(Lena’s POV)

The office lights had dimmed by the time I reached the operations floor. The rest of the building had gone quiet for the night, leaving only the hum of servers and the faint glow of screens that never slept.

I had never been in this part of Vance Tower after hours. The air smelled faintly of ozone and dust, and the silence felt different—deeper somehow, as if even the walls were holding secrets.

On one of the lower terminals, a single monitor glowed with a recovery program ...