“Yes…I’ll get it done. No problem.”

He hung up the phone with his supervisor. Always being told what to do by people with half his intelligence. Fools. Just like the neighborhood kids who wasted their time playing baseball or skateboarding while he devoured encyclopedias. They mocked him in grade school. They mocked him in high school. Sports? Girls? Distractions for simple minds. He created new pathways of knowledge. Information was power, and he alone possessed it. Absolute power. He answered to no one. He became judge, jury—God.

In college, no one dared bully him. Professors fought to have him in their labs. He sailed through degrees in computer science and IT. A distant relative opened the door to Memorial. When Memorial landed the ULS contract, his genius was undeniable. He connected their electronic records, made their clumsy systems speak to one another. Both hospitals bent to his code. The nerd had become their savior.

Medusa’s mane of blue, yellow, and black cables coiled through his office, ending in a wall of servers that blinked like obedient soldiers. Every screen pulsed under his command. He tapped a key: a CCTV feed of Nomura appeared, walking to his office. Quadruple-boarded. Orchid society president. Showered with teaching awards. Idolized by residents. Idiot. The man never understood how his report could be altered. He deserved to fall.

Another keystroke: Deetan in the gross room. Cretin. Daddy’s connections got him Carter’s lab. Too blind to see he was just a pawn in Haas’ games. He isn’t good enough for Berkowitz, but let him think he is. That truth will cut deepest when it comes.

Then—her. He zoomed the camera. Dr. Deanna Berkowitz stood at the counter in the gross room, reviewing slides with a tech. A perfect profile. Too perfect. She laughed lightly at something the tech said, but her eyes flicked sideways, unsettled, as though she sensed something.

Jake leaned forward until his nose brushed the monitor glass. You feel it, don’t you? That little shiver at the back of your neck? You should. I’m here. Watching. Always watching.

He smirked. Yes, Deanna. Look over your shoulder. You’ll never see me, but I see you. Always.

“Everything okay, Jake?”

Startled, he turned. Haas stood in the doorway, smiling.

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“You’re doing a remarkable job,” Haas said. “No one knows the half of what you do. But I do.”

“I know you do.” His ID badge glowed in the monitor light. Jake Thompson. He smiled faintly. “Thanks, Auntie Irene.”

But when she left, the green glow painted his face with a darker truth. Carlisle couldn’t control him. Hartman couldn’t. Not even Auntie Irene. She thought she was in charge—arrogant fool.

He controlled both Memorial and ULS. He created the light and the darkness, peace and evil.

He was God.

“I always write the last chapter,” he whispered.

Next Chapter: Epilogue