I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that message flash across my screen again. You're good, Selina. But not invisible.
The words burned in my mind, looping over and over like a silent taunt.
By sunrise, I was already sitting at my desk, a cup of untouched coffee beside me and my laptop glowing in the half-light. I couldn't risk logging into the main system again, not until I knew how deep Mara had gone. So I used the offline terminal instead—my hidden setup, one that even the company servers couldn't trace.
I started with packet captures, encryption logs, and mirrored data trails. Most of them looked normal, but something subtle had changed. A signal—quiet, pulsing, buried under thousands of harmless bytes—was rerouting traffic every thirty seconds.
Mara wasn't just watching me. She'd left a worm in the network.
I cracked my knuckles and exhaled. "Alright, Mara," I whispered. "Let's see how deep you really want to go."
The first few hours passed in silence. Lines of code filled the screen, reflecting off my eyes like light through glass. I built a counter-system, one that didn't just erase her trace but mirrored her intrusion. If she had touched my files, I'd see hers. If she had watched me, I'd watch her back.
At one point, my phone buzzed. It was Adrian.
Meeting in ten minutes. Conference Room B.
I cursed softly. The timing couldn't be worse.
I grabbed a blazer, half-zipped my laptop, and rushed downstairs. The office was already awake—chatter, printers, the hum of caffeine and exhaustion filling the air.
When I entered the conference room, Adrian was already there, pacing with his usual calm energy. Mara sat across the table, her expression unreadable.
"Selina," Adrian said, nodding for me to sit. "We have an issue."
I sat down, pretending not to notice the faint smirk playing at Mara's lips.
He continued, "Someone accessed our encrypted files again last night. The same pattern as before—but cleaner this time."
Mara leaned forward. "Almost as if they knew what we were looking for."
I forced a small frown. "You think it's still Ethan?"
"Possibly," Adrian said. "But if it isn't… then whoever's behind this is still inside our system."
Mara tilted her head slightly toward me. "Maybe someone who knows the security architecture inside out."
Her tone was soft, but the implication was sharp enough to cut through the room. Adrian didn't react, though his gaze lingered on me for a moment longer than it should have.
I straightened. "If you think it's internal, then I suggest we segment the network access. Isolate credentials, lock usage by hierarchy. I can implement the patch myself."
Adrian nodded slowly. "Do it."
When the meeting ended, Mara brushed past me on her way out. Her voice was low enough for only me to hear. "Your walls are cracking, Selina. You might want to fix that before someone else does."
I watched her leave, my jaw tightening. She knew. Maybe not everything, but enough.
By the time I returned to my desk, my calm was gone. I needed control again. I plugged my system into the encrypted drive and reopened my counter-hack. The signal was still there—stronger now, as though Mara was taunting me intentionally.
I followed the signal into her network, tracing back through her decoy layers. The deeper I went, the clearer the trail became—until I hit something unexpected.
A folder named "Adrian."
I hesitated before opening it. Inside were logs, screenshots, even fragments of messages. Mara had been tracking him too. Every meeting, every late-night mail, every server access he made.
So this wasn't just about me. She didn't trust anyone.
And that made her dangerous.
Suddenly, a line of text flashed on my terminal.
You shouldn't have opened that.
My pulse jumped. She was watching in real time.
Another message appeared: You really think you're the only one who can build mirrors?
I slammed the system offline, ripping the ethernet cable out. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. My reflection on the screen looked pale and terrified—but there was also something fierce in my eyes.
This wasn't a simple office rivalry anymore. This was war.
That night, I didn't go to bed. I stayed by the window, staring at the skyline, the city lights trembling through the fog. I thought about Ethan, about how everything started with his downfall. If he really had nothing to do with it, then Mara had sacrificed him just like I would have—ruthlessly, strategically, without hesitation.
Maybe that's why Adrian kept watching me. Maybe he saw too much of her in me.
My phone buzzed again, an unknown number. I hesitated before answering.
"Selina," a familiar voice said softly. It was Ethan.
I froze. "How did you—"
"Don't talk. Just listen," he interrupted. "They're not who you think they are. Mara's not the one in charge."
"What are you talking about?"
"There's someone above her," he said. "She's reporting everything to him. The files she stole, the breaches—everything. That's why she framed me. She needed a distraction."
My throat tightened. "Who is he?"
A pause. "Adrian."
I closed my eyes. "You're lying."
"I wish I was," Ethan said. "But I've been watching from the outside since they suspended me. Everything leads back to him."
Before I could ask more, the call disconnected.
I stared at the screen, his name fading into silence.
If what he said was true, then everything I thought I knew was backwards. Mara wasn't the puppet master. Adrian was.
And I had just handed him full control of the network.
I turned back to my system, hands trembling. I needed proof. I reconnected to my offline terminal and began cross-checking Adrian's access logs. He had admin-level clearance—far higher than mine or Mara's. Every night at 2:00 a.m., he logged into a secure layer that didn't exist in the company architecture.
A hidden network.
I leaned closer, my fingers flying over the keyboard. One wrong move and he'd know I was in, but I couldn't stop now. When I finally broke through, a new interface loaded—black background, white text, no branding.
In the corner, one line blinked.
User: A.S.
I froze. Adrian Stone.
Files unfolded beneath his name—replicas of every encrypted data leak, every system breach, even the one that took Ethan down.
My hands went cold. Ethan was right.
And I had just become the next pawn in Adrian's game.