The rhythm of SeraphTech had changed.
It was subtle—like the first breath before a storm. But Selene felt it in her bones.
The air tasted of something sharp. Security teams flitted like shadows through the hallways. Digital audits were being doubled. And Alexander had grown quieter, more vigilant. As though even he sensed that something was coming.
Someone had breached the fortress.
Selene knew who.
She just didn't know where.
---
The day began with a briefing—one she hadn't been invited to, but attended anyway.
SeraphTech's executive team gathered in a steel-and-glass boardroom on the twenty-eighth floor. Selene entered on Alexander's arm, a silent signal to the others that she now stood closer than just an adviser.
Inside, a dozen high-ranking staff and security personnel sat around a matte obsidian table. Their faces flickered in the low glow of the smart-walls, displaying real-time threat analytics, data loss prevention logs, and surveillance summaries.
At the head of the table, Alexander remained standing.
"Two days ago," he said, "a signal breach was attempted against the Halo prototype. The intrusion originated from one of our internal servers. It failed. But the attempt was real."
A collective shift in posture rippled across the room.
Selene narrowed her eyes as Alexander pressed a control, revealing a data trail on the screen.
"Encrypted pings routed through three decoy nodes. Whoever did this had knowledge of our architecture."
Someone cleared their throat—a man in his fifties with gold-rimmed glasses and a thin mouth. Director Étienne Roubal, head of internal operations.
"Are we implying this was an inside job?" he asked.
"I'm not implying anything," Alexander said. "I'm telling you."
He turned to Selene. "Sophia has been conducting an independent analysis of our systems. Her background in algorithmic behavior analysis makes her ideal for identifying anomalies in user behavior. She'll be assisting security."
Selene felt every gaze in the room turn toward her. Scrutiny. Skepticism. Disapproval.
"Has she been vetted?" someone asked.
"I vetted her," Alexander said.
And that was that.
The meeting continued. Tension radiated like heat from concrete. Selene's eyes scanned the room. No sign of the blonde assassin.
But she knew she was here.
Watching.
Waiting.
And if Selene didn't find her first, Alexander would be dead before the week ended.
---
Later, Selene combed through employee records in a secured observation hub two floors above the Halo lab.
She moved with surgical focus, bypassing firewalls, cross-referencing images with Orchid's global surveillance data, searching for any trace of the woman who had handed her the Fang card days ago.
No hits.
No matches.
No records.
She switched tactics—tracing biometric logs, shift changes, badge anomalies. After hours of combing, a thread finally revealed itself.
An employee file.
Recent hire.
Department: Structural Engineering.
Alias: Eva Leclair.
She clicked the security still.
And there she was.
The blonde assassin stood at the far end of a lab, back straight, hands clasped behind her—radiant and calm in a pale gray suit.
Violet eyes.
Same knowing smile.
Selene's blood turned cold.
Eva Leclair didn't exist in any global system before two weeks ago. No employment history. No education trail. No footprint.
Fabricated identity, Selene thought. Classic Orchid work.
She leaned forward, isolating Eva's access logs.
Then froze.
The woman had been inside the Halo vault.
Three times.
She's already made her move.
---
Selene caught Alexander outside the elevator, intercepting him with urgent precision.
"We need to talk. Privately."
He followed her without question. They slipped into an auxiliary server room—dimly lit, heavy with static. Selene locked the door and activated a scrambling field.
"I found her," she said.
Alexander raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"The traitor."
She turned the tablet toward him.
Eva Leclair's image hovered midair.
Alexander frowned. "Structural integrity team."
"She's not who she claims. I've seen her before. Her ID is fake. She's accessed the Halo vault three times—off-record."
His face darkened. "Why didn't security catch this?"
"She's embedded too deeply," Selene replied. "And she's trained. Extremely. She handed me one of these."
Selene pulled the black Fang card from her pocket.
Alexander's eyes sharpened. "Orchid."
"She's one of them," Selene said. "And she's here to finish what I haven't."
The weight of her words hung in the room.
Alexander stared at her. "What do you mean—what you haven't?"
Selene hesitated.
This was the moment. The crossroads.
She could lie. Again. Continue the dance.
Or she could risk everything.
"I wasn't just here to audit," she said. "I was the first contract."
Silence.
No anger. No gun drawn. Just a long, brutal pause.
"You were sent to kill me," Alexander said finally, voice quiet.
"Yes."
"And yet… you didn't."
"No."
He stepped back, pain flashing across his face.
"Why?"
Selene swallowed. "Because I saw you. The real you. And I knew—if I killed you, I'd be killing more than a man. I'd be killing a future."
He said nothing for a moment.
Then: "I trusted you."
"I know."
"I brought you into my world."
"I didn't ask for this mission," she said, voice cracking. "I didn't ask for you. But I'm here now. And I'm not going to let her take you from it."
They stared at each other, something fragile and furious hanging between them.
Then Alexander turned away.
"I need time," he said. "To think. To feel anything but betrayal."
Selene's heart ached. But she nodded.
And slipped out the door.
---
That night, Eva made her first real move.
A silent tripwire went off in the northwest lab—a minor security breach that didn't trip alarms but set off Selene's implant tracker. It was a whisper in her ear, a tug on her skin.
Selene was already on the second floor when the override signal blinked green.
Eva was in.
And Selene followed her.
Down the back stairs.
Through a locked hallway.
Into the Halo subchamber.
Eva didn't even flinch when Selene appeared behind her.
"I was wondering when you'd come," Eva said, turning with a smile. "You're late."
"I was hoping you'd leave on your own."
Eva laughed, soft and cruel. "And let you pretend you still have a choice? Don't be ridiculous."
Selene's knives slid into her hands.
Eva mirrored her—twin obsidian daggers flashing like the edge of night.
"You're compromised," Eva said. "Falling for your mark. How pathetic."
Selene circled her. "He's not a mark anymore."
"Then he's a weakness."
They moved at the same time.
Blades clashed in the dark—silent, vicious, surgical.
Their fight was a dance—years of training colliding in a blur of metal and momentum.
Eva sliced low. Selene blocked. Elbowed. Kicked.
Eva twisted, flipped over a railing, landed catlike.
They fought through the lab, between data cores and prototype consoles, shattering glass, denting steel.
Then, with a sudden twist of movement, Eva sliced Selene's shoulder—drawing a thin line of blood.
Selene stumbled back, panting.
"You've gotten soft," Eva sneered.
"Still sharp enough to gut you," Selene hissed.
But Eva only smiled, retreating into the shadows.
"We're not done," she said. "The Handler's given me three days. After that, if I fail, they'll send everyone."
And then she vanished.
Selene stood bleeding in the silence.
She had three days.
Three days to stop Orchid's Fang.
Three days to protect Alexander.
Three days to find redemption for the sins already carved into her soul.