Page 204 of Mine Again
I push harder, tearing at the seams, and suddenly I see a path.
His path.
A trace he didn’t mean to leave, I’m sure.
My pulse spikes.
This isn’t just proof he stole my code. It’s his fingerprint. Something I can compile, replicate, weaponize. Enough to show the authorities, to clear my name if I choose. Or enough to hold over his head and bait him out into the open.
A feral grin cuts across my face. For the first time since Delaware, the balance tips back my way.
“Got you.”
The words echo in the cellar.
The path opens up, raw and unguarded. Not just proof. Leverage.
My veins buzz, the thrill of outplaying him better than any drug, sweeter than victory itself.
For the first time in years, the hunt feels alive again, and I revel in it.
I start locking everything down. Encrypting, duplicating, burying backups inside redundancies no one but me could unravel. A dossieris already taking shape. Evidence. Ammunition.
Buzzing with a high that only comes from winning, I check the system clock. Exactly twelve hours and twenty-five minutes have gone by without me noticing.
I should be exhausted. Thirty-six hours without sleep, yet I feel sharp, wired, alive.
And I like it. The hunger, the edge, the high of the chase.
Isa.
The win is nothing on its own. I need my butterfly’s eyes on me when I tell her, need her to know I’ve secured our future. Without her, this triumph is empty.
I shove back from the desk, the chair rolling into the wall in this tiny cell, and climb the ladder two rungs at a time. The node is sealed, secured. Isa is all that matters now.
“Farfalla,” I call as I climb through the metal door, locking it behind me.
I expect her bright face to swing open the wardrobe door, teasing me about returning from Narnia, but silence greets me. A silence that’s too heavy, too absolute.
The room is empty.
“Isa?”
No response.
Something twists low in my gut, making my chest seize, a warning my body knows before my mind catches up.
The bathroom. She has to be in there.
I cross to it in three strides and throw the door open.
Empty.
The cold in my stomach spreads to my chest. My pulse kicks hard.
I spin back, scanning every detail of the one-room setup. A broom is propped against the bed. A pile of rags lies abandoned on the kitchen counter. The balcony door is open, curtains breathing in the faint breeze.
“Isa.” Her name is a warning now, edged with fear.
