Zoey pressed play and stepped back. The television screen filled with darkness.

Then a sound came; the low, mechanical hum of servers, the rapid percussion of keyboards, the particular tension of a room that knew something had gone wrong before anyone had said it out loud.

Nobody in Zoey’s hotel room spoke. Nobody moved.

The first frame bloomed cold and electric. A server control room drowning in blue light.

Monitors stacked floor to ceiling pulsed in soft, sickly rhythm, throwing shadows across the faces of three technicians who tapped at their keyboards with the rapid, panicked cadence of men who already knew something had gone wrong.

One of them froze mid-keystroke.

[DEFENSE BREACHED!]

[DEFENSE BREACHED!]

[DEFENSE BREACHED!]

The words defense breached landed in the room on screen and in the room off screen simultaneously. Every person watching felt it.

The technicians had beads of sweat dripping down their brows as they saw this...

Their throat worked once before sound came out from one of them...

"Sir... sir, we have a breach."

A heavy silence settled, the kind that made every monitor’s hum feel suddenly louder, suddenly closer.

Then, slow and deliberate, came the sound of expensive shoes pivoting on marble, a sound so unhurried it was somehow more terrifying than a shout.

STEP!

STEP!

STEP!

Zack filled the doorframe like a shadow stepping into a body as he got into the room. Tailored suit cut sharp across the shoulders. Eyes that had nothing warm left in them. His face was mean and serious...

In the hotel room, the real Zack sat a little straighter.

The on-screen version of him moved through the space with an authority that made several of the watching extras in the back of the room exchange impressed glances.

"Say that again." His voice was low. Controlled. The dangerous kind of calm. His face was mean, Zack himself was impressed by this...

The technician swallowed so hard it was visible.

"Our system... it’s been hacked, sir. Someone got in through the..."

BANG!

Zack hit the desk with great anger and the desk shuddered under Zack’s palm. A coffee mug leapt and exploded across the marble in a brown spray. No one moved. No one breathed. The shards lay there like a verdict. Everybody could feel the tension in the video...

"Our system got hacked?" Zack stepped closer, slow, each footfall a separate punctuation mark. "And you’re finding out now?!"

He shoved the technician aside without ceremony and leaned into the screen himself.

His eyes and hands moved fast, practiced, surgical, dragging across every feed and log with the ease of someone who’d done this dance before.

He pulled up the CCTV recovery feed and began rewinding the reclaimed system cameras frame by frame.

There he saw a figure ghosting through the corridor. Black hair spilling past a half-mask that covered the mouth only. Moving with the kind of calm that would fool anyone who wasn’t already looking. Behind her rolled a suitcase, compact, reinforced, the wrong shape for clothes.

Zack’s jaw tightened until the muscle flickered along his cheek.

He pulled out his phone without ever taking his eyes off the screen. His voice, when it came, was almost gentle.

"There’s a suspicious woman leaving the hotel. Black hair, half-masked face, rolling a case."

A beat passed before Zack added in a sharp voice, "Don’t. Let her. Leave."

Outside, the night air was thick with sea salt and the soft music of an ordinary evening. Valets glided between cars.

Guests laughed somewhere beneath the awning, half-drunk on champagne and the view. The Hotel Nexus glowed amber and gold against the dark water, picture-perfect, untouched.

And through the glass doors, a woman walked out as if she owned every inch of it.

Maya~

Beautiful, focused eyes burning bright above a sleek half-mask. Her hand on the suitcase handle was steady, but the earpiece tucked beneath her hair was already alive with breath and static.

She had already removed her half mask by the time she reached the gate...

She passed the doorman with a polite nod, the small, easy smile of a guest with nowhere urgent to be. The moment she cleared the awning, the smile vanished. Her voice dropped to a whisper that the wind nearly swallowed.

"I didn’t have time. Their defence was stronger than I expected, almost lost the whole window." Her words sped up, fraying at the edges. "Where are you? They’re going to reclaim it any second now and discover my breach. You need to be here before they notice..."

"I’m on standby. On the way, m’ am."

Stan’s voice came through the earpiece with the unhurried warmth of someone ordering coffee. Like the entire night was a minor inconvenience he’d already solved.

"Stan, I’m outside..." Maya hissed.

"Give me five seconds."

She exhaled sharply through her nose. Her eyes swept the driveway, counting valets, cameras, exits.

One.

Two..

Three...

Four....

VRRRRRRROOOOM-VRRRRROOOOOM-VRRRRROOOOOOM!!!

The deep, throaty REVVING of a motorcycle cut through the ambient hotel noise like a blade through silk. A matte-black bike carved through the circular driveway with practiced arrogance, no headlights, no hesitation, just the engine’s snarl and the smell of hot rubber.

Stan pulled up beside her. Helmet on, visor down. One gloved hand already extended toward her like he’d been doing this his whole life.

He didn’t say a word.

He just caught her arm and swung her onto the back in one clean, fluid motion, the kind of move that looked easy only because it had been done a thousand times before. She barely had time to hook the suitcase to the rear mount.

BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!

The hotel gates burst open at that very minute... 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Zack strode out, weapon raised, three shots cracking off in rapid succession, every one of them aimed squarely between Stan’s shoulder blades. He shot another shot at the bike’s tires but missed...

"STAN!" Maya screamed.

But Stan didn’t flinch. Didn’t buckle even. The bike surged forward as his left hand twisted the throttle hard.

With his right hand, almost casual, almost bored, he reached to his vest, uncooked a small cylindrical device, and dropped it behind them without ever glancing back.

It struck the asphalt with a soft metallic clink.

FWOOOOOSH!!!!

A wall of dense white smoke erupted from the canister, swallowing the entire area in seconds, alarmed departing guests, valets, the gate, Zack, all of it gone, drowned in churning fog.

The bike launched forward into the night.