Chapter 4 Blood in the Code

Aria sat at her desk, hands motionless over the keyboard.

She'd logged into her secure Vale Corp terminal twice in the last hour. Not to work. Not to check email.

To search.

Not with keywords. Not in public folders. She was deep diving through metadata, timestamps, and user logs hunting for fingerprints in the system that wasn't supposed to recognize she existed.

And that was the problem.

Her credentials worked. Her digital ID opened files, sent messages, accessed team briefs. But nowhere not in staff directories, not in onboarding records, not even in the biometric backup logs did her name appear.

She was functioning without ever being verified.

And someone wanted it that way.

She leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. She'd known this job would pull her closer to the truth.

She just hadn't realized it would bury her identity even deeper in the process.

Her phone vibrated once on the desk.

Unknown Number:

"Looking for yourself in all the wrong places?"

She froze.

A second message came in immediately.

"Ask Cassian about Blackbird."

Her mouth went dry.

The word hit her like ice water.

Blackbird.

She hadn't heard that name in four years.

It was a codename. One she was never supposed to know. A whispered name tied to the confidential task force that investigated and then buried the murder she'd witnessed.

And now it was here. In her inbox. In Vale Corp.

She stood so quickly her chair tipped backward.

Her heart wasn't racing now. It was sprinting.

Whatever was happening inside this building it wasn't just about her.

It was about what she saw.

And who knows she's still alive.

Cassian's office wasn't locked. But it felt like a vault all the same.

He looked up as she entered, expression unreadable, a faint crease between his brows as if she'd arrived precisely when he expected her to.

"I didn't call for you," he said.

"I'm not here as your employee."

"Then what are you here as?"

Aria stepped forward slowly, eyes never leaving his.

"Someone with a question."

He stood behind his desk, not moving. "Ask."

She held the moment a second longer than necessary. Then: "What's Blackbird?"

Cassian didn't blink.

But something behind his eyes flickered.

"Where did you hear that?" he asked.

"I didn't. I read it."

"From where?"

"An anonymous message. On your internal network. Which, as you've so often reminded me, is supposed to be secure."

Cassian walked slowly around the desk. Not pacing circling.

"You're not the first person to come into this building thinking they're owed the truth."

"I don't think I'm owed anything."

"Then why are you here?"

She hesitated just for a second. Then: "Because I don't like being lied to."

Cassian stepped closer. The space between them evaporated.

"Neither do I," he said. "So let's start over."

He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a folder. Slim. Black. No label.

He handed it to her.

"What's this?"

"A test."

Aria opened it. Inside were photos surveillance style. Her. Leaving Nova's apartment. Walking into the café. Standing in her own kitchen.

The latest photo was from this morning.

"I didn't order these," he said softly. "But they came from inside my system."

Aria's stomach dropped.

"You're being watched," he continued. "By someone who doesn't work for me. And now they're using words like Blackbird."

"You still haven't told me what it means."

Cassian's jaw tensed. "Because I don't know who I'm protecting."

"I'm not your enemy."

"Yet."

They stood in silence.

Then, softly too softly he asked, "What are you really looking for, Aria?"

She looked him in the eyes.

"Answers."

He stepped even closer. "Or revenge?"

She didn't flinch.

But she didn't answer.

And that, Cassian noticed.

Aria didn't remember walking back to her office.

Her feet moved on instinct. Her mind was still spinning Cassian had surveillance photos of her taken without his knowledge. Someone else was watching. From inside Vale Corp.

And now the name Blackbird was circling both of them like smoke.

She sat down at her desk, fingers hovering above the keyboard, pulse still thudding behind her ribs. She didn't check her messages. She didn't open the campaign files.

She went straight into the backend of her drive.

And that's when she saw it.

A folder.

Not one she created. Not from the branding team.

It sat at the bottom of her directory grayed out, almost invisible. No timestamp. No author tag. Just a name.

PROJECT BLACKBIRD

Her blood turned cold.

She tried to open it.

A passcode prompt appeared.

Four digits.

She stared at the screen, heart racing. She knew this was bait. A trap. Or maybe a warning.

She entered the first number that came to her: 0423 the date of that night. The night she lost everything.

The folder blinked. Then opened.

A single file inside.

A video.

Time stamped: April 23, 2021 3:17 AM

She clicked it.

The screen flickered to grainy black and white.

A man appeared. Blood on his face. Staggering through a hallway. Security footage.

Aria's stomach turned.

She knew that hallway.

She knew that man.

It was the man who died.

The one she watched collapse outside a Queens brownstone, shot three times.

The one whose death was never investigated.

He looked straight into the camera.

And then the screen cut to black.

Text appeared across the bottom:

"CASE SEALED BY ORDER OF C. VALE // DO NOT REOPEN WITHOUT PERMISSION"

Aria's hands were ice.

Cassian's father.

He buried the murder.

He sealed the footage.

And now the file was here, on her terminal, like someone wanted her to find it.

Or wanted her to know...

She was next.

Tone: Paranoid, emotional, intense

Aria shut down the file.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but they couldn't move. Her chest was too tight. Her brain too loud. The air in her office suddenly felt thinner, like someone had closed all the windows and started counting down.

Her heartbeat sounded like footsteps.

She looked toward the glass door just in time to see someone walk past.

They didn't look in.

But they were watching.

She felt it.

She rose, slowly, keeping her breath even. Her reflection in the glass stared back at her pale, tight lipped, alert.

The door slid open as she reached for it.

And standing there, holding a thick manila folder, was the silver haired executive woman from her interview Elena Marsh.

"Ms. Quinn," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Mr. Vale requested these reports be routed through your desk."

"Okay," Aria replied, schooling her voice.

Elena's eyes flicked toward her computer monitor.

"You've settled in quickly."

"I adapt fast."

"I'm sure you do."

Elena placed the folder down with deliberate precision. Her manicured nails brushed the edge of the desk and tapped, once, softly.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

It wasn't a nervous habit. It was a signal. A message she couldn't read.

Then she smiled again. "I'd recommend locking your screen when you're away. You never know who might wander by."

Before Aria could respond, Elena turned and walked out.

The silence that followed felt radioactive.

Aria sat slowly, reopened her screen, and scanned every corner of her file directory again.

The Project Blackbird folder was gone.

Deleted. Wiped clean. As if it had never existed.

She checked the temp logs. The access records. All erased.

Even her cache had been rolled back.

Someone had been in her system within the last five minutes.

Someone with root clearance.

And they'd taken the file back.

Not to hide it.

To remind her.

You saw it.

Now you know we're watching.

Careful what you look for.

Careful who you trust.

Her phone buzzed again.

Another blocked number.

One line of text:

"Some things stay buried for a reason. Walk away."

Aria stared at the message.

Then deleted it.

Because if they were trying to scare her, they'd already failed.

She wasn't running.

Not this time.

Tone: Quiet, intense, emotional undercurrent

She didn't go home.

Not right away.

Instead, Aria found herself riding the subway aimlessly hood up, eyes low, fingers curled tight around the phone in her pocket like it could anchor her to something real. Something safe.

The city around her moved like a blur, too fast and too loud, as if it didn't care she had just seen a man die again. On repeat. In grayscale.

The memory hadn't changed in four years.

But seeing it seeing him on that screen made it real again in a way that crushed her lungs.

She could still smell the blood.

Still hear the silence after the shots.

Still feel the way her body had locked up in fear while her mind screamed to run.

And now she knew Cassian's father sealed it.

Filed it away like it was just another inconvenience. A mess to clean. A witness to erase.

Aria pressed her forehead against the subway window, eyes shut.

Why me?

Why put that footage on her terminal? Why let her see it now, when she'd spent so long trying to forget it?

Unless...

Unless someone wanted her to remember.

Someone who couldn't speak.

Someone still inside the system.

Or someone just like her trapped beneath it.

Her phone vibrated again. She didn't check it.

She wasn't ready.

She couldn't run to Nova,not yet. Not until she had answers. Nova was her safe place, her one person, and that meant Aria had to protect her by staying alone.

And Cassian...

She didn't know what he was yet.

A shield?

A sword?

Or the hand pulling the strings?

But he wasn't a man who didn't notice things. He already suspected her. And if she pushed too hard, too fast

He'd bury her the same way his father buried the truth.

She exhaled slowly, eyes opening to her reflection in the subway glass.

No more running.

No more surviving in pieces.

If the past had followed her here, she was going to drag it into the light and burn every name tied to it.

Even if one of those names was Vale.