Elias had learned to live with silence.
In his world, silence meant money moving smoothly, lawyers doing their jobs, problems solved before they spoke out loud.
This silence felt different.
It followed him into ValeTech's hallways. Sat beside him in meetings. Waited in the pauses between Nyra's messages shorter now, careful, neutral.
He knew better than to ask questions.
That was the problem.
Nyra trusted him because he didn't pry.
Shark trusted him because he didn't talk.
But ValeTech didn't run on trust.
It ran on patterns.
And patterns were starting to tighten around him.
A senior engineer stopped him by the elevators. "Weird thing," she said casually. "Compliance tried to revisit an audit that… doesn't exist anymore."
Elias kept his expression easy. "Systems glitch?"
She frowned. "That's the thing. It's not glitching. It's like something's blocking it."
Elias smiled politely and walked away, heart thudding.
Someone was testing the wall.
By afternoon, the pressure came from a different angle.
Adrian.
Not directly never that obvious but through scheduling changes, quiet reshuffles, Elias being looped into conversations he hadn't been part of before.
Observation.
Adrian wasn't watching Nyra anymore.
He was watching around her.
Elias felt it like heat on the back of his neck.
That night, he stood on his balcony, phone in hand, city sprawling beneath him. One call would be enough. One question asked the wrong way.
He didn't make it.
Across the city, the boundary Shark had drawn trembled.
A shipment not Nyra's, not central went missing. Not stolen. Redirected. Clean. Professional. Too clean for the streets.
Shark's man reported it with a crease in his brow. "Not Eastside crews. No fingerprints. No noise."
Shark stared at the map longer than necessary.
That wasn't coincidence.
That was a test.
Someone wanted to see how fast the city would react. How tight the lines really were.
"Pull back," Shark said calmly. "Don't chase it."
"But.."
"Let it go," Shark repeated. "Whoever did this wants attention. We don't give it."
Still, his jaw set.
This wasn't corporate curiosity.
This was someone with money learning how far money could push.
Back at ValeTech, Elias finally found Nyra alone in the stairwell quiet, concrete, safe.
"Something's wrong," he said softly.
Nyra studied him. "You're not supposed to feel it yet."
"I do," he replied. "People are poking. Carefully."
Her mouth tightened. "You didn't answer them."
"No."
"Good."
She hesitated, then spoke measured. "If it gets loud, you step back."
Elias shook his head. "Not from you."
A beat.
"That's loyalty," Nyra said. "And it's dangerous."
"Yeah," Elias answered. "I know."
They stood there in the hum of the stairwell, both aware that the quiet holding them was thinning.
Across the city, two forces tested the same line from opposite sides.
And Elias standing between silence and loyalty realized the next fracture wouldn't announce itself.
It would choose a side.