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Chapter Thirty Three

Penulis: You Keika
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-06-15 17:28:05

The kitchen still smelled like bergamot and bleach.

Old tea. Old secrets.

Sera stood at the counter and picked up the glass mug, the one she’d nearly thrown during her first week in the penthouse.

She didn’t throw it now.

She held it.

Waited.

The memory came.

Lucien’s voice. The fight. The way he’d stood silent afterward, knowing she needed space more than an apology.

It didn’t make her smile.

But it didn’t make her cold either.

> “One point for presence,” she murmured to herself.

She grabbed a marker and added a tally to the chalkboard Elise once used to track blackmail targets.

the hall mirror.

Not the one Echo used.

The one near Elise’s abandoned bedroom.

She stood in front of it. Looked herself in the eye.

Waited for the dissociation.

Nothing came.

No glitches.

No whispers.

Just her face.

Still haunted.

Still hers.

She added a second tally.

At 4:08 PM, she sat on the floor of the surveillance chamber. Lucien entered quietly.

He saw the tally marks on the paper beside her.

Said not
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  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Nine

    Morning light sliced across the penthouse living room, illuminating specks of ash from the destroyed mirror system. Sera and Lucien stood amid the ruins, an intimate battlefield.They didn’t speak.He took her hand first.> Lucien (soft): “What happens now?”> Sera (steady): “We rebuild what we want them to see and burn everything else.”He squeezed her hand.> Lucien: “Trust is fragile.”> Sera: “So we don’t break it further.”Dr. Marte and Maple worked quietly, triaging the damaged servers and sorting through data logs. Maple flipped through printed sheets of code.> Maple (quiet): “Shadow investors accessed the stream for 48 hours. Dozens of locations, dozens of faces.”> Dr. Marte (grim): “They weren’t watching cameras, they were watching reactions.”Sera looked up.> Sera: “They trained Firebrand and Halo to not just see, but read us.”Dr. Marte nodded.> Dr. Marte: “Our next job: scrubbing every trace of predictive analytics.”Maple met Sera’s eyes.> Maple: “We’ll need your hel

  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Eight

    The penthouse felt emptier than before, spacious, sleek, yet charged with absence. The city lights glinted on polished surfaces but provided no warmth.Sera stepped across the marble floor, bag slung low, senses on high alert. Maple followed atop barely silent socks. Dr. Marte lingered just behind them, eyes flicking to every control panel. Lucien closed the door with slow precision, as if sealing away more than cold air.> Lucien (quiet): “They searched everywhere else. I thought ”Sera turned to him, noting the tension around his jaw.> Sera: “They did. But not here.”He exhaled, relief and worry coiling together.> Lucien: “I’ve sent my security team home for now didn’t want anyone around while we clean up.”> Sera: “Let’s start.”She flicked the light switch. Cameras blinked on, screens flooded four dozen feeds of living rooms, corridors, bathrooms. Lucien sank into his chair.> Lucien: “Halo’s code routed through every sensor. If Firebrand was alive in the vents… they could’ve pl

  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Seven

    The subway platform lay in darkness, abandoned and echoing with distant drip‑drip of water. Broken lights flickered overhead, half the bulbs burned out, their dim glow revealing decades of neglect.Sera adjusted the strap of her backpack inside, the schematics Maple had given them. She swallowed hard, the weight of this mission pressing on her chest as much as her pack.Lucien slid up alongside her.> Lucien (soft): “Ready?”She nodded.> Sera: “As we’ll ever be.”Maple stood just behind them, clutching a flashlight. The beam cut through dust, catching debris, discarded tools, charred signage, spray‑painted warnings in stuttering letters: DO NOT ENTER.They moved forward, sneakers silent on cracked tile.> Maple (quiet): “Dr. Marte used this space as a secondary entrance. It bypassed surveillance. It’s where Elise always feared she’d be found.”The air turned cool, stale. They passed a flooded tunnel, cables snaking into the muck. Sera’s flashlight caught something: a panel.> Sera: “

  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Six

    Sera’s fingers trembled as she closed the brownstone door behind them. The night air evaporated from her skin, leaving only the lingering warmth of Lucien pressed to her side.> Lucien (soft): “You okay?”Sera didn’t answer for a heartbeat. Then she turned, grounding him in her eyes.> Sera (low): “Nothing’s okay. But we’re alive.”The tension between them crackled charged descriptors, burnt embers they couldn’t extinguish.> Lucien (heartbeat): “Then let’s not waste a second.”He pulled her into the dark street. Her pulse synchronized with his footsteps on cobblestone. Each step was both a pathway and pledge.Back at Lucien’s penthouse, the windows framed the city’s glow but offered no comfort. Inside, the atmosphere hummed with aftershocks.Sera’s coat fell to the floor. Lucien pressed her back against the wall.> Lucien (whisper): “Are you still with me?”Sera’s breath caught. She tilted her chin up.> Sera (smile curving): “Right here.”He leaned in, lips grazing hers. It wasn't f

  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Five

    Night wrapped around the New York skyline like a velvet cloak as the car pulled into the private driveway of a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. The city felt smaller here and quieter. Clean lines, soft lanterns, an almost domestic calm that mocked what they were about to do.Sera’s nails tapped the door panel. She didn't look at Lucien; didn’t need to the weight in his chest echoed the same resolve she felt clenching her spine.> Sera: “Ready?”He nodded. His voice rough, soft:> Lucien: “I’ll watch your six. And…I trust you.”That carried more than he knew.Inside, the foyer smelled like old mahogany and regrets. She edged forward, every step deliberate, every sense alert. No cameras. No sensors. Just wood and air and the kind of hush that speaks of secrets.A soft click behind them.Lucien’s hand moved to the doorframe. His protective instinct flaring… except the brownstone was empty.> Lucien (quiet): “She’s not here.”Sera didn’t answer. She slipped forward, boot heels silent on th

  • Cold Hands, Warm Lies   Chapter Thirty Four

    The penthouse felt strange this morning. Not cold, exactly just off, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.Sera moved through the rooms like she did before everything shattered: aware of space, sound, scent. But now it felt different, no longer a surveillance fortress. Just a home tempered by mourning and memory.Lucien met her in the control room. He’d been up late decoding a dormant folder Elise never flagged: “OPUS_FINAL_LOGS.”On the primary monitor: a single line of red text shot through a sea of white.> :: TARGET CODE: MAPLE – INITIATE AT DAWN“Maple,” Lucien breathed, sweeping his fingers over the text.Sera leaned forward.> “Maple who?”Lucien didn’t know.> “This isn’t Halo AI. This prefix doesn’t match any of them.”Sera slid into his seat no hesitation.> “Which means…”> “It’s someone Elise trusted enough to hide from even Halo.”They stared at the screen.Sera’s fingers hovered over the keyboard.> “Show me everything under that log.”Lucien nodded and r

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