SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

Julian Cross felt the humiliation from the party like a physical wound.

He had been laughed at.

Again.

His priceless watch, a symbol of his status, was now just a dead weight on his wrist.

He knew, with the kind of bone-deep certainty that only pure, obsessive hatred can provide, that the ghost was responsible.

Vane.

That quiet, worthless, book-sniffing nobody.

He sat in his sterile, ridiculously expensive bedroom, staring at his phone.

He scrolled through his messages, his thumb jabbing at the screen with angry, violent energy.

He saw the texts from his father, cold and dismissive.

*Your little party was a waste of resources and time.*

He saw the mockery from the bounty hunters in their stupid group chat.

*He broke his watch! The little coward broke his watch and ran!*

His status, the very foundation of his identity, was being dismantled piece by piece.

And it was all Vane's fault.

Then, he saw her name.

Clara.

He scrolled through their one-sided message history.

His unanswered invitations.

Her polite, but firm, rejections.

She was the one piece of the puzzle that didn't fit.

She was the one person who had looked at him, at Julian Cross, and had not been impressed.

And she was the one person Vane seemed to actually notice.

A slow, vicious, and deeply satisfying idea began to form in his twisted mind.

He had tried to humiliate Vane.

He had tried to hire professionals to crush him.

None of it had worked.

It was time to change the game.

It was time to stop attacking the ghost directly.

It was time to attack what the ghost cared about.

*If I can control her,* he thought, a cruel, predatory smile spreading across his face, *I can control him.*

His fingers began to fly across the screen.

He wasn't just sending a message.

He was setting a trap.

Clara was in the school library, trying to lose herself in a book on quantum mechanics.

It usually worked.

The elegant, complex dance of subatomic particles was a comforting kind of chaos.

But today, her mind wouldn't settle.

She kept thinking about Miles.

She kept replaying their strange, late-night study session in the diner.

The way he had zoned out, his eyes a million miles away.

The exhaustion that seemed to cling to him like a second skin.

He was a puzzle, a living, breathing enigma wrapped in a worn-out hoodie.

And a small, dangerous part of her wanted nothing more than to solve him.

Her phone buzzed, a gentle vibration on the polished wood of the table.

She glanced at the screen.

It was an email.

The subject line made her sit up straight.

"Cross Corp Academic Scholarship – Exclusive Interview Invitation."

She opened it, her heart starting to beat a little faster.

The email was professional, official-looking.

It was written on corporate letterhead.

It congratulated her on being selected as a finalist for the most prestigious academic scholarship in the city.

It invited her to a private, one-on-one interview with a senior board member.

Tonight.

At an off-campus corporate building downtown.

A flicker of suspicion, a tiny, insistent voice in the back of her mind, told her that something was wrong.

The timing was too sudden.

The location, a secondary office building and not the main corporate tower, was strange.

It felt… off.

She trusted her instincts.

Her instincts had gotten her this far.

And her instincts were telling her that this perfect, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity felt a lot like bait.

There was only one person she could ask.

The one person who she knew, for a fact, had a very complicated and very dangerous relationship with the Cross family.

Her fingers moved quickly, forwarding the email.

She added a short, simple message.

[Clara: Hey, this looks legit, but something about it feels weird. You know these people. What do you think?]

She hit send.

Miles was staring at the list.

The list of names from Julian's encrypted file.

His parents' names.

He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, staring down into the dark abyss of the truth.

He was so close.

His phone buzzed, pulling him out of his trance.

He saw the message from Clara.

He opened the forwarded email.

He read the invitation.

And his world stopped.

He knew that address.

He had seen it just hours ago, in the files he had stolen from Broker.

It was a minor asset.

A mostly empty office building used for shell corporations and off-the-books meetings.

It was the perfect place for an ambush.

The system in his head, his constant, silent partner, confirmed his fears with a stark, terrifying finality.

[ANALYZING LOCATION DATA,] its text scrolled across his vision, highlighted in a blaring, blood-red font.

[ASSET IS A CONFIRMED CROSS CORP BLACK SITE.]

[LOW SECURITY. NO PUBLIC TRAFFIC. ISOLATED.]

[CONCLUSION: IT IS A TRAP.]

A wave of pure, unadulterated rage, hotter and more powerful than anything he had ever felt, washed over him.

It was hotter than Vance's fire.

Julian.

This was Julian's doing.

He was going after her.

He was using her to get to him.

The system flared, a violent, uncontrolled surge of raw, untamed energy.

[CRITICAL WARNING: EXTREME EMOTIONAL RESONANCE DETECTED.]

[HOST'S VITALS SPIKING.]

[SYSTEM OVERLOAD RISK IMMINENT.]

The lights in his apartment flickered, the cheap bulb in his desk lamp buzzing and then shattering in a shower of sparks.

He didn't care.

He ignored the warnings.

He ignored the sudden, pounding headache that felt like his skull was about to split open.

There was only one thought in his mind.

One mission.

*Protect her.*

He scrambled for his gear, his movements fast and clumsy.

He didn't have time to be a ghost.

He didn't have time to be a hunter.

He just had to be a weapon.

Fast.

He closed his eyes, focusing through the pain, through the rage.

"Dispatch," he commanded, his voice a low, ragged growl.

The clone materialized in the room, its face a perfect mirror of his own furious, desperate expression.

He didn't need to give it orders.

It already knew.

It turned and smashed through the window of his apartment, not bothering with the fire escape.

It hit the ground running, a phantom of pure vengeance rocketing through the night.

Miles grabbed his own hoodie and followed, bursting out of his apartment door and taking the stairs three at a time.

This was too important.

This was too personal.

He couldn't leave this to a copy.

He had to be there himself.

He ran, his body screaming in protest, his mind a single, burning mantra.

*I'm coming.*

*Clara, hold on.*

Clara stood in front of the tall, dark building of black glass and steel.

It was silent.

Empty.

The street was deserted.

The feeling of wrongness was so strong now it was a physical weight on her shoulders.

But she had to know.

She walked toward the massive, imposing glass doors.

They slid open with a soft, expensive hiss as she approached.

She stepped inside.

The lobby was a vast, empty space of polished marble and cold, modern art.

It was completely silent.

She was the only one there.

She took another step.

And the doors slid shut behind her.

CLICK.

The sound of the lock engaging was a final, heavy note in the silence.

She was trapped.

She spun around, her heart was beating fast.

Then, a voice echoed through the empty lobby, dripping with a smug, chilling satisfaction.

"I knew you'd come."

Julian Cross stepped out from behind a large, abstract sculpture.

He wasn't alone.

Two large, imposing men in dark suits, the kind of men who looked like they were carved from granite and bad intentions, stepped out with him.

They were his bodyguards.

His enforcers.

Julian's face was a mask of triumphant, possessive glee.

He looked at her not like a person, but like a prize he had finally won.

"I knew you couldn't resist," he said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her.

"After all, who could say no to a Cross?"