The tension inside the DM Group boardroom was thick enough to slice with a scalpel. Raphael Del Mundo sat at the head of the table, pristine in a navy suit, his gloved fingers tapping in steady rhythm against polished wood. His expression, unreadable. His silence, deadly.
To his left, Dante sat with a charming smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, as though he were watching a staged drama unfold—one he had secretly written.
"Let's get to it," Raphael said, his voice like ice water. "Where's the report on the app glitch?"
A low murmur spread around the table. Heads turned. Papers shuffled. No one met his gaze.
Finally, the CTO—a wiry man named Greg—cleared his throat. "The beta release went live yesterday. We experienced a breach. Data loss from three test servers. There's suspicion that the error was... internal."
"Internal?" Raphael echoed, arching a brow. "Speak clearly."
Greg swallowed. "There's no confirmed leak, but the code patches were rerouted. Someone bypassed the standard deployment chain."
"Sabotage," Dante added smoothly. "That's what he's trying to say."
Raphael turned to him. "And you sound far too comfortable saying it."
"Well," Dante grinned, "I like to call things what they are. You taught me that, remember?"
The board members shifted uneasily. Raphael leaned forward, folding his gloved hands.
"Run a forensic sweep. Lock down server access. I want a full chain-of-command audit by morning," he ordered.
Someone coughed. Someone else stood up to fetch water.
Dante remained unmoved, like a spider in the center of its web. "You don't trust your team?"
"I trust what can be proven," Raphael replied.
He stood.
"Meeting adjourned."
The moment he stepped out of the room, his phone buzzed.
Unknown ID: You think you're winning. You're already ten moves behind.
He stared at it for three seconds before deleting it without a word.
---
Later, in his private office, Raphael tossed his blazer aside and pulled off his gloves with a snap. He stood at the window, staring down at the city skyline. His reflection glared back at him.
Dante.
He knew it had to be him.
He'd been quiet lately. Too quiet. That wasn't like Dante.
A soft knock pulled his thoughts away.
"Enter," he said without turning.
Juno, his secretary, peeked in. "Mr. Del Mundo, legal wants to meet with you. Something about the property dispute with the Yoon Group."
"Schedule them for Friday. And tell the PR team to prep a statement on the app failure. I want a full media strategy before this spirals."
Juno nodded and left.
He turned from the window and picked up the file Greg had left earlier. There it was. The deployment logs.
He read.
Then he re-read.
And there it was: the digital fingerprint. A tiny alteration in the time signature. Just enough to go unnoticed.
It was Dante.
Of course it was.
He picked up his phone and dialed Arthur.
When the older man answered, Raphael didn't waste time.
"It's starting again. This time, I'm not waiting for it to explode in my face."
Arthur sighed. "Are you going to confront him?"
"Not yet. Let him think I'm blind."
He hung up before Arthur could respond.
Then he opened a locked drawer and pulled out an old photograph—one of him and Dante when they were children, grinning, unaware of the storm life would become.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he ripped it clean down the middle.