Chapter 1: The Face in the Glass

Chapter 1: The Face in the Glass

The only light in Elias Vance’s apartment came from the monitors, a triptych of glowing windows that painted his face in shifting hues of sapphire and emerald. This room was his sanctuary, his fortress, the only place the outside world couldn’t touch him. Here, amidst the quiet hum of servers and the gentle click of his mechanical keyboard, he was not the scrawny, anxious kid who ate his lunch in the library to avoid the hallways. Here, he was a god in a machine, weaving through terabytes of data like a phantom.

Tonight’s job was a standard penetration test for a mid-tier financial firm. Tedious, but it paid the bills. He was methodically dismantling their digital defenses, a process as familiar and comforting as breathing. He found a vulnerability, a small crack in the code, and began to pry it open. And that’s when he saw it.

It wasn't part of the job. It was a distraction, an ad banner on a professional networking site he’d been using as a proxy. Usually, he ignored them, digital noise in an already loud world. But this one featured a face. A face he had spent the last decade trying to forget.

The man in the ad was handsome, his dark hair slicked back, his smile a confident, predatory slash. He wore a suit that probably cost more than Eli’s entire server rack. The name beneath the portrait read ‘Marco Gallo - Investment Consultant.’ But the name was a lie. Eli knew the truth. He knew the cold, calculating cruelty behind those eyes.

Marcus Thorne.

The name hit Eli like a physical blow, a ghost limb aching with a phantom pain. His fingers froze over the keyboard. The air in his spartan apartment suddenly felt thin, suffocating. He instinctively reached up and touched the faint, silvery line of a scar almost hidden by his right eyebrow. His thumb traced its path, and the memory, always lurking just beneath the surface, flooded him.

The biting smell of hot asphalt. The jeering laughter of a circle of boys. The coppery taste of blood in his mouth as his head was slammed against the pavement. And Marcus, standing over him, that same confident smirk on his face. “You gonna cry, Vance? Gonna tell a teacher?”

He’d never told. He had just endured, hoarding the humiliation and rage until it crystallized into something hard and sharp inside him. That day was the last time he saw Marcus Thorne. He’d heard whispers later that Marcus had skipped town, facing an assault charge. Eli had allowed himself to believe he was gone for good, a bad memory that would fade with time.

But time hadn't faded it. And here he was, staring back at him from the screen, repackaged and rebranded, but unmistakably the same monster. ‘Marco Gallo.’ The name was smoother, more refined, a silk glove over a clenched fist.

A dangerous, reckless curiosity, an emotion Eli had suppressed for years, began to bubble up from the depths of his long-held resentment. This wasn't just revenge; it was an unclosed loop, a system error that needed correcting. His fingers flew across the keyboard, the financial firm’s network forgotten. His focus narrowed to a single target.

Finding the digital footprint of ‘Marco Gallo’ was easy. He had a meticulously curated online presence—articles about market trends, a polished corporate website for a company called ‘Croft Innovations,’ and a profile on the same networking site as the ad. Eli clicked on it. Standard stuff: university credentials (falsified, Eli suspected), a list of impressive-sounding skills, glowing endorsements.

But the profile picture was… odd.

Eli leaned closer, his brow furrowed. It was the same photo from the ad, but at a higher resolution, he could see the background more clearly. Marcus—Marco—wasn't in an office. He was sitting at a simple table, and behind him was a sterile, institutional-grey wall. There was a thick pane of glass in front of him, catching the light in a way that suggested it was reinforced. It looked… it looked like a prison visiting room.

Yet, he was smiling. Not the forced smile of an inmate, but the triumphant, arrogant smirk of a king on his throne. It made no sense. Why would a successful consultant use a picture that screamed incarceration for his professional profile? Was it a joke? A power play? A message?

The puzzle gnawed at Eli. His ability to see patterns in data, the very skill that made him a world-class hacker, kicked into overdrive. This wasn't a random choice; it was a piece of a larger picture, a deliberate act of concealment or arrogance. He had to know more.

He abandoned the clean digital trail of Marco Gallo and began searching for the ghost of Marcus Thorne. He dove into the deep web, into archaic public record databases and forgotten news archives from their hometown. He cross-referenced names, dates, and locations, stitching together the frayed ends of a life that had been professionally erased.

The work was intricate, like digital archaeology. He peeled back layers of fabricated history, bypassed flimsy privacy shields, and followed the faint breadcrumbs Marcus had left behind when he fled. Hours bled into one another. The city lights outside his window blurred into a soft glow.

And then, he found it.

Buried deep in a county court’s poorly secured server, a digital file collecting dust. An outstanding bench warrant.

WANTED: MARCUS A. THORNE CHARGE: AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION DATE ISSUED: TEN YEARS AGO

The warrant was still active. A ten-year-old loose thread that could unravel Marcus’s entire new life. A quiet, vicious satisfaction bloomed in Eli's chest. All the power, all the money, all the success Marcus had built was balanced on this single point of failure.

Attached to the warrant was a grainy, decade-old mugshot. The face was younger, angrier, the smirk not yet polished by wealth, but the eyes were the same. The eyes of a predator.

Eli looked from the old mugshot to the polished profile of Marco Gallo. The bully and the consultant. The past and the present. He had him. He finally, truly had him.

His gaze drifted to another browser tab he had opened earlier—the local police department’s anonymous tip line. A simple web form. No names, no IP tracking if you knew how to bounce your signal properly, which for Eli was as easy as tying his shoes. A small box offered a cash reward for information leading to the arrest of a fugitive. One thousand dollars. A pittance, but it wasn't about the money.

It was about balance. It was about justice.

His hands trembled slightly as he moved the mouse. He copied the link to the decade-old warrant. He attached the professional profile of ‘Marco Gallo,’ a digital arrow pointing directly from the past to the present. He typed a single, simple sentence into the message box:

Marcus Thorne is living under the name Marco Gallo at this address.

His finger hovered over the ‘Submit’ button. A decade of fear and anger churned in his gut. This single click was more terrifying than breaching the most secure network in the world. This was real. This had consequences. He could just close the window, delete the history, and go back to his quiet, safe life.

But the face in the glass, the ghost of Marcus Thorne smiling from that strange visiting room, wouldn't let him.

The cursor blinked, a steady, rhythmic heartbeat in the silent room, waiting for his decision.