The days following the private screening were an exercise in exquisite tension. Lena moved through her life wearing a mask of weary triumph, all while the machinery of her counter-operation whirred silently beneath the surface. Benny, now her sole confidant in this, set up a sophisticated surveillance net around Thomas’s digital and physical movements. Every email, every call, every “casual” lunch was now a potential data point.

Lena played her part perfectly. In ...