Chapter 287

Chapter 287

Margaret sensed his distress.

Richard didn't respond, but his breathing grew ragged.

Those buried memories clawed their way to the surface.

"Don't touch me!"

He jerked backward, his spine hitting the cold floor-to-ceiling glass.

Margaret froze at his sudden reaction.

For the first time, she saw raw, unmistakable fear in Richard's eyes.

"What's wrong?" She stepped forward to steady him.

"Stay back!" he snarled, cold sweat beading on his forehead, his gaze growing distant.

Margaret stood frozen in place.

She remembered the rumor about the Neville family: when Richard was thirteen, he'd been kidnapped for a week. When he returned, his personality had completely changed, and he never spoke of what happened.

So it wasn't that he wouldn't talk about it—he couldn't remember.

The Dream Snatcher.

Margaret's heart clenched painfully.

She didn't move closer. Instead, she softened her voice and spoke clearly: "Richard, look at me. This is Zephyria, not a basement. It's ten PM, not afternoon. You're safe."

She gently pulled his scattered consciousness back to the present.

Richard pressed against the glass, breathing heavily, his vision gradually focusing until it settled on Margaret's face.

The terror hadn't completely faded.

"It's them..." His voice was devastatingly hoarse. "The people who kidnapped me... they're back."

Margaret remained silent.

She finally understood why Richard knew so much about The Shadow, why he'd specifically created the Blackstone contingency.

This wasn't just prudent business defense.

This was a war that had been raging for seventeen years.

That phantom lurking in the darkness had been hiding in his shadow all along.

"The Lancelot family's revenge is just a cover."

Richard slowly straightened, his body still trembling slightly, but his eyes regained their sharp edge. "Their real target has always been me."

Margaret and her Starlink weren't the first chess piece.

Just bait.

The perfect lure to drag Richard from his fortress back into his old nightmare.

The air turned thick as ice.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Lakehaven's nightscape glittered like a galaxy, but no warmth penetrated the glass.

Richard leaned against the cold surface, the chill from seventeen years ago still coursing through his body.

But the out-of-control fear had been replaced by something more terrifying—a madness that had been dormant far too long was awakening.

He slowly stood upright, his towering shadow completely enveloping Margaret.

"They used you to draw me out."

"And it worked."

Margaret remained equally calm.

She didn't probe into his past or offer unnecessary sympathy.

She simply watched as Richard rebuilt his impenetrable armor in a matter of seconds.

Just then, an abrupt electronic chime rang from the encrypted tablet on the coffee table.

The device—fortified by Margaret New Energy Group's top technicians and supposedly impenetrable to outside intrusion—displayed an incoming video call from an unknown source.

Richard's eyes sharpened as he moved to shut off the tablet.

"Don't." Margaret caught his hand. "If they can get through, they already know we're here. Hanging up won't matter."

Her fingertips were cold, but the back of his hand burned hot.

She withdrew her hand and pressed accept.

The screen lit up.

The space was impossibly vast, with a curved dome overhead that sparkled with points of light, like a private observatory.

In the center sat an obsidian chair, a tall figure shrouded in its shadows, face obscured.

A synthesized voice, electronically processed beyond recognition of gender, emerged from the speakers: "Ms. Kennedy, or should I call you... The architect of Plan B? Quite the performance in that alley."

Margaret's heart sank.

They not only knew about her plan but also the code name.

"Who are you?"

"Someone who appreciates you."

The voice was unhurried. "The organization I lead—you call us The Shadow. But we prefer to think of ourselves as... architects of the new world."

Richard stood beside Margaret, the air pressure around him dropping to dangerous levels.

He stared at the blurred figure on screen as if he could burn through the shadows with his gaze alone.

"Ms. Kennedy, you and we are the same kind of people."

The voice continued, "You're decisive, brilliant, and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. Today you abandoned the hostages, used false data as bait, even made yourself the primary attacking piece... Such courage is rare in this world. You were born to stand on the other side of the board, wielding the pieces alongside us, not being a piece yourself."

A pause.

"This world is corrupt, degenerate, controlled by hypocritical mediocrities. It's time for cleansing. Join us, Margaret. Your talents shouldn't be wasted patching up the old order. Come with me and create a truly fair, efficient, perfect new world."

Margaret looked at the screen and suddenly laughed.

"You make the future sound so amazing—is this some kind of pyramid scheme?"

Silence from the other end. Richard glanced at her sideways.

"I have no interest in playing God."

Margaret's smile faded. "Especially with a bunch of lunatics who hide in shadows and manipulate people from sewers. Your 'new world' already reeks of rot. I don't want to get dirty."

She reached to cut the connection.

"Wait."

The voice returned, tinged with amusement. "Interesting. You're even more fascinating than I imagined."

"Margaret, do you think where you're standing now is so clean?"

The voice carried an all-knowing mockery.

"You reject me because you think Richard represents order and light?"

"You're so good at due diligence—why don't you investigate how the Neville family earned their first fortune? Do you think the Neville Group empire was built on a foundation of sand? No, its bedrock is buried with more bones than you can imagine."

Margaret's hand froze.

"Ask your Mr. Neville beside you if he knows about a fund called Ouroboros."

"See if he dares answer you."

The screen went black as the other party unilaterally cut the connection.

The room fell into deathly silence once more.

Margaret didn't move, didn't even turn to look at Richard.

Ouroboros.

The word shot into her mind like a bullet.

In the financial world, it represented self-consumption, infinite loops—often used as a metaphor by aggressive hedge funds.

But coming from The Shadow's leader, the word carried entirely different weight.

She could feel Richard's breathing change beside her.

Not panic or anger, but the rigid coldness that came when old wounds were torn open.

He knew.

He didn't just know—this word meant something profound to him.

Margaret slowly turned around.

Richard wasn't looking at her. His gaze fixed on some point in empty space, his expression was worse than when the Dream Snatcher had triggered him moments before.