No.
All the coordination, all the leaks, all the intel that kept hitting us before we moved—
It all traces back to one person.
Someone inside the Laurent network.
Someone who has been feeding intelligence to the Kovals for over a year.
A traitor.
Sylvester curses under his breath, stepping back from the screens as if distance might make the truth less venomous. “This…this is big,” he whispers. “Whoever this is, they’re not small. They had access to everything. Movements. Contracts. Vivian’s travel history. Even her mother’s medical files.”
My jaw tightens until my teeth ache.
Deveraux was just the banker.
The puppet in front of the curtain.
But the puppeteer?
Someone standing right beside the Laurents the whole time.
Someone who knew exactly how to break them from the inside.
And I feel it—
That old, terrible cold settling in my bones.
“We’ve been hunting the wrong man,” I say, voice low, lethal. “And whoever this traitor is…they’re still out there.”
“Who does this signature belong to?” I ask. “I think these names are aliases. But this—” I tap the looping digital seal, the encrypted sigil embedded in the comms route— “this is a Laurent signature. Find out who it belongs to.”
Sylvester’s jaw locks.
He starts typing, fingers flying over the keys.
The room fills with the soft hum of processors, each layer of encryption peeling back like rotting skin.
A minute passes.
Then another.
Then—
Sylvester freezes.
His throat works once before he speaks.
“Dimitri…only three people had clearance to use this route.”
My pulse slows to something cold and murderous.
“Who?”
“Me,” Sylvester says quietly. “You. And one other.”
I feel it before he says the name.
