The Thorne Heiress Unveiling Shadow novel Chapter 42

While the Suttons were imploding in a small Queens apartment, Kaelen Blackwood was facing a very different, and far more frustrating, problem. He was a man who believed that information was power, and for his entire life, he had been able to acquire any information he wanted. His corporate intelligence division was a legendary machine, staffed by ex-spies and data analysts who could uncover the deepest secrets of rival corporations and foreign governments.

He had tasked his best man, a former MI6 cyber-forensics expert named Declan, with a single, simple objective: find out everything there is to know about Evelyn Thorne.

A week later, Declan stood in Kaelen's office, looking utterly defeated.

"Sir," Declan began, his usual crisp confidence gone, "I have never failed to complete an assignment. But this... this is not a person. This is a ghost."

He placed a thin file on Kaelen's obsidian desk. "We have everything on her from the moment she was officially adopted by the Sutton family at age five. School records from a series of elite private schools, all with mediocre grades. No social media presence. No financial history, not even a credit card. She was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. As instructed by her adoptive parents."

Declan looked his boss in the eye, his face grim. "The firewall's signature code... it was a work of art. And it was, unmistakably, the same signature we found after the Blackwood subsidiary was breached three years ago. It's Shadow's work, sir. We are trying to investigate a ghost who controls the very system we're using. She's not just ten steps ahead of us; she designed the game board we're playing on. She knows we're looking, and she's toying with us."

Kaelen stood up and walked to the window, staring down at the city below. The frustration was a cold, hard knot in his gut. He was the most powerful man in a city of powerful men, a king in his own right, yet he was completely helpless against this invisible opponent. The feeling was infuriatingly new. He understood now. He couldn't force the answers from her. If he wanted to know who Evelyn Thorne really was, he had to be invited into her world. And she would only extend that invitation on her own terms.