Chapter 1 :FBI

LAYLA’S POV

As I stared at the glow of my old, tired laptop screen , I couldn’t help thinking that if it had a mouth, it would’ve told me, “Get a new one. I’m tired.” But that didn’t matter,something different mattered.

The thought that sent a cold shiver rushing through my veins. I had to do this. I had no choice. If I didn’t, Anna would die. I had exhausted every opportunity, every favor, every resource trying to cure the rare genetic disorder she had developed. Genetriasis. A word that tasted like grief.

We had been rejected by every hospital. Even researchers would look at ;us two worn-out sisters with fading hope—and say there was no cure for the rarest genetic disorder they had ever seen. They always said it gently, as if kindness could soften the blow, but it never did. It only made the pain sharper.

I had to do this. For Anna. For the helpless mother I had lost to the same disorder. For me.

I had watched the most beautiful, brilliant, hardworking woman—the vibrant hacker and tech engineer who raised us—spend every penny she had trying to save herself. I watched her fade, slipping through my fingers like smoke, dying right in front of my eyes. The gut-wrenching agony of losing her still lived inside me, an ache that never stopped throbbing.

She would’ve done anything to save us. She would’ve burned the world if it meant giving Anna and me a fighting chance. For herself, she would have respected every rule… but for her children? She would’ve broken them all.

I refused to let Genetriasis take away the only good thing I had left—the best thing I had left. Anna, sixteen, soft-hearted, sunshine-bright, the most talented artist I had ever known. She could take the most complex visions and bring them to life on a canvas as if it were the easiest thing in the world. She didn’t deserve this. None of us did.

If only her condition had been diagnosed earlier… maybe my mother would still be alive. Maybe she would have kept fighting. Maybe she wouldn’t have been forced to choose between hope and survival. I missed her genius every day of my life. The world didn’t deserve her kindness, her brilliance.

“Forgive me for what I’m about to do,” I whispered into the stale air, speaking to the ghost of the woman who had raised me. “The opposite of everything you taught me.Every moral she had embedded in me”

It felt like asking permission from a spirit who lived in my memory—only now in a different world, not inside a system. What I was about to do went against every line of her morals, every lesson she drilled into me. But I was out of choices, and I was about to burn the world with the nuclear-level software she created.

My mother had built one of the most powerful digital weapons on the planet. Most people would’ve used it for all the wrong reasons, because its capabilities were terrifying. But she didn’t. She used it to expose human traffickers, to shut down fraud rings, to rescue strangers she would never meet. While Apple had Siri, and Michael Wade had Aegis, my mother had Lyx.

Lyx was her silent shield, her hidden guardian angel for others. A system with teeth—sharp, precise, unstoppable—yet guided by her moral compass. She helped people everywhere without leaving a trace of who she was. But like all systems, it had a flaw. One flaw. One weakness.

But tonight, none of that mattered. Not flaws. Not rules. And definitely not Genetriasis.

As I stared at the laptop, preparing to make the deadliest move of my life, a surge of adrenaline punched through me. What if I end up in prison? What if they come for Anna too?

The fear clung to me, tightening around my ribs, but it didn’t stop me.

I activated Lyx for the first time since my mother died.

“Welcome, Ms. Layla Costov. I’ve been waiting for you.”

The words glowed on the screen, clean and precise, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

My mother never programmed it to greet anyone like that. So how did it know me? Did she secretly transfer ownership before she died? Did Lyx somehow learn she was gone?

The questions hit me all at once.

I had worked on Lyx with her, but the system was something only she truly understood. She coded in a language only she could speak fluently, but she taught me how to understand it. That was how Lyx recognized me—by the way my mother shaped its mind.

Before I could process the shock, a sound cut through my thoughts. A light, painful cough from Anna’s room. Too familiar. Too heartbreaking.

“Easy, Anna,” I whispered to myself. “I’m doing this tonight.”

That cough sliced something inside me. It was enough. Enough to push me past fear, past doubt, past the line between criminal and desperate sister. I breathed in, clenched my jaw, and readied myself.

But just as my finger hovered above the command, my phone lit up. A small heart blinked on the screen. The moment I saw the sender, my chest tightened painfully.

Denz.

My investigative journalist boyfriend.

The message read:

“We will have to break up if you go on with your plan. I won’t be responsible for whatever happens. I don’t want issues with the police because of you.”

The words punched the air out of my lungs.

He had begged me not to do this. He tried to talk me down, to stop me, to get me to consider going through the system. But there was no system for people like us. No waiting list. No grants. No miracle doctors. Just closed doors and sympathetic eyes.

He was young and ambitious, just starting his career. Dating a hacker was bad enough. Dating one who was about to break into a billion-dollar genetics database? That was career suicide.

I dropped to the floor, the phone slipping from my hand. The tears came fast, unstoppable, but silent. I couldn’t let Anna hear me break. I couldn’t reply to him either. What was there left to say? My entire world felt like it was collapsing all at once, crushing me where I knelt.

But eventually, I forced myself back up, wiping my face with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. With the little strength I had left, I hit send.

Lyx unleashed itself instantly.

There was a violent rush of data, a storm of code tearing through security protocols with a sharp precision that made my skin prickle. Colors flashed across my laptop screen—blues, reds, neon greens—Lyx slipping through firewall after firewall like a shadow moving through locked doors.

My breath grew shallow. My pulse hammered. I moved to the window, needing air, needing space, needing anything to keep myself together as the system worked.

Outside, Atlanta glowed. Tall buildings. Neon reflections on wet pavement. Cars humming through the night like nothing in the world was wrong. People were laughing on the sidewalks, living their lives freely, blissfully unaware that somewhere above them, I was gambling everything.

That’s all I wanted—for Anna, for me. A chance to live without fear.

But if this went wrong, I could end up in prison. And Anna… I couldn’t even let myself imagine that.

Six minutes passed.

Then, finally—there it was.

Buried deep inside a secured folder on the Genetix Solutions server: research on all sixty-four patients ever diagnosed with Genetriasis, including Anna. Including my mother. The data was real. Raw. Unobtainable.

Hope surged through me so fast it hurt.

I didn’t think. I hit d******d. And immediately, the world slowed.

The progress bar crawled:

10%… 20%… 30%… 40%…

My fingers dug into my arm as I paced. Each second felt like a lifetime. Then 50%. 60%. It paused too long at 70%. My stomach turned.

A small window suddenly flashed on the screen.

A red hexagon. A white eagle.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION – CYBER DIVISION.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. TRACE ACTIVE.

And just like that, everything inside me froze.