CHAPTER 135 — WHEN SILENCE BECAME A TEST
Silence arrived without ceremony.
No alarms.
No emergency bulletins.
No sudden collapse that could be pointed to and named.
Just the absence of reaction.
After the ledger spread, after fear lost its ability to hide behind certainty, the system did something far more unsettling than fighting back.
It paused.
Not because it was defeated—but because it was deciding who it could afford to lose.
Elena felt it the moment she woke.
The estate was too still. Not peaceful. Not calm. Simply… watchful. As if every institution, every network, every individual with leverage had collectively inhaled and was holding the breath.
Waiting to see who would move first.
Waiting to see who would be exposed by movement.
She stood by the window longer than usual, watching dawn stretch slowly across the city. Lights dimmed one by one. Traffic resumed its patterns. Life continued—but the invisible current beneath it had changed direction.
