Elena's POV
There are truths that stun you, making you doubt everything you believe in, and there are truths that seep in slowly, quietly, until you realize they have been poisoning you for years.
Tiffany is the latter.
I don't suspect her at first. That's the cruelest part.
Even after Quinn is unmasked and Adrian's world cracks open.
Because betrayal, real betrayal, never wears the face of an enemy. It wears familiarity, warmth. Shared history.
It wears love, and there are always obvious gaps, but sometimes you choose to ignore them.
A missing line in a data trail I shouldn't have noticed, except my life has been built on noticing what others miss. Adrian's team is tearing through The Veil infrastructure at an unprecedented speed, pulling apart encrypted networks like stitched flesh.
I'm assisting from the edges, mapping psychic echoes, tracking emotional residues left behind by operatives who don't know how loudly guilt screams to someone who can hear it.
