“Who leaked it?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
That answer bothered me.
Because Athena had layers. Compartmentalized access. Dead-man protocols. The kind of security architecture built precisely to prevent this.
Someone inside had deliberately dismantled it.
Which meant betrayal.
The President continued.
“There’s one more issue.”
I heard hesitation in his voice. That alone worried me.
“What issue?”
“Your name appeared in the leak.”
Silence.
Even the cicadas seemed quieter.
Daniel’s expression hardened instantly.
My pulse slowed instead of speeding up. Training. Control.
But inside my mind, calculations were already racing.
If my name leaked publicly, every hostile network we had dismantled over the last decade would know exactly who I was.
And more dangerously… where I was.
At that exact moment, a phone buzzed somewhere near the porch.
Then another.
Then another.
People began checking screens.
I watched confusion spread across their faces.
My younger cousin Ashley looked up first.
“Oh my God.”
My mother grabbed her phone.
The local news station had already posted the headline.
