The subdermal chip in Viola's wrist pulsed with an ominous rhythm, its vibration barely perceptible.

She stood at the panoramic windows of her penthouse suite atop Blackthorn Group headquarters, watching the rivers of light flow through the city below. The vibration signaled her overdue Pandora neural inhibitor dose—a medication regimen that should have been administered thirty minutes ago, yet the system remained unresponsive.


She summoned the holographic display with a gesture, fingers dancing across the encrypted interface. Her medical dashboard showed the "Pandora" protocol flashing crimson: "Access revoked. Contact administrator L.B."

L.B. Lucas Blackthorn. Her "physician"—her handler. Cutting off Pandora meant removing the chemical leash from her mind. All those memories forcibly suppressed by medication, those neural pathways of raw emotion deliberately blocked, were now breaking free. A knife-sharp pain lanced through her temples, like an icicle slowly driving into her brain. So this was his opening move.

She wouldn't contact Lucas—that would be surrendering to his game. What she needed was a countermove, something precise and devastating.


Her eyes shifted to the reinforced alloy door at the far end of the penthouse—the entrance to the Blackthorn family vault. Inside that vault rested "Ice Tear"—a legendary deep-blue diamond of flawless clarity weighing sixty-three carats, the crown jewel of the Blackthorn's blood-soaked empire and, more significantly, their spiritual totem.

The vault's retinal scanner emitted an eerie blue glow. Viola approached confidently. For five years, her biometric signature had carried the second-highest security clearance, just below Lucas himself. She positioned her eye before the scanner. A red light flashed as a frigid synthetic voice announced: "Biometric match confirmed. Verifying permissions… Warning: Access privileges suspended by administrator (L.B.). Entry denied."


Viola stepped back, her face betraying nothing. Of course Lucas would lock her out—she'd anticipated this move. She strode to her workshop and retrieved a brushed titanium case from a quantum-encrypted safe. Inside lay components for a precision high-frequency resonator. With practiced efficiency, she assembled the device, connected its power cell, and attached a custom diamond-tipped adapter.

Back at the vault, she positioned the resonator against a specific point on the alloy wall adjacent to the lock—the shortest path to the display case's control circuitry, which she'd identified from architectural schematics. She activated the device, causing the diamond tip to vibrate at an ultrahigh frequency, emitting only the faintest hum. Rather than cutting through brute force, it induced molecular resonance in the metal through precise frequency calibration.

Minutes later, a pinpoint melt appeared in the wall. Viola switched to a micro-filament probe, threading it through the opening to make contact with a fiber optic data line. The vault's root-level interface immediately populated her Controller's display. Physical connection bypassed all authentication protocols—a vulnerability impossible to patch remotely.

The massive door slid open without a sound. She stepped inside.

The vault maintained perfect temperature and humidity, its atmosphere crisp and cool. "Ice Tear" rested in a standalone bulletproof display at the center, its deep blue facets catching the precision-calibrated lighting. The case constituted its own security system, but now its control circuits lay exposed to Viola's intrusion.

She swiftly bypassed the case's security, causing the cover to retract silently. Rather than taking the diamond, Viola recalibrated the resonator and switched to a flat conduction pad, which she carefully applied to the gem's surface.

"Ice Tear" was celebrated for its flawless crystalline structure and exceptional hardness, but Viola knew its singular vulnerability: a microscopic carbon bond distortion deep within its structure—information she'd discovered years ago while reviewing a classified Blackthorn technical assessment.

She activated the resonator at a precisely calculated frequency. The device hummed softly as energy transferred directly into the diamond's core. Seconds later, with nothing more than a whispered "crack"—almost like a final sigh—"Ice Tear" split perfectly along a fault line originating from the distortion point. Rather than shattering, it cleaved into two perfect halves, its legendary brilliance instantly extinguished, leaving only dull blue stones.

Viola powered down the device and lifted the larger fragment. Its fracture surface gleamed mirror-smooth. She returned to her workshop and placed it carefully on her workbench.

Now for the true counterstrike.

She opened an anonymous portal to the dark web, her screen instantly flooding with cascading cryptic symbols representing illicit transactions and classified information. Her fingers danced across the interface as she created a new auction listing. The title was brutally simple: [Data Package "Nightingale" - Biological Cloning: Origins and Blueprint].

The description was even more merciless: "Complete package including subject's original genetic blueprint, early-stage cultivation logs, comprehensive physiological defect analysis (with detailed reproductive system functionality assessment). Data authenticity blockchain-verified. Source untraceable."

In the preview of the "Physiological Defect Report," several highlighted lines stood out starkly:

Subject S.C. Reproductive System Evaluation:

Critical uterine hypoplasia (Congenital Class III Deficiency)

Natural conception probability: 0%

Note: Any pregnancy attributed to this subject requires comprehensive biological verification. Possible explanations include surrogate implantation or clone-vessel gestation, though no empirical evidence exists.

With clinical detachment, Viola uploaded screenshots from the report's most damning pages as preview material. She set a nominal starting bid but imposed ruthless terms: only untraceable cryptocurrency accepted, all transactions final. Duration: twenty-four hours. The countdown initiated.

Before launching the auction, she retrieved the smaller "Ice Tear" fragment and selected a micro-laser etching tool from her drawer.

On the fragment's mirror-smooth fracture surface, she inscribed an impossibly fine mark—a glyph signifying "authentic, verified, high-risk" in the dark web's most exclusive echelons. Etching complete, she placed the fragment on a matte black magnetic tray and activated the auction.

The moment the listing went live, the "Nightingale" icon pulsed ominously against the dark web's shadowy interface.

Minutes ticked by as Viola monitored the bidding, watching prices climb with frantic intensity. Pandora withdrawal symptoms intensified—cold sweat beaded on her forehead, but her posture remained rigidly perfect.

Her communication terminal suddenly activated with an override signal, emitting a harsh buzz. Lucas's hologram materialized in the center of the room. He appeared to have left some formal function—his bow tie askew, his eyes burning with glacial fury. His gaze locked onto the diamond fragment in its black tray, the dark web authentication mark clearly visible.

"Viola." Lucas's voice was dangerously soft. "You continue to outdo yourself with these… surprises."

His eyes flicked to the rapidly climbing auction figures on her display, a muscle twitching beneath his eye. "'Ice Tear'? You actually went this far… Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

Viola met his gaze unflinchingly, her eyes crystalline despite her pounding headache. "It's just a symbol, Lucas. Like all those carefully crafted facades you maintain. Once shattered, they're nothing but dust."

Lucas inhaled deeply, his chest expanding. The composure he'd maintained cracked, revealing the volcanic rage beneath.

"As for your little auction," his voice dropped to arctic levels, "you think anonymity offers protection? Everyone who touches that data will beg for death before I'm finished with them!"

Viola's lips curved slightly. "Of course. You're omnipotent. But while you're hunting down my bidders, perhaps consider Miss Selina's 'miraculous' pregnancy… According to this exhaustive data, her natural conception is a biological impossibility."

Her gaze sharpened to a lethal point. "So tell me, Lucas—whose child is she supposedly carrying? Or is this just another elaborate prop in your game against me?"

In the hologram, Lucas's pupils contracted to pinpoints. Beyond anger, his expression betrayed shock—the unmistakable reaction of a man whose secrets had been unexpectedly exposed.

His perfect mask had finally cracked.

"You…" Lucas hissed through clenched teeth.

Viola terminated the connection. Lucas's image vanished mid-syllable. The room fell silent except for the cold, climbing numbers on the auction display and Viola's increasingly labored breathing as withdrawal symptoms intensified.

Beyond her windows, the city glittered indifferently. The opening move in her financial stranglehold was complete. Viola closed her eyes, weathering the increasingly vicious pain lancing through her brain.

Lucas's reaction confirmed her suspicion—Selina's pregnancy was almost certainly fabricated. But the detailed cloning data… where had it actually come from?

The question nagged at her, triggering a flicker of unease, but was quickly submerged beneath the twin currents of vengeful satisfaction and physical agony.