Damien’s POV
The first whiskey bottle never reached the wall.
Damien crushed it in his bare hand before the glass even left his fingers. Shards bit deep into his palm, amber liquor dripping through the cuts onto the polished concrete floor of the command center.
He didn’t flinch. Nobody else dared move. Nobody dared breathe too loud. The only sounds filling the underground operations room were the constant hum of server fans and the endless cascade of red error messages crawling across the wall of monitors.
**ARCHIVE RECOVERY FAILED.**
**SECURE BACKUP CORRUPTED.**
**CAMERA VAULT EMPTY.**
Fifteen years of secrets, leverage, and insurance policies had lived inside this room. Damien had poured millions into building a digital fortress—private networks, air-gapped backups, encrypti
