The silence settling over the boy's quarters seemed denser than the metallic thuds of the manor's new defenses. Blood pooled on the polished floor, reflecting the stark, unblinking light of the room. Davorin stood before them, his chest heaving, his face a mask of primal fury and something else Tazia couldn't quite decipher – a desperate, fractured possessiveness. Miro, his small hand still clutching the gold puzzle box, simply stared at the grotesque tableau. Ziva’s breath came in shallow, ragged gasps beside Tazia, her face pale, her eyes fixed on the mangled heap that was once a man. Tazia felt nothing but a cold, burning clarity. She looked at Davorin’s stained hands, the rivulets of crimson trailing down his knuckles, and for a fleeting instant, the sterile white of her father’s deathbed flashed behind her eyes. No blood, no struggle, just the slow, deliberate extinguishing of a life by poison administered by an unseen hand. The Kosta way. Clean, clinical, devoid of mercy. This raw, bloody violence was merely a different face of the same monster. And she would use it. Tazia’s lower lip began to quiver, her hands rising instinctively to cover her mouth, though her mind hummed with a sharp, calculating focus. A choked sound escaped her, a perfect imitation of terror. She swayed, as if her legs might give way beneath her. Davorin’s gaze snapped to her, his own fury momentarily eclipsed by a flicker of concern. “Tazia,” he rasped, his voice still hoarse. She shrank back, her eyes wide and glistening, darting from the blood-splattered wall to Miro, then back to Davorin. “The… the man… he… he wanted to hurt Miro,” she stammered, her voice thin and reedy. “Who… who would send someone like that?” She took a shaky step towards him, then faltered, pressing her palm against her forehead as if overwhelmed. “Who *hates* you that much, Davorin? To… to send a killer into your home?” Davorin’s head snapped up, his jaw tightening. The question hung in the air, a poisonous seed planted in the fertile ground of his paranoia. His gaze swept over the luxurious nursery, the scattered toys, the very symbol of his newfound legacy, now desecrated by violence. Both palms curled tight, knuckles sticky with gore. “My board,” he snarled, the words guttural. “They’re circling. They see an opening.” He turned abruptly, striding to the wall-mounted comm panel, his heavy boots crunching faintly on something Tazia refused to look at. “They think I’m weak.” He punched a series of codes, his movements precise despite the rage radiating from him. The manor’s internal comm system crackled to life, the sound unnaturally loud in the hushed room. “This is Kosta,” he barked into the receiver. “Initiate full security sweep. Every access log, every biometric entry, every external contact for the last seventy-two hours. Cross-reference with current board members and their known associates. I want a full report on my desk in the executive study by dawn. And tell my legal team to prepare termination papers for the following individuals.” He began to rattle off names, each one a prominent figure in the Kosta Praxis corporation, his voice rising with each syllable, a barely contained tremor of vengeance. Tazia watched him, her theatrical shivers now genuinely mimicking the tremor that ran through his voice. His rage was a blunt instrument, and she had just handed him the perfect target. The viper was uncoiling, ready to strike its own. He spent the next hour pacing the carpet, issuing commands over the comm link as he systematically marked his perceived enemies for extraction. He barely noticed Tazia’s quiet ministrations as she led Miro away from the darkest stains, or Ziva’s frightened whispers. When a squad of his personal security, grim-faced and heavily armed, finally arrived to deal with the scene, Davorin simply pointed, his face impassive. “Clean it.” He then turned to Tazia. “The manor is sealed. No one comes in, no one goes out. Not until I find every serpent in my nest.” His eyes, still bloodshot, met hers. “I’ll be in the study.” He stalked out, the heavy door clicking shut behind him. Tazia waited, her breath held, listening to the fading echo of his footsteps. The moment the manor grew still once more, she turned to Miro, her expression hardening. “Miro,” she whispered, her voice devoid of any previous artifice. “It’s time.” Miro, who had been silently observing the entire terrifying ordeal, merely nodded, his deep blue eyes already alight with understanding. He slipped his hand into hers, his small grip surprisingly firm. They navigated the hushed corridors, past the freshly scrubbed tiles, a faint metallic tang still clinging to the air. The vast manor, usually bustling with invisible staff, felt utterly deserted. Davorin’s command sanctum was a cavernous space on the manor’s highest floor, offering panoramic views of the smog-shrouded city below. A massive, polished obsidian desk dominated the room, currently strewn with digital tablets and physical files. His primary workstation, a bespoke console with multiple holographic displays, was still active, the central monitor displaying a complex network diagram. He had left it completely unattended, his paranoia focused outward, not inward. Tazia paused at the threshold, her ribs aching around shallow breaths. “Just like we practiced, my clever little viper,” she murmured, her gaze scanning the empty hall. “Be quick. Be silent.” Miro didn’t respond with words, only a determined set to his jaw. He moved like a shadow, a blur of motion crossing the expensive rug. His small frame easily slid into the executive chair, his feet dangling far above the floor. His thumbs and palms, nimble and precise, danced across the haptic interface. The primary display flickered, the network diagram giving way to a new set of folders, heavily encrypted, marked with Kosta Praxis’s most secure designations. “Foundational Blueprints – Project Chimera,” one folder read. Another, “Krovna City Infrastructure Oversight.” Miro’s eyes glowed with an unnerving intensity, his mind a digital sponge. He didn't open the files in the traditional sense. Instead, he initiated a rapid-scroll sequence, his photographic memory devouring entire pages of schematics, code, and architectural data in mere seconds. The information streamed into his mind, meticulously cataloged, every line, every detail, every hidden weakness, etched into his genius. He cycled through document after document, a silent, relentless machine, copying the entirety of Davorin Kosta’s empire into his five-year-old brain. Far away, in a squalid, rented room on the city’s lower levels, an expelled board runner scowled at his monitor. He had bribed a former Kosta Praxis technician for access to a backdoor in the manor’s security systems, a desperate attempt to regain favor or, failing that, to gather enough leverage to crush the upstarts. He had expected to see the Hanjari women attempting an escape, perhaps trying to sneak out a window. What he saw instead pulled the color from his skin. On the grainy, high-angle feed of Davorin’s private terminal room, a child sat at the billionaire’s console. A five-year-old boy flicked through classified schematics with impossible speed, data streams scrolling across the terminal glass at a terrifying, inhuman pace. The disgraced runner leaned closer, a single thought forming in his mind: *What in the blazes is that boy?* His gaze focused on the internal display, recognizing the highly restricted file names. The boy was not just *looking* at them. He was consuming them. Every single line. Every single byte. And the observer took in every frame, live and unbuffered. He pressed a button, zooming in, his face blanching as he registered the terrifying scope of what he was witnessing. The child’s hands continued their fluid strikes across the sensor glass, a relentless, silent assault on the Kosta empire’s deepest secrets. He was downloading the entire corporation into his mind.

The Trojan Horse