Chapter 3

The second half starts, and Blake’s team immediately doubles the pressure.

This time, they are not testing Russo.

They come straight for the throat.

Ethan handles offense, switching routes again and again, but every one of them gets identified.

Vanessa stays on defense, patching one breach after another, her face getting paler by the second.

The team starts shouting over each other.

“Scan rate is too high!”

“They’re escalating privileges!”

“Backup node is down!”

“We’re losing the middle layer!”

Less than five minutes in, the entire Russo team is already falling apart.

Then the alarm goes off.

The main screen flickers.

When it comes back, the room goes dead silent.

Russo’s core access inside the challenge network has been taken.

Their internal defense map appears next.

Then the team’s training files.

Vanessa freezes in her chair.

Ethan clenches his jaw and slams his fist against the edge of the desk.

The same people who laughed at me earlier are staring at the screen like they have stopped breathing.

“We’re done.”

“They got everything.”

The crowd erupts.

“That was five minutes!”

“Russo didn’t even fight back!”

“This isn’t a match. It’s a wipeout.”

Someone frowns.

“They’re allowed to put internal files on the screen?”

The person beside him answers immediately.

“It’s all inside the challenge environment. If Russo breached Blake’s side, they could expose the same kind of files.”

That ends the argument.

There is nothing else to say.

Russo is losing because Russo is worse.

Blake sits at the main console with a smile that makes no attempt to hide itself.

He is exactly the kind of man New York’s new-money tech world loves: young, rich, brilliant, and loud enough to make sure everyone knows it.

And tonight, he has spent every round proving that the old Russo name does not scare him.

“That was your defense?”

His eyes move straight to Ethan and Vanessa.

“Russo’s famous Cyber Twins?”

He lets out a short laugh.

“That’s it?”

Ethan’s face darkens.

Blake leans back.

“I keep hearing how the Russos have survived everything.”

His smile sharpens.

“Raids. Rivals. Wars.”

He glances at the dead Russo screen.

“Turns out code is what finally makes you look old.”

The room goes still.

Then Blake lifts one hand.

The attacks stop.

“Five minutes.”

He looks across the room at us.

“Find someone worth fighting.”

Silence drops over the Russo side.

Then Vanessa whips around and looks at me.

Her eyes are red.

“This is your fault.”

I stare at her.

She gets to her feet, her voice rising.

“If you hadn’t broken up with Ethan right before the second half, he wouldn’t be distracted.”

She points at me.

“You dragged the whole team down.”

The moment she says it, the others jump in.

“She’s right.”

“We still had a chance before that.”

“She had to pick this exact moment to start a breakup.”

“She doesn’t even understand how much this challenge matters.”

Someone turns to Ethan.

“Ethan, you tell us.”

“Was it because of her?”

Every face in the room turns toward him.

Ethan does not answer right away.

He looks at me.

For one second, I think he might finally say what should be obvious.

That Vanessa made mistakes.

That he made mistakes.

That I never touched a keyboard.

Then he looks away.

His throat moves.

A few seconds pass.

“It affected me.”

That is all it takes.

Something inside me goes cold.

He cannot defend me from Vanessa.

He cannot remember what I drink.

He cannot make time for my parents.

But when his team loses, he can finally give everyone one thing they need from him.

Me.

Someone to blame.

The mood changes instantly.

A technical failure becomes a relationship scandal.

Comments start flying across the live feed.

“Who is that girl?”

“She broke up with him during the challenge?”

“I heard she doesn’t even know cyber.”

“So she’s jealous of Vanessa?”

The crowd starts talking too.

Then someone stands.

“Get her out.”

Another voice follows.

“Stop distracting the team!”

Then more.

“Get her out!”

“Get her out!”

“Get her out!”

I stand near the entrance.

Every eye in the room is on me.

Somewhere behind the shouting, someone mutters,

“They lost and now they’re blaming the girlfriend? That’s pathetic.”

But the voice disappears under the noise.

Then a new comment appears on the live feed.

A second one follows.

Then a third.

The same line keeps getting reposted until it rises to the top of the screen.

If GHOST were here, Blake wouldn’t be talking like this.