Chapter 88: Chapter 88: What Comes Next II

"One floor?" Finn looked up at Marcus. "Someone died. The team broke. Aria retired. And you’re still talking about momentum and the Hale name?"

Marcus paused. "I’m trying to make you stronger so this doesn’t happen again."

"No." Finn stood from his chair. "You’re trying to make sure I don’t embarrass the Hale name by staying inactive too long."

Marcus’s jaw tightened. "I’m trying to make sure you survive. If you let grief make you weak, the Tower will kill you next."

"Elliot is already dead!" Finn’s voice rose for the first time. "He died because I pushed us into Floor 10 thinking momentum mattered more than being ready."

The room went completely silent.

Finn’s breathing was heavy while he stared at his father. "You never ask if I’m okay. You never ask what happened in that floor. You only ask when I’m climbing again."

Marcus stared at his son while something shifted in his expression. "You think I don’t understand loss? I lost your mother to the Tower. I know what it takes."

"Then why do you only talk about rankings and reputation?" Finn’s hands pressed flat against the table. "When did you last ask me how I felt instead of asking when I was entering the next floor?"

Marcus did not have an immediate answer while his expression showed he was genuinely caught off guard.

"This meeting is over," Finn said while his voice stayed steady. "I’ll climb when I’m ready. Not when you tell me I should be. Not when Ireland expects me to be. When I’m actually ready."

Marcus looked at his son for a long moment before something unreadable crossed his face and he turned toward the stairs.

The basement door closed behind him with a heavy sound that echoed in the training room.

Finn stayed standing for several seconds before sitting back down slowly.

After Marcus left, the room stayed quiet for almost a full minute while the echo of the closing door faded.

Kael was the first to speak while breaking the heavy silence. "That was overdue."

Finn looked at him with tired eyes.

"I’m not saying it was easy," Kael continued while keeping his tone matter-of-fact instead of sympathetic. "But you’ve been carrying that longer than just this month. Your father’s been pushing you like that since before I joined the team."

Finn did not deny it because Kael was right.

Kael brought the conversation back to practical matters instead of dwelling on family conflict. "We’re not clearing Floor 11 today."

"I know," Finn said while running a hand through his hair.

"We’re not forming a full plan today either," Kael continued while folding his hands on the table. "But we need to decide what Team Zero is before we decide what floor comes next. Are we still a team with three members? Do we recruit new people and risk what happened with random parties? Do we change how we operate entirely?"

Those were real questions that required real answers, not emotional reactions.

Finn admitted what they all knew but had not said out loud yet. "I don’t know how to lead right now. I made the call that killed Elliot. How am I supposed to make tactical decisions when the last one I made got someone killed?"

James finally spoke while looking across the table at Finn. "Then we don’t rush leadership or structure. If we return to the Tower, we return with a proper reason and a proper plan. Not because Marcus says we should. Not because the world reached Floor 14 and we feel pressure to catch up."

Kael agreed with a nod. "We need time to figure this out properly instead of forcing ourselves back into floors before we’re ready."

James understood the problem better now while looking at Finn sitting exhausted and guilty at the table.

Floor 10 had broken Team Zero in one brutal fight that lasted less than an hour.

Marcus had been breaking Finn for years with expectations and pressure that treated him like the Hale heir first and a grieving son second.

"I’ll contact both of you when I’m ready to talk again," Finn said while his voice carried tired acceptance instead of defeated surrender. "Not this week. Maybe not next week. But soon."

James and Kael both nodded before standing from the table and heading toward the stairs together while leaving Finn alone in the basement training room.

James left Hale Estate while walking back through the halls that felt quieter than they should have after the confrontation between Finn and Marcus.

The walk out felt different because he came expecting to talk about returning to the Tower, but now he had seen that Finn’s problem was not just Elliot’s death or the one-month break. It was also Marcus, the Hale name, and the pressure that came with being raised as an heir instead of a son.

James thought briefly about his own family problems while approaching the estate gate.

Finn’s father was alive but suffocating him with expectations that treated climbing like a family duty instead of a survival choice.

James’s father was dead and his uncles stole everything while pretending they had a right to it.

Different families with different damage, but the Tower had shaped both of them.

As James reached the estate gate and stepped out onto the public road, a black luxury car was parked along the curb with tinted windows and a polished exterior that screamed expensive without being marked by any obvious agency or guild.

James noticed it immediately because after Adrian ambushing him and Ganner Corp watching his movements, he was not stupid enough to ignore an unknown car waiting outside Hale Estate right after a team meeting.

The rear tinted window rolled down smoothly while revealing the interior of the expensive car.

A well-dressed man sat in the back seat wearing a dark suit that looked like it cost more than James’s entire wardrobe combined. He was maybe in his late thirties or early forties with neat hair, a clean-shaven face, and the kind of polished appearance that came from professional training and expensive grooming.

He did not step out of the car. He did not threaten James. He did not wave a guild flyer or act like an aggressive recruiter trying to poach talent.

He addressed James with careful respect.

"Mr. James Ganner. I would like to have a conversation with you. Can you spare us a few minutes?"

James did not answer immediately while his mind processed the situation and cataloged every detail about the man and the car.

The man’s accent was not Irish. It sounded English, but not the polished London kind James usually heard from news anchors or official interviews. There was a rougher edge under the controlled tone. Scouse, maybe. Liverpool.

That made James more cautious, not less.

This was not a random guild scout.

James looked at the man, then at the car, then back at the man while staying outside the vehicle.

"Who are you?"

"Call me Mr. Langford," the man said. His tone stayed polite and professional. "I represent people who would like to speak with you about your future as a Challenger."

"What people?"

"That is part of the conversation I am asking you to hear."

James did not move.

The man smiled slightly, but there was no warmth in it. "You are under no obligation to accept anything. This is only a conversation."

James thought about Adrian. He thought about Derek. He thought about Ganner Corp and the timing of an English stranger waiting outside Hale Estate right after Team Zero met for the first time in a month.

He did not like any of it.

"Then talk from there," James said.

The man’s smile paused for half a second.

Then it returned.

"Fair enough," Mr. Langford said.

James stayed outside the car while the tinted window remained open.

The break was over.