate guards could stop him,” she says. “Tapes. Recordings. Body cam footage, from when you were still–” She stops, swallows hard. “From back then.”
David’s face goes pale. “Do they show faces.”
“No.” Nora shakes her head, her hands trembling where they’re folded in her lap. “We checked, over and over, the team already went through every frame. It looks like it was recorded on something tiny like a camera pen, a clip or… something like that. The voices are muted too, but David, the footage itself, what you’re doing in it–” Her voice breaks. “It’s damning. It’s more than enough on its own to end everything. If this reaches the police–”
David holds on to her before she can finish, pulling her into his arms, holding her tight against his chest.
“Nora, listen to me,” David says desperately, his voice cracking with an emotion Eli has never heard from the man before. “Listen to me. I will handle this. I will fix it. I promise you, I will figure a way out of this. Look at me, Nora. Don’t worry about this.”
Nora just looks at him, silent tears falling, unable to offer a single word of comfort in return.
Eli stands near the edge of the living room, watching the scene unfold. The sight of David Reid – a man who held total control over every room he walked into – shattered and scrambling to protect his family from the ghosts of his own past hits Eli with a sudden, heavy weight and he understands without needing to be told that this isn’t his moment to occupy.
He slips out quietly and walks the whole way back to Crane Street with the adrenaline from the explosion still humming under his skin. His mind races the entire way, trying to piece together Ghost’s strategy. The decoy text. The tripwire at the docks. The mutilated messenger. The box of incriminating tapes delivered directly to the house. It wasn’t just a physical assault. Ghost is systematically stripping away every layer of David’s life – his security, his reputation, his legacy, and his control.
He turns onto his street and stops cold.
The front door to his building is slightly ajar, the dark space visible in the gap where it should be closed and locked, and in a neighborhood like this, his mother would never, under any circumstances, leave that door open on purpose.
Cold, absolute panic erupts in Eli’s chest, obliterating every trace of physical exhaustion.
“Mom,” he whispers under his breath.
He draws his sidearm from his jacket, breaks into a sprint, and charges up the steps toward the open door.