CHAPTER 22

The cursor blinks at me, waiting. Taunting. My fingers hover over the keyboard, hesitant, knowing that once I start, there's no turning back. The files in front of me—heavily redacted, barely readable—are a graveyard of secrets. Each line of text feels like a headstone, with names and truths buried under black ink meant to keep the past silent.

But ghosts don't stay buried forever.

Riley's voice cuts through the silence. "This doesn't make sense." Her brows pull together, lips pressed tight. That look—I know it well. Frustration. "Why would they go to this much trouble to redact everything unless they were hiding something?"

I don't answer. Not because I don't have thoughts—oh, I have plenty—but none of them are comforting.

I close my eyes for just a second. The memory rushes in, unwanted.

Julian. Blood on his lips. Breaths too fast, too shallow. His fingers gripping my sleeve like holding on to me could somehow hold back death. And then, his final words—

"They lied to us…"

A whisper. A confession. A warning.

And then he was gone.

I swallow hard, forcing the bile down. When I open my eyes, Riley is still typing, her focus sharp, but she sneaks a glance at me. "You okay?"

I nod. A lie, but we both pretend it's the truth. "Keep going."

I turn back to the files, scanning the fragmented text, but Julian's words won't stop echoing in my head. He wasn't just speaking to me. He was trying to tell me something.

Then—like a glitch in a system—the memory shifts. Suddenly, I'm not kneeling over Julian anymore. I'm holding a gun. My breath is ragged, my heartbeat hammering in my ears. A figure moves—blurred, fast.

I fire.

The recoil jolts through my shoulder.

The figure falls.

A sick feeling twists in my stomach. Was this real? Had I shot someone that night? Had I—

My pulse spikes. What if Julian wasn't the only one betrayed? What if I had been, too?

I force myself to breathe, hands clenching and unclenching as I push the thought away.

"Check the security logs," I tell Riley, my voice rough.

She hesitates, just for a second, then nods.

A few keystrokes later, a new window pops up. At first, it's nothing—just a routine list of timestamps and entries. But then—

Riley stiffens. "Nathan."

Her voice is different now. Sharper.

I step beside her, eyes locking on the screen.

The logs track Julian's movements. His locations. And then—another name. Another operative. The data is corrupted, but two letters remain: El—

My breath catches.

Elias.

I step back, as if distance might help make sense of this. It doesn't.

"That's impossible," I whisper. "Elias is dead."

Riley doesn't respond right away. Her eyes meet mine, and I can see it—the numbers running through her mind, the logic trying to hold. But the facts aren't facts anymore.

Then, the screen flickers.

It happens so fast I almost think I imagined it. A distortion, a ripple in the code, like something buried beneath the surface is trying to claw its way out.

Then—sound.

Static at first. Crackling, uneven. Then—

A voice.

"If you're hearing this, you're already in danger."

Everything stops.

The voice is warped, twisted by interference, but it's there. It's him.

Elias.

My mouth goes dry. Riley's fingers fly over the keyboard, trying to stabilize the feed, but the audio cuts out just as fast as it came.

Silence.

I force myself to breathe, but my lungs don't seem to want to work.

"He's dead," I say, the words sounding foreign. "We buried him."

Riley shakes her head. "I don't know what this means." Her grip tightens on the desk, knuckles white. "But I do know one thing—whoever tried to erase this? They missed something."

I swallow hard. The past is clawing at me, trying to pull me back, but I can't afford to let it.

"Play it again," I say.

Riley hesitates. "Nathan—"

"Play it again."

She exhales sharply, then rewinds the corrupted audio.

"If you're hearing this, you're already in danger."

The words scrape against my nerves like a dull blade.

Elias. A ghost in the machine.

And I know, deep in my gut—this is only the beginning.