CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5
The Birthday Was Never the Real Target
For several seconds, no one moved.
The emergency lights cast long shadows across the ballroom.
Richard Sloan had vanished.
Only his half-filled champagne glass remained on the table.
Beside it...
The same silver packet.
Adrian carefully picked it up.
He didn't open it.
He already knew what the laboratory would say.
Activated charcoal.
Not poison.
Samuel walked toward the giant LED screen.
The confidential files had disappeared.
Only the Mercer Global logo remained.
Whoever had hacked the presentation wasn't interested in leaking company secrets.
The documents had stayed on the screen for less than forty seconds.
Just long enough...
To make everyone panic.
Samuel quietly smiled.
Adrian stared at him.
"Why are you smiling?"
Samuel answered calmly.
"Because now I know what this was really about."
Before Adrian could ask another question...
Detective Helen Brooks stepped into the ballroom with two FBI cybercrime agents.
She had been monitoring the livestream from the beginning.
Samuel handed her his phone.
She read every anonymous message.
Then looked around the room.
"This wasn't an assassination attempt."
Several guests looked confused.
She continued.
"This was psychological manipulation."
Adrian frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Helen placed the silver packet on the table.
"The powder."
"The livestream."
"The hacked screen."
"The anonymous texts."
"They're all distractions."
Samuel nodded.
"I thought so."
Helen continued.
"If Julian... or rather, if Samuel had publicly accused his own brother of attempted murder during a livestream watched by over one hundred thousand people..."
She paused.
"...Mercer Global's stock would have collapsed before the market even opened tomorrow."
Silence.
The realization spread through the room.
The plan had never depended on poison.
It depended on panic.
Adrian slowly looked at Samuel.
"So..."
"You never thought I was trying to kill you?"
Samuel smiled.
"Not for one second."
Adrian was stunned.
"Then why stop me?"
Samuel answered quietly.
"Because I wanted everyone else..."
"...to believe I did."
Detective Brooks nodded.
"Someone expected the Mercer brothers to destroy each other in front of the world."
"But you didn't."
Samuel looked around the ballroom.
"Which means..."
"...our real enemy just lost."
At that exact moment...
One of the FBI agents rushed toward Helen carrying a tablet.
"We found the source of the livestream comments."
Helen immediately looked at the screen.
The anonymous account wasn't broadcasting from outside the hotel.
It wasn't even inside Las Vegas.
It originated from a private corporate server.
The registration belonged to...
Mercer Global Headquarters.
Adrian's face changed.
"Someone inside the company."
Helen nodded slowly.
Then another message appeared on Samuel's phone.
Only six words.
You stopped Phase One.
A second message appeared five seconds later.
Phase Two has already begun.
The ballroom fell completely silent.
Samuel slowly looked out through the hotel's floor-to-ceiling windows toward the glittering Las Vegas Strip.
For the first time that night...
He realized the birthday party had only been the opening move.
👇 Chapter 6
