로그인AlanThe sound behind us was not loud, not sudden enough to make anyone jump, but it carried a weight that made it impossible to ignore, the kind of sound that did not belong to the steady rhythm of machines or the quiet hum of systems running in the background, it was something human, something small and controlled, like the faint shift of a shoe against the floor or the slight brush of fabric as someone adjusted their stance, and that alone was enough to make every thought in my mind sharpen at once.I did not turn immediately, not because I was afraid of what I might see, but because instinct told me that reacting too quickly would give something away, and right now, the only advantage we might have left was the fact that whoever was behind us did not know exactly what we had already noticed.Alan went still beside me, not rigid, not tense in a way that would draw attention, just controlled, the same way he had been earlier, but I could feel the shift in him, the way his awareness
NatashaThe moment Alan said that, the air in the room changed in a way I could not explain with anything simple, because it was not just tension or fear, it was something quieter and more dangerous, something that settled into the space between us and stayed there, refusing to move, as if the truth had finally stepped out from wherever it had been hiding and was now standing right in front of us, waiting for us to look at it properly.I did not speak immediately, not because I did not have anything to say, but because I did not trust my voice to come out the way I wanted it to, and I needed a second to steady my thoughts, to push past the first wave of disbelief that tried to take hold, because if I let myself react too quickly, I would miss something important.Someone is already standing right beside us.The words did not leave my mind, they stayed there, repeating slowly, each time sinking deeper than the last, until I could feel the weight of them pressing into my chest.I turned
AlanThe weight of that question did not leave the room after Natasha said it, it stayed there, low and sharp, pressing into everything, because once she asked what they had already taken before we realized we were being watched, there was no pretending the damage might still be small, no pretending this was only about a terminal or a call or a narrow breach we could close before it spread, because if someone close enough to know how I moved had created that window on purpose, then the truth was simple and ugly in a way I could not soften, they had not acted blindly, they had gone after something specific.I did not answer her immediately, not because I wanted to avoid it, but because I already knew that the next few minutes mattered too much for careless words, and if I said the wrong thing too soon, if I let what I was thinking show before I was sure, I would be putting a name into the air that could not be taken back.Victor watched me without speaking, and Natasha’s eyes stayed on
NatashaThe silence that followed Alan’s words did not feel empty, it felt full, heavy in a way that settled into the space around us and refused to move, because once something like that was said out loud, once the idea that this could be someone inside, someone close, someone we trusted, had been placed between us, there was no easy way to step back from it, no simple way to pretend that it was just another possibility we could dismiss and move past.I did not speak immediately, not because I had nothing to say, but because I had too much, and none of it felt like something that should be rushed, because this was not just about the system anymore, it was about people, about choices, about moments that might have seemed small at the time but now carried a different weight.“Someone close,” I repeated quietly, not questioning it, but letting it sit out loud so I could hear it properly, so I could feel what it meant beyond just the words.Alan did not respond, but I could see the shift
NatashaVictor’s words did not just settle into the space around us, they shifted it, quietly but completely, in a way that made everything feel just a little less certain than it had a moment ago, and as I stood there beside Alan with his phone still in his hand and that pause lingering between them even after the call had ended, I realized that whatever line we thought we were holding steady had just been crossed without us even seeing it happen.“It was pulled from inside the system.”The sentence echoed in my mind, not loudly, not in a way that demanded attention, but in a way that stayed, that refused to move aside no matter how much I tried to focus on something else, because it meant that this was no longer just about what Matt could do from the outside, it meant that something, or someone, had already gotten close enough to touch what should have been secure.“Natasha.”Alan’s voice brought me back, and I turned toward him slowly, not because I had not heard him the first time
AlanThe moment the words left Natasha’s mouth, something in me went still, not in the way people went still when they were confused or unsure, but in the way a part of your mind quieted itself on purpose, like it understood that reacting too quickly would only give Matt exactly what he wanted, and as I stood there looking at her with that message hanging between us, I knew without needing to say it out loud that this was not just another attempt to get under our skin, this was something placed carefully, something meant to land at the exact moment when we had just started putting the pieces together.“You should ask him where he really was before he found you.”I repeated the words silently in my head, not because I had not heard them clearly the first time, but because I needed to hear how they sounded without the weight of her voice, needed to strip them down to what they were trying to do rather than what they appeared to say, and even then, even with that distance, the intention
AlanThe shot rang out, but it did not sound like just another gunshot in the middle of chaos, it sounded louder, closer, like it had been fired right inside my chest, because for one second I did not know who it hit, did not know if I had just watched everything I had been trying to hold together
NatashaThe moment his name tore out of my throat, it did not feel like a choice or something I had control over, it came from somewhere deeper than that, somewhere raw and shaken and angry, because even though I had tried to hold it in, tried to stay quiet and think my way through this, the second
AlanThe moment Victor’s voice tore through the comm and I heard Natasha’s name shouted the way a man only shouted when something had gone terribly wrong, it felt like every other sound around me dropped away for one sharp terrible second, because even though gunfire was still breaking through the
Natasha.That hit me so hard that for a second I could not speak, because I knew he was right, I knew it in the deepest part of me, and suddenly the words from earlier came back to me, the tension in the compound, the strange confidence of the men attacking, the feeling that every move had been pla







