Page 144 of BounBound By Scars

He didn’t look at me. “This… this is the only thing I can do right now. Keep going. Keep digging. If I stop—”

“You’ll lose it,” I finished softly.

I understood where he was coming from. Even though Kabir wasn’t lying in a coma somewhere in the building, it felt the same.

Like missing a limb.

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

I hesitated, fingers tightening on my armrest. “Is there… something going on between—”

His chair creaked as he straightened suddenly, like a wire had snapped in his brain. He was frowning at his screen.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Hang on.” His fingers flew over the keys. “Project Ruby—there’s a flag here. Weird notation on asset routing. Like someone tried to overwrite access logs but didn’t clean up the metadata.”

I wheeled closer.

“Get this—it’s a remote backup registry with tiered clearance levels. Last active transfer… was to a secondary site.”

“Where?” I asked.

He zoomed in on the reference.

“It’s vague. Just calls it ‘RSR Grounds – Private Sector Access Only.’” He paused. “RSR as in… Robert fucking Sanchez Romano.”

My breath caught. “Are you saying the Doom Switch could be at his personal residence?”

“I’m saying there’s a chance. And that’s the first actual thread we’ve had in days.” Zane’s face lit up with something that looked dangerously close to hope. “If we shut down Doom Switch, and Kabir hasn’t fused it with Sentrix yet, we can recover the system integrity.”

I nodded slowly. “Assuming.”

“Assuming,” he echoed. “But if there’s a window, I’m taking it. I’ll start working on the mission plan—scouting his estate, known entry points, security rotations.”

He pushed away from the desk and stood. “I’ll gather everyone. Be in the conference room in ten?”

“Go,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

As his footsteps faded down the hall, I turned back to the screen.

Just one more sweep.

I scrolled through the decrypted old files and suddenly paused.

A hidden directory flickered briefly—then vanished.

No label. No permissions.

I overrode the firewall.

It gave way too easily.

What loaded wasn’t just unusual—it was wrong. Redacted logs. Mission records. Authorizations from Robert Callahan—Romano’s former identity.

And at the bottom…

Asset: Siwáng