Page 138 of BounBound By Scars

My mind raced with possibilities of what could potentially go wrong.

Somewhere inside Blackthorn, someone had turned. Romano’s rat. Every tech team member had been with us for years—loyal, vetted, solid.

Which meant we hadn’t accidentally hired a traitor.

Romano had just…madeone. He had to be leveraging something.

I let out a breath, heavy and tired, and looked around the sterile little room they’d stuck me in.

A chair.

A table.

A twin bed.

That was it.

Nowhere near the comfort of Blackthorn’s base, but still better than the half-rotted safe houses from our Squad Six days.

This apartment—if it even deserved the term—was close enough to the Pentagon to matter, but not close enough to tap into anything. I needed another way in.

I powered upDaLia.

There was no point hiding my moves anymore. They knew I’d be digging. Still, I routed through dummy networks. Just in case.

I needed to upgrade Sentrix v5.4, but to do that, I had to understand how the Doom Switch worked. Wherever the hell they’d buried it.

DaLiabooted in seconds.

I sank into protocol after protocol, tunneling through encrypted blocks, hunting. And waiting.

I had a theory—Romlinson Signature was just the tip. These three bastards were definitely running more than one business. Had to be.

Well…twobastards now. Garret Tyson was currently 200 meters beneath Lake Michigan.

Seven hours in, I was ready to call it.

The sun had started creeping in through the blinds. My vision was fogged, the code on screen blurring.

And then—there it was.

Buried under layer after layer of digital static.

Thirty-three companies.

Major ones.

Global.

I stared.

No fucking way.

They were all owned by Romlinson Conglomerate.

Thirty-three goddamn companies… not just in weapons or tech. They’d acquired all major banks. Defense manufacturers. Energy conglomerates. Five of the world’s biggest oil producers.

And their newest acquisition?

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