Lucy couldn't stop pacing.
The decrypted file still glowed on her screen, a pulsing red icon labeled "CONFIDENTIAL." It sat like a bomb on her laptop, daring her to open it again. Cole stood behind her, arms crossed, jaw tight. He hadn't said much since she showed him what the anonymous hacker sent.
"I mean, it could be a bluff," she said for the third time in ten minutes, trying to convince herself more than him. "A scare tactic. Social engineering. Or a really elaborate phishing scheme."
Cole gave her a look, that quiet, unamused stare that felt like a slow exhale. "Lucy. It's a mirror image of your app's backend architecture with time-stamped security flaws. Whoever this is—they've been watching for months. This isn't some script kiddie playing hacker."
She groaned, rubbing her temples. "So what now? We just let some digital boogeyman ransom our platform into oblivion?"
