Chapter 8: The Warning
552 Words
The dead didn’t send warnings.
Which meant someone else wanted her to stop.
Rhea stared at the photo in her hands, her fingers pressing creases into the glossy paper. Her father stood on a dimly lit ValeTech stage—years younger, faintly smiling as he shook hands with a man in a slate-gray suit.
The stranger’s face was sharp, unreadable.
Forgettable in the way dangerous people often were.
No name.
No timestamp.
Just the message written in red ink along the bottom edge:
He was warned.
You won’t be.
No signature. No logo. Just intent.
She uploaded the image to her secure facial recognition engine.
The scan took longer than usual.
When results came back, there was only one match—partial, flagged, encrypted.
BOARD-LEVEL ACCESS REQUIRED.
Rhea narrowed her eyes.
Whoever this man was, he wasn’t background noise. He was important. Connected. Possibly even part of the machine that erased her father.
And now—gone.
Scrubbed.
Sealed behind clearance meant for someone like Caspian Vale.
Which meant she was close.
Too close.
A knock.
Nikolai.
He stepped into her office, eyes flicking to the screen she quickly minimized. His tone was light, but his expression wasn’t.
“You look like someone about to throw herself into traffic.”
“Some people would say this building is worse than traffic.”
“Depends what part you land on,” he muttered, sipping whatever designer brew he was carrying.
Rhea didn’t answer.
He stepped closer, more serious now. “You’re digging into ghosts, Rhea. I know you think you’re ready for what you’ll find—but trust me, some truths don’t save anyone. They bury them.”
Her voice was calm. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” He looked down. “It’s a memory.”
And for once, he left without a smirk.
That night, Rhea pulled out the list Elle had sent her.
Three whistleblowers.
Three stories that ended in scandal, suicide, or silence.
She cross-referenced their federal consulting files.
One line repeated across every record:
Internal Handler Code: S.G.
Silas Grey.
The name landed in her chest like iron.
He’d been there. With all of them.
Quiet. Invisible. Always in the background—until the end.
Just like with her father.
Her screen lit up with a new message.
FROM: G. ARAGON
The man in the photo was Anton Voss. Former general. Clean-cut. Dead within a month of his nomination to the Board. They say it was a heart attack. The kind caused by someone pulling a trigger.
Rhea read it twice.
Beneath the message: a voice memo.
Six words.
“You asked for truth. Prepare accordingly.”
She pulled up her surveillance review system. Just in case.
ValeTech’s internal motion sensors saved encrypted footage blips at timed intervals.
3:13 a.m.
The same time the envelope had appeared on her desk.
Her heart slowed as the feed played.
The footage was distorted—pixelated, like a buffer glitch.
But a figure stood in her doorway.
No visible face. No readable ID. Just a tall silhouette in a black coat. Standing. Watching.
And then—gone.
No access log.
No clearance trail.
The camera feed ended thirty seconds later.
Cut short.
Rhea stared at the screen.
She hadn’t just found the photo.
Someone had watched her find it.
- Writer
