*Aaron's POV*
The room hummed with a clandestine electricity, the glow of multiple screens casting a spectral dance across Jake's face as he hunched over the keyboard. The hacker I enlisted was a ghost in the machine, fingers flying over keys with a deft urgency.
"Got anything?" My voice cut through the buzzing silence, a note of impatience betraying my calm exterior.
"Initial sweep's done," Jake murmured, eyes not leaving the screen. "There's a trail, but it's murky—like wading through a swamp of shell companies and dead-ends."
"Show me." I moved closer, the scent of stale coffee and cold ambition mingling in the charged air. The data on the screen flickered like a morse code of secrets, each byte a breadcrumb leading to Violet's enigmatic past.
Jake pointed at clusters of informatio
