The knock came just after midnight.
Evelyn was still dressed, still wired from the encounter with Vance. She hadn't slept. Her apartment lights were off, her mind running laps around every word he said.
She opened the door, already knowing who it was.
Wolfe.
He didn't speak at first. Just stepped inside, storm in his eyes.
"You should've told me," he said quietly.
"I needed answers."
"And you thought walking into a trap alone would give them to you?"
Evelyn folded her arms. "Vance wasn't the trap. He was the warning."
Wolfe's jaw tightened. "I saw the surveillance. He offered to extract you."
"He said I was leverage. That Parallax is just the tip of something much darker. Something global."
Wolfe exhaled. "He's not wrong. But he's not the only one with cards."
He handed her a drive. "This is what I've been keeping from you. The rest of Parallax."
Evelyn stared at it. "Why give it to me now?"
"Because you stayed. When you had every reason not to."
---
In the Tower's private archive room, they loaded the drive.
A wall of encrypted data opened before them. Evelyn moved fast—her fingers knew the patterns. Within minutes, she decrypted the layer Wolfe had never touched.
Code Name: HYDRA.
It wasn't surveillance. It was succession.
Blackmail portfolios. Financial puppets. Leverage files. Kill switches.
At the center was a network of influencers, power brokers, and silent partners who believed governments were too clumsy to run the world. They wanted control through corporations, algorithms, and fear.
Vance wasn't just warning Evelyn. He was testing her.
She clicked through the target list. Some names were familiar. Most weren't.
Then she saw it:
Alexander Wolfe – Primary Asset.
Attached was a contingency folder:
Replacement Candidate: Rhys Kellan.
Her blood chilled.
"They're not just watching you," she said. "They've already chosen your successor."
Wolfe stared at the screen, face stone. "They always choose successors. Control is cleaner than loyalty."
Evelyn stepped closer. "Why didn't you destroy this?"
"Because knowing how they move is more dangerous than stopping them. Until now."
She looked at him. "Then let's stop them."
He nodded.
"No more defense. We go on the offensive."
---
Later, Evelyn stood in Wolfe's penthouse, watching lightning fracture the city skyline.
The war had changed.
It wasn't just Rhys.
It was a machine that replaced kings and erased queens.
And she had just volunteered to take it apart.
Wolfe stepped beside her. "What if we can't win?"
She didn't look away from the storm.
"Then we burn everything they built—and walk out of the fire."
He smiled, not with amusement, but respect.
"We'll do it together," he said.
And in the glass tower, beneath the weight of secrets and the hum of war, they began to plan their first strike.
Not as fugitives.
But as revolutionaries.