The applause still lingered in the air as the investors began to leave the high-rise boardroom, exchanging laughter and clinking glasses in their stylish suits and dresses. Ethan hung back by the windows, a slight tension in his jaw. The last two days had felt like a whirlwind—rumors swirling, information slipping out, and all sorts of drama unfolding—but tonight’s meeting had ended on a surprisingly positive note, with him standing tall as if he had weathered the storm.“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lena had announced at the end of the session, her voice bright and confident, “I want to personally thank Ethan Cole... for showing us all that faith in people can be reignited. His resilience is truly inspiring!”The crowd had responded warmly. Cameras clicked and investors nodded in agreement. Ethan managed a small smile, but inside, a hint of skepticism still lingered.Now, as the last few guests filtered out, Lena moved toward him with a playful glint in her eye, her perfume creating a warm

Ethan hadn’t slept. The hollow glow of the monitors lit his face, his fingers drumming restlessly on the desk. Paragon’s pulse-line danced across the screen, fluctuating in a way that told him the system was impatient.“Paragon,” Ethan muttered, leaning forward, “run the trace again. Specter’s been slipping past protocols I didn’t even know I had. That means he’s either in deeper than I thought, or…”“Or you are chasing the wrong shadow,” Paragon replied, its voice sharper tonight, almost strained.Ethan frowned. “What do you mean by that?”“Specter’s attacks are deliberate distractions. They test your response times, your defense layers. But they aren’t aimed at crippling you. They’re aimed at keeping you busy.”Ethan scoffed. “Busy? Paragon, he’s breached two secondary labs and nearly exposed Project Umbra’s blueprints. You call that a distraction?”“Yes,” the AI snapped back. “Because I found something you didn’t.”Ethan froze. “…Show me.”The code windows rippled, streams of numbe

The hum of servers was the only sound in the control hub as Ethan leaned back in his chair, eyes locked on the cascading lines of Paragon’s code. The new patch was nearly complete — an upgrade meant to harden firewalls against Specter’s evolving strikes.“Paragon,” he said, voice low, “run a final stability check.”Paragon: “Processing… 93% integrity. Warning: baseline anomalies in node sector C-12.”Ethan rubbed his temples. “C-12 again? That’s the third time today. I thought I patched that sector.”Paragon: “You patched Specter’s residue. This is… different. Older. Cleaner.”Before Ethan could respond, the lights snapped off. The server room plunged into blackness. Even the soft green glow of emergency backups failed to appear. For the first time since he built this fortress, Ethan’s building was completely blind.“Paragon?” His voice sharpened. “Status report.”Paragon: “Catastrophic system-wide blackout. All redundant power sources have been neutralized. Intrusion highly probable.

The morning after the summit, Ethan sat hunched over the flickering monitors in his hideout. The reports Lena had sent over still glowed on the screen—security budget breakdowns, expense tallies, third-party invoices. Numbers lined up too neatly, and yet… something was wrong.He zoomed in on a section.“Paragon, run a cross-check with the Brooks Corp public ledgers. Do these figures match?”The System’s response came clipped and sharp, colder than usual.Negative. Multiple inconsistencies. Allocation variance exceeds thirty percent. This is not a clerical error. It is a deliberate misdirection.Ethan rubbed his temples. “Or it’s just overcharging. Corporations bleed money in contracts all the time. Vendors play dirty, inflate numbers, kickbacks…”Naïveté detected. Trusting Lena Brooks is a fatal operational flaw.“Stop,” he muttered, pushing back from the desk. “Not this again.”But the whisper lingered, gnawing.He found Lena hours later in the Brooks Corp executive suite, standing w

The glass clinked faintly as Ethan raised it, Lena’s eyes gleaming in the candlelight of the secluded dining room. For a second, he thought of Specter’s words—When she raises the glass, don’t drink—but the warmth of her hand over his own dulled the suspicion. He drank.The wine was smooth, rich, yet something lingered beneath it, faintly metallic, a taste he couldn’t quite place. He set the glass down, trying not to show hesitation.“See?” Lena smiled softly, her gaze unwavering. “Not so hard to let go once in a while, right? No code, no firewalls, no ghosts. Just us.”Ethan exhaled slowly. “It’s never just us, Lena. Not anymore.”“Because you don’t let it be.” Her tone sharpened before softening again. She reached across the table, fingers brushing his. “You’re burning yourself alive in that bunker of yours. Upgrades, protocols, sleepless nights. If you keep this up, you won’t need Specter to kill you—you’ll collapse on your own.”He studied her. For a moment, he wanted to believe sh