I don’t scream.
I sit on the couch in the living room and stare at nothing while the men move around me. Setting up equipment. Making calls. Planning.
I can hear them in the dining room. Charles, Cal, Jace. Marcus and the team leads. Rodriguez. Chen. Williams. All of Silas’s people. The men who worked under him, who followed his orders, who respected him.
They’re talking strategy. Talking about what Aria did, how she did it, and what systems she compromised.
Cal’s voice is tight with frustration. “She cloned both Charles’s and my devices simultaneously. Got access to our security protocols, our encryption keys, everything. It’s sophisticated work. Military-grade technology applied to civilian systems.”
“Can you reverse it?” Charles asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I need to analyze exactly what she did, how she structured the access, and where the vulnerabilities are. But it’s going to take time.”
“We don’t have time,” Jace says. “Every minute Silas is with her is another minute she’s working on him. Breaking him down. Turning him into whatever she wants him to be.”
“He won’t break,” Marcus says firmly. “Silas Vale doesn’t break.”
“Everyone breaks eventually,” Charles says quietly. “Given enough time, enough pressure, enough leverage.”
The conversation continues, but I stop listening. Stop trying to process their words.
Because I know something they don’t.
I know exactly what Aria did. Not just conceptually. Technically.
Cal taught me systems architecture before I left. Taught me how to build security protocols, how to identify vulnerabilities, and how to think like a hacker. But that was six years ago. Technology has evolved. Changed. Become more sophisticated.
So, I continued to teach myself. Late nights in California after the boys went to bed, I’d study. Learn new programming languages. New encryption methods. New ways to protect systems and new ways to break them.
Because I knew someday I’d come back. Knew I’d need those skills to survive in this world.
I stand up. Walk toward the dining room where they’re still talking.
The moment I appear in the doorway, they all go quiet. Looking at me like I might shatter if they speak too loudly.
“Show me,” I say to Cal.
“Show you what?” he asks carefully.
“What Aria did. The systems she compromised. The access protocols. Show me.”
Cal exchanges a glance with Charles. “Parker, you should rest. We’ve got this.”
“Show me,” I repeat.
“Angel, you’ve been through a lot,” Cal says. “You need to take care of yourself. Let us handle...”
I move to where Cal’s sitting with his laptop open, ignoring his default setting he, Jace, and…Silas…call protecting me. Various screens displaying code, system logs, access records.
I sit on his lap and take over the laptop.
“Parker—” Cal starts.
I ignore him and start scrolling through the code Aria left behind. Reading the structure, the logic, the elegant brutality of what she built.
“What are you doing?” Jace asks.
I don’t answer, too focused on the screen. On the patterns emerging. The way Aria structured her access, the backdoors she created, and the kill switch protocol. It’s impressive.
