The flight back to Paris was the longest seven hours of my life. The text from Charles had landed like a guillotine, and I was now living in the slice of time between the blade's fall and the final, severing impact. We need to talk. Now. There was no anger in those words, no accusation. Just the cold, absolute certainty of a summons. He knew. Anja had been right. The photo was out.
I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. I sat in the plush leather seat and watched the clouds scroll by, my mind a frantic, useless machine replaying every mistake, every misstep. I had walked into Nexus Tech arrogant, and I was leaving it humbled, a pawn in a game I hadn't even seen being played. Anja had used me, played me with a skill that was almost admirable. But the real architect of this disaster was me. I had been so focused on my revenge, on my grand plan, that I had forgotten the first rule of survival: know who all the players are.
