เข้าสู่ระบบPriya didn't knock.She did not knock. She had another key with her, that she could use anytime she feels like, just like she does every other thing, without alarm and without apology. The door opened and her voice came through from the entrance before her body did."I bought food. Real food. Not that sad corner store stuff you've been eating." She dropped two bags on the kitchen counter and finally looked at Lina properly.She stopped.Lina was sitting right on the couch. she wrapped her hands around her boy like she's feeling cold and sick.Her hair looking so rough and not neatly placed. Her eyes were so dry but the kind of dry that came after a long time of so much tears.Priya put her keys down gently."Okay," she said. "How bad.""Don't make me say it out loud.""Lina.""I caught her kissing him so comfortably, Priya." Her voice was calm. Empty. Like she has repeatedly said the sentence so many times inside her own head that the feeling had worn off the words. "In his office. Las
Freddie didn't pick up the call.He watched how Marcos's name displayed on the screen until it stopped ringing. Then he put it face down to the table and looked at his notepad.Marcos De Luca. Calling him at ten thirty at night.He stood still.Then his phone rang.A text."Pick up Freddie. We need to talk."He stared at it.Another one came through thirty seconds later."Or don't. I'll come to you instead."He put the phone down.---The knock came forty minutes later.Three sharp confident raps on his front door. Not hesitant. Not apologetic. The knock of a man who had somewhere to be and had decided this was it.Freddie walked to the door.Stood on his side of it."Who is it," he said. Like he didn't already know."You know who it is." Marcos's voice through the door was smooth. Completely unbothered. "Open up Freddie. I just want to talk.""We have nothing to talk about.""I disagree." A pause. "I know you've had quite a day. Thought you might need some company."Something tighten
Freddie started with what he knew.That was the only way to do it. Not with what he suspected. Not with what he felt. With what he could actuallylay his hands on and point to and also say, this is real, this happened, this is where I begin.He sat right at his kitchen table with a notepad and wrote everything down.The server breach. Adrian's credentials. The metadata trail Brett had found before going silent. The hotel security log. The document tampering three years ago. The ghost account. The routing pattern.He looked at what he had written.Then he started making calls.---The first call was to a contact at a cybersecurity firm he had used twice before for internal audits. A woman named Dana Reeves who was extremely careful and didn't ask unnecessary questions."I need you to look into something," he said when she picked up. "Off the books. Personal.""How off the books?" she asked."Completely."A pause. "Send me what you have."He sent her everything Brett had found. The metad
Freddie didn't go back to the office straight away.He had been there all night and most of the morning and the thought of walking back through those doors and sitting behind that desk felt like something his body wasn't willing to do right now. Not today. Not with his name still trending on financial news sites and four board members waiting for a resolution he didn't have and an investigator who had stopped picking up his phone.He walked instead.No direction. No destination. Just the city and his feet and the cold air that had a way of making everything feel slightly more real than he wanted it to feel right now.New York didn't care.That was the thing he had always appreciated about this city and the thing that felt like a wound this morning. It just kept going. Kept moving. Kept being itself with complete indifference to whatever any one person was carrying through it.He walked for forty minutes before he ended up somewhere he hadn't consciously decided to go.His father's old
FREDDIEHe called her seven times.Seven times. Back to back. Each one going to voicemail after four rings. Her voice on the recording calm and familiar in a way that made his chest tighten every single time he heard it.He left a message on the third call."Lina. Call me back. Please."He left another on the fifth."I don't know what you saw last night. But I need you to let me explain. Please just call me back."By the seventh he didn't leave anything. Just listened to her voice and hung up.He stood at his office window. The city was doing its morning thing. Early light. Delivery trucks. People with coffees already in hand moving with the particular urgency of people who had somewhere to be and not quite enough time to get there.He had been in this office all night.That thought sat uncomfortably. He had been here all night and something had happened and he couldn't fully remember what and Lina had been calling him for hours and now she wasn't picking up.He pressed his hand flat
Lina refused to take the bottle.She just looked at it. Then at him. Then away again.Marcos didn’t utter anything. He didn’t push it into her hand. Didn’t insist. Didn’t ask if anything is wrong. He was just sitting on the step like he's spying around and had nowhere else to be, like owns the night and he was willing to let her move through it however she likesLina’s chest felt so tight. Too tight. Like something inside it had been twisted and left there.She turned. And started walking. No goodbye. No acknowledgment. Nothing. But she heard him shift behind her.He didn’t follow immediately. He let her go a few steps ahead. Then..... Footsteps. Not loud. Not rushed. Just steady.Lina kept walking.Her arms folded slightly around herself now, it's not because of the cold, but because she just needed something to hold onto.The image keeps playing in her head. It stayed. Clear. Sharp.Uninvited.That room. That light. That moment. She blinked hard.Like that would fix it. It didn’t. Sh







