"This wasn't just addressed to you. It was built for you. The cipher pattern matches your press archive—like someone fed your digital signature into a military-grade lock."
"That's not possible," I whisper, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're hollow.
"Granger made it possible," Asa counters. "This is personalized bait."
A cold breath slips down my spine as I process this. I start typing, each keystroke deliberate and careful.
The room seems to contract around me as I work, the air growing thicker with each passing second.
Logan's presence behind me feels like gravity itself—not comforting, not threatening, just...there.
An immovable force waiting to see which way I'll fall.
I try combinations first—phrases from old articles, passwords I've used to protect sensitive files. Each attempt feels like picking a lock in the dark, never knowing if the next twist will spring the trap or open the door.
The screen blinks.
Decryption complete.
A video file populates, and my throat goes dry.
No date. No timestamp. Just a single word that feels like an accusation:
CHOOSE.
My finger trembles slightly as I click play.
The image resolves into a nightmare.
Lucia Calderón stares back at me, her young face a mask of terror. She's tied to a chair in what appears to be some kind of storage room—all concrete and shadows, metal shelving looming behind her like prison bars.
Granger's voice slides through the speakers, smooth as oil on water:
"Funny thing about journalists. They never know when to stop digging."
Every muscle in my body freezes. That voice. I've never heard it before, but somehow it sounds exactly like I imagined in my darkest thoughts—calm, controlled, utterly devoid of empathy.
"I wanted silence. You want the story," he continues. "But now... we're both going to get what we deserve."
The camera pans, revealing a digital countdown timer mounted on the wall behind Lucia.
00:17:12
My heart stops as I watch the seconds tick away.
"I call this segment: What Will the Truth Cost You?"
Bile rises in my throat. The casual way he turns torture into entertainment makes me want to scream.
But I force myself to stay focused, to catalog every detail, every shadow, every potential clue in the frame.
"Decrypt this message, and you get her location," Granger explains. "Upload it? I trigger the failsafe."
Failsafe.
The word hangs in the air like smoke. I've covered enough military operations to know that a "failsafe" is never about safety—it's about ensuring complete and total destruction if things go wrong.
"And if you try to trace the signal," he adds, "you'll lose her. Choose wisely, Miss Carter."
