LOGINSelene’s POVTrust is a fragile construct. I’ve built mine on observation, leverage, and patterns—but even the strongest architecture can collapse when the foundation betrays you.It began with a simple anomaly. A report flagged on the operations screen, buried beneath routine logs. I almost dismissed it. Almost. But I’ve learned the cost of “almost” in this life.A supply manifest had been altered. Just slightly. A missing shipment. A wrong entry. Nothing obvious. But enough for the ledger to hum in warning. My gut reacted before my mind fully understood the implications.“Cassius,” I said sharply, eyes on the screen. “Check the west wing inventory logs for the last twelve hours. Every entry. Every movement. No exceptions.”He leaned over the console, running the cross-check. His jaw tightened as the first discrepancies surfaced. “Selene… this is deliberate. Someone manipulated the logs, then tried to cover it up.”I pressed my fingertips to my temple. Patterns, anomalies, timing. So
Selene’s POVThe moment you think you’ve gained control, reality reminds you how fragile perception is.Kane’s response didn’t come through a message. It came as a ripple across the compound—small at first, almost imperceptible, like the vibrations of a predator walking over sand. The guards I’d relied on, the networks I’d calibrated, the alliances I’d carefully nudged into alignment—everything shifted subtly, almost surgically, in ways that screamed his signature.Cassius and I were in the operations room when it started. The screens flickered, not due to a technical glitch but because the network was being re-routed. Every sensor, every camera, every communication line was being accessed, scanned, and overwritten. That was Kane’s style—direct, but invisible until the consequences hit.“Not subtle,” Cassius muttered, leaning over my shoulder as the first anomalies popped up on the screens.“I never expected subtle,” I replied. My fingers flew across the console, tracing access points
Selene’s POVChoices have weight.And some weights never lift.The morning after Jonah’s death, the compound felt smaller, denser, alive with suspicion. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath. Men and women moved with caution, recalibrating silently. Every glance measured. Every whisper a potential threat. Alignment was no longer a subtle undertone—it was now a battlefield.Cassius walked beside me as we made our way to the command room. He didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. Jonah’s blood still lingered in my thoughts, but not in grief. In calculation. In understanding the cost of leadership.“We need to make a move,” I said finally.Cassius didn’t respond immediately. He knew the tone that preceded it. The command that followed would force choices, fracture allegiances, and define outcomes. He’d seen it before. He’d seen me decide, and he’d survived it.“What’s the play?” he asked.I stopped in the hall, turning to him. “We make the first irreversible call.”Cassius’ brow fu
Selene’s POVBetrayal doesn’t feel like a knife.It feels like recognition arriving a second too late.The compound held its breath after the non-purge. That was the tell. When violence is expected and doesn’t come, people don’t relax—they wait for the correction. Men slept with boots on. Guns stayed within reach. Conversations were clipped, careful, stripped of anything that could be replayed later as evidence of alignment.I spent the morning doing nothing extraordinary.That was deliberate.Power that moves too fast invites desperation. I needed to see who couldn’t tolerate the pause.Cassius shadowed me without hovering, a balance he’d learned quickly. We crossed the west wing together, exchanging quiet updates with people who now looked at me directly when they spoke instead of checking who stood behind me.That shift was still dangerous.“Jonah hasn’t checked in,” Cassius said under his breath.“How long?” I asked.“Six hours.”That was too long.Jonah had been precise. Predicta
Selene’s POVHope is a dangerous word in places like this.It makes people careless.By the time morning came, the compound had stopped pretending it was neutral ground. You could feel it in the way people chose where to stand, who they spoke to, which routes they took through shared spaces. Alignment had sharpened into affiliation.Sides were forming.Not announced.Not declared.But real all the same.Cassius walked with me through the central corridor, his presence no longer questioned by anyone who mattered. Men stepped aside without being told. Doors opened before hands reached for them. The compound was adjusting its posture around us, the way a body adjusts around a healed fracture—stronger, but forever aware of where it once broke.“You see it too,” Cassius said quietly.“Yes.”“They’re waiting for a signal.”“They already have one,” I replied. “They’re just deciding whether to trust it.”We entered the operations room. The map was alive with movement—too much of it. Lines shi
Selene’s POVAlignment is louder than loyalty.Loyalty hides. It waits for orders. It fractures under pressure.Alignment moves without being told.By nightfall, I could feel it happening—not through reports or messages, but through absence. Certain men didn’t linger where they used to. Certain conversations happened without glancing over shoulders. Systems adjusted themselves before commands were issued.The board wasn’t obeying me.It was anticipating me.That realization should have terrified me.Instead, it settled like a weight finding its balance.Cassius noticed before anyone else. He always did.“You didn’t give that order,” he said quietly as we watched the south corridor clear faster than protocol required.“No,” I replied.“They still did it.”“Yes.”He turned to me slowly. “You’re becoming a reference point.”“That’s how this works,” I said. “Eventually.”“That’s not how Kane runs things.”“I’m not Kane.”He studied my face like he was mapping terrain he might someday have







