The Master Key to Skylight

The last second of my seven-year contract vanished from the terminal. *STATUS: OMEGA PROTOCOL COMPLETE.* The protocol had counted every day I owed the Russo family. Now it said the debt was paid. The room stayed quiet. Alessandro’s weight still pressed the mattress beside me, his skin warm against mine. He had taken me hard, angry about something he hadn’t bothered to name. Afterward I lay against his chest and ran a finger over the scar above his ribs, the way I always did. We had ended countless nights this way, waiting for his heartbeat to slow before either of us spoke. “Tomorrow night, you’ll be at the family dinner.” I pushed myself upright, clutching the sheet at my waist. In seven years, he had kept me away from that table. “Alessandro, are you making us official?” He crushed his cigarette into the tray and looked sideways at me. “Official?” Then he laughed. “The dinner is for my fiancée. Isabella de la Cruz. The mayor’s daughter.” For a few seconds I could hear only the air conditioner. “Your fiancée? What the hell am I?” His amusement disappeared. He caught my chin between two fingers. “Don’t be naive, Serena. Did you honestly expect to become the lady of the Russo family?” I had built his empire and stepped between him and bullets. My place was still at the back door. “Her. When did you decide?” “The deal closed a month ago.” He went to the closet and reached for his shirt. “She’s clean, and her father has the city. The marriage is good for the alliance and good for the family.” A month ago, his business trips had started running long. Each time he came home, he called for me before Marco. I waited in this bed while he arranged my replacement. “And my work?” I followed him to the closet. “Skylight? The system I built?” He fastened the first button. “Skylight will be my wedding gift to Isabella. Tomorrow you’ll transfer full administrative access. Clean handover. Keep your backdoors and your tricks out of it.” He glanced at me. “You’ve always been a good weapon, Serena. Don’t disappoint me now.” His seed was still warm on my thigh. I pulled the sheet tighter while he dressed and left me out of the plan. After the door closed, I washed, put on my robe, and returned to the terminal. *OMEGA PROTOCOL COMPLETE* still waited on the screen. I opened Skylight’s integrity module. I left his money and records where they were, then slipped one line into the nightly check. The automated audits would read it as a routine system test. Under that line sat a self-destruct sequence buried beneath seven years of my code. The trigger was the waterproof button on the watch he had given me for my last birthday. I compiled the change and ran it once. The terminal returned a green status bar. *INTEGRITY CHECK PASSED.*