“The key?” Adrian’s voice cut sharply, controlled, but something underneath it shifted, something less certain. “You expect us to believe that?”
The figure didn’t answer immediately. They watched us instead, as if weighing reactions, measuring the silence between words.
I didn’t speak. My eyes stayed on the screens. My name. His name. Patterns I didn’t fully understand, yet somehow recognized. Not clearly. Not completely. But enough to feel the edges of something I had missed.
“Turn it off,” Adrian said.
“No,” I replied before I could stop myself.
The word hung there.
He looked at me, something unreadable passing through his expression. Not anger. Not disagreement. Something closer to recalculation. “You’re trusting this?” he asked quietly. “I’m not trusting,” I said. “I’m paying att
