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Kabir

I slammed the lid shut, heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted out.

Every instinct I had screamed trap . My pulse spiked, cold sweat prickling down my spine.

Someone was inside my system.

Not just anyone.

Someone good enough to breach the laptop no one even knew existed.

This had Crazon written all over it.

Where was Zane when you needed him?

Madarch—

My fingers hovered over the laptop like they didn’t belong to me.

I slowly opened the lid again, ignoring the static roar in my ears, and pressed the space bar.

A black terminal blinked to life. No boot sequence. Just one waiting line. A cursor, pulsing.

I flinched when a message pinged.

|Hi :)

I stared at it. One second. Two. Then typed.

Cipher: Who are you?

It replied instantly.

|Does it matter? :)

My jaw clenched.

Cipher: What do you want?

Another blink.

|I’m just curious. :)

I frowned.

|You slipped through my backdoor at the White House. That should’ve been impossible. So tell me, Cipher… how did you do it? :)

My heart dropped. My fingers tapped fast now.

Cipher: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

|Lie again and I take another. :)

What the fuck?

Cipher: Take who?

There was a pause.

|You bypassed three layers of classified surveillance. You ghosted Crazon. Altered the security system of White House. :)

|You used something else, didn’t you? :)

I was shaking now. My jaw clenched. This wasn’t a bot. Did they know about Sentrix? Fuck.

Cipher: What do you want from me?

The answer was slower this time. I could almost feel the breathing on the other side.

|You’re a loose end. A problem Mr. Romano intends to solve. :)

I was trying to formulate a response when it messaged again.

|We didn’t mean to kill her. :(

My chest caved in.

Amelia.

|The shot was to shake you. Submission works better when you’re broken. :)

|Oh, I almost forgot! :)

I froze. The cursor blinked once. Twice.

Then a command auto-executed.

| transmitting file…

A new window popped up. Encrypted image files, opening one by one.

Image 001: Kavya. My sister. Smiling in a Delhi park with her boyfriend. Yesterday’s timestamp.

Image 002: Iris Desmond. Dylan and Amelia’s kid sister. Working in her apartment two days ago. The view… was from outside her window.

Image 003: My parents. Laughing near the Nainital lake. Dated a week ago.

My stomach twisted.

Image 004: Kaylan’s parents. Dead. Laid out on their bed in Boston.

I choked on my breath. My vision blurred with tears.

Image 005: Leora’s parents. Dancing in their living room. Three days ago. In Milton, Ontario.

Rage built like a tidal wave in my chest. But the terminal blinked again.

|They look pretty happy. Well… except for the Bennetts. But I swear that wasn’t me. :)

My hands curled into fists.

Cipher: Fuck you.

The response came instantly.

|Touchy. You know, Cipher, it’s cute how you still think you’re the one playing defense. You’re not. :)

Another pause and then—

|Mr. Romano wants a deal. Your tech. Your skills. :)

|You. :)

|All wrapped in a nice little package with Sentrix slapped on top. :)

I could feel the blood drain from my face. They knew. They knew about Sentrix.

|It’s unfortunate that we lost Specter. So we’re left with you. Lucky for us you’ve got a lot more people you love! :)

Zane? They had tried this with Zane? What did they mean they lost him?

Is that why he’s missing?

|You switch sides, Kabir. You work for Mr. Romano. And everyone you love stays breathing, okay? :)

The condescending tone of this motherfucker was grating on my nerves. The cursor blinked slowly now. Like it was watching me.

|Well, maybe not Amelia ‘Falcon’ Desmond. Is she dead yet? :(

My pulse pounded in my ears, every instinct screaming to smash the damn laptop and set the entire world on fire.

|I hope that ventilator doesn’t accidentally get disconnected. :(

What the fuck?

How did they—

|One wrong move, Cipher. And our informant at Blackthorn will happily become… clumsy. :(

No .

No, no, no, no.

I was beginning to type when another message popped up.

|We’ll give you 36 hours. If we don’t see you at the Pentagon by then, the photos will become memorials. :)

And then—just as suddenly as it appeared—the terminal vanished. Not closed.

Vanished.

One second the threat was alive on the screen. The next, it was wiped clean—like it had never existed. Like it had crawled back into whatever rotten void it came from.

The boot screen flickered once… then the laptop powered down completely.

Silence.

My breath sawed in and out of me, harsh and broken. I was trembling now. Not from fear. No. This was something else.

Something darker.

They knew.

They fucking knew about Sentrix.

My vision blurred, red-hot fury rising so fast I thought I’d vomit. My hands curled into fists, nails digging half-moons into my palms. Every instinct in me screamed to destroy something—everything—because this wasn’t just a breach.

It was a goddamn invasion.

My world, my secrets, my family… her.

They knew about Amelia’s fragile state.

They knew about Leora’s parents. Iris. Kavya .

My fucking parents.

And Kaylan’s…

Fuck. Fuck!

How deep did this go? Informant at Blackthorn? Had we been compromised from day one?

Maybe this wasn’t a remote breach, after all.

Goddammit!

This wasn’t blackmail. This wasn’t a threat.

This was war. And the first battlefield wasn’t a bunker or a boardroom.

It was me.