My heart wasn't spiking anymore. It had stopped.
For a full, agonizing second, the recycled air in my safe house tasted like ash. My reflection on the monitor—the short, messy hair, the oversized hoodie, the look of absolute, soul-shattering terror—mocked me.
"Enjoying the show, Anya?"
The voice from my speakers didn't sound like it came from a machine. It was smooth, deep, and laced with a terrifying veneer of amusement. It sounded as if Julian Sterling were standing right behind me, his breath warm against my ear.
I slammed my palms onto the mechanical keyboard. A frantic, desperate clatter erupted in the silent room.
Protocol Nuke. Emergency Wipe. Format C:.
The keystrokes I had memorized, the ones that were supposed to vaporize my digital existence in under five seconds, did nothing.
A giant, stylized lock icon appeared across all twenty-four monitors, overlaying my own terrified face. It wasn't green, or red. It was a cold, impenetrable black.
On the central screen, Julian's image remained. He hadn't moved. He was still smiling that lazy, predatory smile. He slowly lowered his hand, the 'W' gesture gone, and picked up a crystal glass filled with a dark amber liquid. Macallan. Two fingers. Disgusting discipline.
"Did you think I was using 0000 because I was sloppy, Anya?" His voice rippled through the dark room. He took a slow, deliberate sip. "That was my welcome mat, darling. A low-grade barrier I keep to filter out the amateurs. You... you were the first to wipe your feet so thoroughly."
He knew my name. He had let me in. He had been watching me, watch him, for thirty days.
The realization was like a physical blow, a sudden, blinding headache. Every detail I had gathered, every routine I had memorized, every moment I thought I owned—it was all a curated performance. I wasn't the voyeur. I was the audience in a theater built specifically for my capture.
"Who... who are you working with?" My voice came out as a pathetic squeak.
Julian laughed, a low, vibration that hummed in my speakers. "The better question, Anya, is who are you working for? Although," he swirled his drink, the ice clinking, "I already know. Your client uses an outdated encryption signature from a defunct Israeli intelligence shell. Sloppy."
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. He didn't just know me; he knew my ghost employer.
"Go to hell," I hissed. I didn't try the keyboard again. Instead, I yanked the main power cord for the entire server rack.
Click.
The reassuring hum of the cooling fans died instantly. The room plunged into absolute darkness. The screens were black. Silence, heavy and suffocating, rushed in.
Got you.
I grabbed my go-bag, a pre-packed backpack hidden under the floorboards, containing cash, a fake passport, and a blank laptop. I didn't need my servers. I needed to run. I knew a smuggler's route across the Canadian border. If I left now, I could be gone before his goons—
The door to my safe house, a reinforced steel slab with a high-end, bio-metric smart lock, emitted a cheerful Beep.
My stomach dropped through the floor.
I hadn't touched the lock. I hadn't even initialized the exit sequence.
The heavy steel bolt retracted with a menacing Clack.
I stared at the door as it slowly, inexorably, swung open. It wasn't Julian Sterling standing there. It was four men, faceless soldiers clad in sleek, silent tactical gear. No insignia. No identifying marks. Just professional, lethal efficiency.
One of them carried a small, humming device—a cellular jammer. My phone was already dead.
"Miss Anya," the leader said, his voice a flat, synthesized tone. "Mr. Sterling requests your presence."
I looked at my go-bag. I looked at the dark monitors. I looked at the soldiers. There was no math that ended with my escape.
"He doesn't look like he requests things," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. The goddess of the deep web was dead, but the information broker knew when she had lost the game.
The soldiers didn't move. They waited.
I dropped my go-bag. If I were going to Julian Sterling, I wouldn't need Canadian cash. I walked toward the door, my legs feeling like lead.
They didn't handcuff me. They didn't speak. They just escorted me into a black, unmarked armored SUV waiting in the alleyway. As the vehicle pulled away, the lights in my apartment suddenly flashed back on.
Through the rear window, I watched as all my monitors illuminated one last time. They weren't displaying my face anymore.
They were displaying a single sentence, typed in massive, bold white letters across the entire digital cage:
THE EYE IS NOW MINE.