เข้าสู่ระบบShe watched him settle into his routine, the familiar motions of a man in command. And yet, she noticed the delay just a fraction of a second before he started reviewing the reports on his desk. A pause that shouldn’t have been there. Her heart picked up. She shook her head. It’s nothing. You’re imagining it. But when she sat down, her pen hovering above a blank page, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The missed lunches. The delayed messages. The carefully controlled interactions. The moments of silence that didn’t belong. They weren’t enough to prove anything, but they were enough to whisper. Enough to make her question, quietly, almost painfully, the narrative she had trusted for months. She tapped her pen against the notebook, a soft rhythm that barely disturbed the stillness of the office. She had survived worse lies than this. Or so she thought. Her eyes drifted toward his office door, closed as usual. She told herself one last time that she was overthinking, tha
She walked instead letting the city’s noise settle her thoughts, letting instinct speak without interruption. You’re asking the wrong questions. She replayed it again and again. Not stop asking. Not you shouldn’t know. Wrong questions. Which meant there were right ones. Yna slowed, heart steadying. For the first time since the message, something like clarity cut through her unease. She wasn’t being warned away. She was being challenged. And whoever had sent that message They didn’t underestimate her. That realization sent a shiver through her, sharp and electric. Somewhere else, Raven stood on a rooftop, city lights stretching endlessly below. She watched the flow of people, the quiet machinery of power grinding on, unseen and unquestioned. “Let’s see how long you keep pretending not to see,” she murmured. The game had begun not with a reveal, not with a threat But with a question asked too softly to ignore. Yna closed the door to her apartment and leaned against
The message was never meant to stay. Raven watched the confirmation blink once on the burner screen delivered and then vanish exactly as planned. No trace. No echo. Just absence. Absence was louder than any threat. She leaned back in the chair, boots resting lightly against the edge of the metal table, the dim light of the safehouse catching the sharp angles of her profile. The room smelled faintly of ozone and old dust. Temporary. Forgettable. Perfect. “You’re asking the wrong questions,” she repeated quietly, tasting the words again. Not a warning. Not an instruction. A test. Most people, when nudged, panicked. They asked who. Why. How did you get this number? Yna hadn’t replied. That mattered. Raven pulled up the surveillance feed she’d been watching on and off all morning. Office cameras officially archived, unofficially accessible. She slowed the footage to half speed. There. Yna at her desk. Still. Observing. Not frozen, not frantic. Just… attentive. Raven’s mouth
Yna noticed the silence first. Not the comfortable kind the kind that followed laughter or rest but the sharp, attentive quiet that settled when something had already happened and no one wanted to name it. The office was still functioning. Phones rang. Papers shuffled. People passed by with the same practiced urgency they always wore. But beneath it, there was a pause, like everyone had inhaled at the same time and forgotten how to exhale. She sat at her desk, fingers hovering above her notebook, pretending to review notes she already knew by heart. Across the room, someone whispered her name and then stopped, as if remembering too late that she wasn’t supposed to hear it. Yna didn’t look up. She had learned, over the years, that attention often arrived uninvited. And when it did, it brought questions she wasn’t ready to answer. Still, she felt it something had shifted. Gabriel hadn’t arrived yet. That alone was unusual. He was never late. Not because he was punctual
Gabriel wasn’t careless. She turned it over once, then twice, as if it might explain itself. Work, she reasoned. It has to be work. Still, she didn’t plug it in. Instead, she slipped it back exactly where she found it, smoothing the fabric as if that could erase the moment. But something had shifted. The room felt different now like it had learned a secret and was waiting to see what she’d do with it. She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the door. “I trust him,” she whispered. But trust didn’t silence intuition. It only made it quieter. Gabriel Gabriel realized the jacket was missing halfway down the street. He stopped walking. The city noise rushed around him, but all he could hear was the sudden thud of his own pulse. The USB wasn’t explosive. It wasn’t proof on its own. But it was unfinished. And unfinished things were dangerous. He considered turning back. Didn’t. If Yna had seen it, reacting too fast would raise questions. He had learned lo
Yna noticed it first in the pauses. Gabriel had always been deliberate with his time busy, yes, but present. When he listened, he listened fully. When he promised something, he followed through. That was the man she had come to trust. Lately, he hesitated. Not long enough to be obvious. Just enough to feel… unfamiliar. They were sitting across from each other at a small café near her apartment, the night softened by warm lights and low conversation. Gabriel stirred his drink absently, eyes drifting to the window more than to her. “You’re quiet,” Yna said gently. He smiled quick, practiced. “Long week.” She nodded, accepting it, but something in his tone didn’t settle right. His phone buzzed once on the table. He flipped it face down immediately. That wasn’t like him. “Everything okay at work?” she asked. “Yeah,” he replied too quickly. “Just a lot of loose ends.” Loose ends. The phrase echoed in her mind. She watched his hands steady, but tense. His jaw set a







