Chapter 724
Chapter 724:
Skye rubbed her eyes, smearing the expensive mascara she hadn’t bothered to remove. On the mahogany desk in front of her lay a stack of financial reports thick enough to stop a bullet. She had been staring at the same page for twenty minutes. The numbers were blurring together, dancing a chaotic waltz that made her stomach turn.
She was looking for a leak. A mistake. Anything Arthur Sterling or the board could use to challenge her trusteeship. But the silence of the room was broken by a sudden, piercing alert from her laptop. It wasn’t a standard email notification. It was a critical security warning from the central nervous system of the company—the main Oracle database.
INTRUSION DETECTED, the screen flashed red. TARGET: CORE ALGORITHM SOURCE CODE. ORIGIN: MASKED PROXY.
Skye’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was the asset Liam had been ordered to steal. If he was doing this, he was already working for them.
She didn’t block the attack immediately. Instead, she opened the command prompt, watching the raw data flood in. It looked like a hostile takeover attempt, a smash-and-grab job. But as she scrolled through the cascading lines of aggressive script, her eyes caught a pattern in the error reporting.
Error 1212. Buffer Overflow 1212. Port Failure 1212.
12-12. December 12. Their original wedding date.
Trembling, Skye isolated the data packets associated with those specific errors. She decrypted the metadata tags using a key only she and Liam knew. The chaotic code rearranged itself into a single line of text:
THE STARS ARE STILL IN PLACE. LOOK UP.
Tears pricked her eyes, hot and sudden. She pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.
It was a message.
He wasn’t running. He was inside. The “attack” was the only way he could reach her without alerting the Architect’s surveillance. He was telling her he was alive, that he was operating within the enemy’s network, and that the “monster” who had slashed Alistair was a performance.
She stared at the screen until the words blurred. The relief was a physical weight lifting off her shoulders, leaving her lightheaded. He hadn’t abandoned her. He was fighting from the inside.
𝖮𝘧𝗳𝘪𝖼𝗶𝘢𝘭 ѕ𝗈𝗎𝘳𝘤e 𝘰f 𝗍hі𝘀 𝗻o𝘃е𝗅 𝘰𝘯 b𝖾𝘭ոo𝘷𝗲l𝘀.с𝘰𝗆
And if he was fighting, she had to fight too. She had to maintain the lie.
The heavy oak doors to her office burst open with violence that made the glass walls rattle.
Skye cleared the screen instantly, her heart leaping into her throat. She spun her chair around, composing her face into a mask of icy indifference.
Alistair Thorne stormed in. He looked like a storm cloud poured into a bespoke suit. His arm was in a sling, the white bandage stark against the black fabric—a visual reminder of Liam’s “attack p>
“Where are the audit files?” Alistair demanded, his voice booming. He wasn’t looking at her; he was looking past her, at the open door where a terrified secretary and two security guards hovered.
Skye caught his eye. There was a flicker of calculation in his gaze.
He was performing.
“Alistair,” Skye said, her voice steady. “It’s three in the morning. Lower your voice p>