Chapter 19: The Preemptive Strike
The anonymous tip was a seed planted in barren soil. Elias had no guarantee it would sprout, but he had to trust in the predictable corruption of Vince and the dutiful nature of the police. In the meantime, he fortified his position. Every client visit was now a meticulously documented operation. He arrived with a printed checklist, taking digital fingerprints of the system state before he laid a finger on the keyboard. It was paranoid, professional, and sent a clear, unspoken message to any client who might have been approached by the Millers. The message was this: I am not a kid playing with computers. I am a professional, and I am prepared.
Eleanor became his logistics officer. She helped him streamline the documentation, her architect's mind perfect for creating clear, systematic protocols. They were a partnership, a small, determined army of two. The fear in her eyes had been replaced by a hardened resolve. The attempt to destroy her future had backfired. It had forged her into steel.
A week passed. The tension was a drawn bowstring. Then, Leo's burner phone buzzed with a single, misspelled text message.
"Vince got busted. Last night. J is freaking. Thinks it was u."
Elias allowed himself a cold, thin smile. The seed had sprouted. He showed the text to Eleanor.
"It is done," he said.
Her relief was palpable, but it was quickly followed by a shadow of concern. "He thinks it was you. What will he do now?"
"He will be more careful. And more desperate," Elias replied. "But he is also lost his attack dog. This buys us time."
The fallout was immediate, though invisible to the rest of the school. Jason Miller moved through the halls like a caged animal, his gaze burning with a new, feral hatred whenever it landed on Elias. But he kept his distance. The loss of Vince, and the chilling demonstration of Elias's reach, had temporarily checkmated him.
It was Robert Miller who made the next move, and it was more sophisticated than Elias had anticipated.
The letter arrived for Michael Thorne, Elias's father. Official-looking, from the office of a Business Practices Review Board. It cited numerous complaints about a minor operating an unlicensed, potentially fraudulent IT business, and hinted at possible tax evasion. It strongly recommended he cease and desist all operations pending a review to avoid legal and financial penalties.
It was a bluff, a piece of psychological warfare designed to terrify a middle-class accountant. But it worked. That evening, Elias's father sat him down at the kitchen table, the letter shaking in his hand.
"Eli, this has to stop," he said, his voice ragged with stress. "I do not know what you are involved in, but these people, they are not playing around. You are going to get yourself sued. You are going to get this family in trouble."
For the first time, Elias saw the true cost of his war reflected in his father's weary, frightened eyes. The king's battle was bankrupting the commoner. He could not explain. He could not say, "Do not worry, Dad, I am a time-traveling billionaire fighting a corporate titan who tried to frame me as a pedophile."
He had to play the game within the game.
"Okay, Dad," Elias said, his voice soft, conceding. "You are right. It has gotten out of hand. I will shut it down."
The relief on his father's face was a painful thing to witness. "Thank you, son. It is for the best."
But Elias had no intention of shutting anything down. He was merely going underground.
The next day, he met with Carl Croft in the man's cluttered office.
"I am being pressured," Elias told him bluntly. "My family is getting heat. I need to go ghost."
Croft, who had become fiercely protective of his prodigy, scowled. "The Millers?"
Elias nodded. "I need a front. You become Croft and Associates IT Solutions. I work for you, as a subcontractor. All client communication, all billing, goes through you. You take a twenty percent cut for the overhead and the shield."
Croft's eyes widened, then gleamed with avaricious understanding. He was being offered a profitable business on a silver platter, with all the work done by a genius and none of the risk. "Twenty-five," he countered. "And you are on call."
"Deal," Elias said without hesitation. It was a small price to pay for a legal firewall and his father's peace of mind.
The transition was seamless. By the end of the week, Digital Bridge was a ghost, and Elias was a silent, invisible partner in a legitimate, growing business. The pressure on his family evaporated instantly. The Millers' attack had been predicated on Elias operating as a lone minor. They had no leverage against a registered business owned by a district employee.
He had parried their thrust and disappeared into the fog.
That weekend, with the immediate threat neutralized, Elias took Eleanor to the movies. It was a calculated gesture of normalcy, a way to reassure her and himself that a life still existed outside the war. As they sat in the dark, sharing a popcorn, her head resting on his shoulder, he felt a fleeting sense of peace.
But as the credits rolled, his burner phone vibrated. It was Leo again.
"J met with his dad. Sounds like they are changing tactics. Something about the source. J said if we cannot break the business, we break the brain. What does that mean?"
Elias's blood ran cold. Break the brain. They were not going after his clients or his family anymore. They were going after him. Directly. Personally. They wanted to unravel the mind that was outmaneuvering them.
The preemptive strike was over. The next battle would be for his very sanity. The king had defended his kingdom, but the enemy was now marching on the capital itself.