The steel corridors of the Titan Headquarters were being pumped with air, instilling an atmosphere of artificial calm, but it was only superficial. Because beneath the surface, pressure was building up like a fault line ready to split. Selene stood alone in her office, the faint glow of data projections casting long, sharp shadows across her face. The anonymous threat still pulsed on her secure screen, its words burning with quiet violence.If you won’t cut him loose… we will.She deleted it only after memorizing every pixel.Then she activated a protocol not used in almost a decade.“Connor. Kirra. Marcus. My office, now.”Her voice was cold, controlled—but something under it was trembling like the tectonic plates shifting under the Earth's surface.They arrived within minutes.Connor entered first, posture rigid, every movement laced with calculation. Kirra followed, her eyes still shadowed by last night’s misunderstanding, though she forced herself to stand straight. Marcus sealed

Titan did not fracture cleanly. It splintered in silent, poisonous cracks.Draven’s arrest hit the corporation like a pulse bomb. Entire departments shifted blame in frantic whispers. Files vanished from servers. Senior staff suddenly discovered “medical emergencies” that conveniently required indefinite sick leave. Internal memos contradicted each other within the same hour.Then accusations began flying like sparks across dry grass. Compliance blamed Operations for negligence. Operations countered with a list of inconsistencies in Legal’s budgets. Finance issued three contradictory internal statements within two hours. Entire server nodes crashed mysteriously. Files vanished. Senior staff took “sudden medical leave,” a thinly veiled escape from responsibility.Through it all, Selene stood at the center like a blade anchored in stone; cold and absolutely unshakeable.She walked the glass halls calmly, answering questions with clipped authority, issuing orders without raising her voic

The apartment door clicked shut behind them with the soft finality of a refuge closing out the world. Their small Sydney Inner West place, half-living room, half-laundry room, plants surviving purely out of spite ,sat in the same comfortable mess they had left it in. A sweater draped over the armchair, some mismatched mugs on the coffee table. Connor’s boots beside the door, perfectly aligned, next to Kirra’s shoes which were pointed in entirely different directions.They were both too exhausted to care.The day had dragged them through fire: Selene’s near-cracking voice during the ceremony, Draven’s last brittle words at the transit bay, the ache of unspoken things pressing on all three of them. It sat in Connor’s shoulders, heavy and unmoving. It sat behind Kirra’s ribs, tight and sharp.Kirra dropped her bag with a dull thud and declared to the ceiling, to the universe, to every cosmic force that might be listening:“Can we have just one week without chaos?”Connor shut the door g

The room responded immediately. Gasps, soft exclamations, an almost audible ripple of ooooh that ran through the crowd.Kirra froze. Her fingers dug into the edge of the tablecloth. Her stomach knotted tight. Every eye felt like a spotlight trained on her shame, her choices, her life.Connor’s jaw flexed, just the faintest shift, but it was enough. That slight movement, precise and controlled, let Kirra know he had heard every word. Every ounce of venom.Aunt Mara wasn’t done, not yet.“Some men bring shame wherever they go,” she said, voice honeyed with malice, deliberately loud. “No wonder Kirra barely visits us anymore.”The words landed with the weight of a hammer. Murmurs spread. Some cousins looked at each other, whispering behind cupped hands. A few of the richer, more entitled guests smirked, clearly delighted by the public drama.Kirra’s cheeks flamed. She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came. She wanted to shout, to fight, to slash at the air like she used to in her

Outside, the night felt startlingly cool, as if the air itself had been waiting for them to step out so it could finally exhale.Kirra didn’t, not yet.The moment they reached the stone pathway, her breath stuttered. A tremor ran through her fingers as though her body had held itself too tightly for too long and now, finally released, couldn’t steady the drop.Connor didn’t comment. He just stood close enough that she could reach for him without making a scene — and when she didn’t reach, he did. His hand brushed her elbow lightly, guiding without forcing.“Easy…”He murmured.Kirra’s shoulders collapsed an inch, her breath breaking into a small, humiliating shake. “I’m okay,” she lied, voice thin.Connor didn’t argue. He simply positioned himself between her and the hall, an instinctive barrier even though the door was closed and the crowd inside couldn’t see her anymore.Kirra curled in on herself. “God,” she breathed out, shivering once. “If you hadn’t stepped in, they would have e