The emergency lights were still flashing across Blackridge Tower when the next sabotage sequence began.
Caro saw it before anyone else did.
A tiny fluctuation buried beneath the restored transaction grid pulsed once across the lower compliance monitor, almost invisible beneath the flood of recovery data rushing through the operations floor. To everyone else, it looked harmless. A delayed synchronization marker. Routine instability after a major containment cycle. But Caro's stomach tightened instantly because she recognized the rhythm hidden inside it.
The rival was testing the system again.
Not loudly.
Carefully.
Patiently.
And that made it far more dangerous.
