The morning sun that hit the black metal shutters of the penthouse didn’t bring warmth; it just heated the steel until the room felt like a kiln. Evelina woke up in the massive grey bed, her body heavy with the phantom weight of exhaustion. For a split second, in the haze of sleep, she felt a surge of triumph. I did it. The code was embedded. User_Guest_77 was inside the Valenti mainframe, a silent, digital parasite waiting to feed her information. She had a weapon now. A way to see in the dark.
She sat up, pushing the heavy duvet aside. The silence in the suite was absolute. She walked to the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. She needed coffee. She needed to strategize how to access the backdoor she had created without triggering Luca’s alarms.
But when she entered th
