Nyra was back home.
Back where the air smelled like oil and dust and old concrete. Back where the streets didn't pretend to be clean. Back where survival had rules and she knew every one of them.
She sat on the edge of her bed, shoulder freshly rebandaged, laptop open but untouched. The room was quiet in the way Eastside quiet never was. Too still. Like the city was holding its breath.
Shark noticed it before she did.
He stood in his office, phone pressed to his ear, eyes narrowed at nothing. Three calls in under an hour. Unrelated. Different names. Same tone.
Questions.
Soft ones. Polite ones. The kind that pretended not to be questions at all.
That's when he knew.
Pressure wasn't coming from the streets.
It was coming from somewhere cleaner.
"Run that again," Shark said calmly.
The voice on the other end hesitated. "It's not police. Not feds. It's… corporate. Financial inquiries. Background pulls. Academic records."
Shark's jaw tightened.
Corporate.
He ended the call and turned slowly, eyes landing on Nyra's closed door down the hall. She was supposed to be untouchable there. ValeTech had been neutral ground. A clean lane.
Someone had crossed lanes.
He walked to her door and knocked once. Not hard. Just enough.
Nyra opened it, already alert. She read his face in half a second.
"What?" she asked.
Shark stepped inside, closing the door behind him. His voice stayed even, but she knew that tone. It meant bodies came after.
"Someone's poking where they shouldn't," he said. "And it's not Eastside."
Nyra's stomach dropped not panic, but calculation.
"How loud?" she asked.
"Not loud yet," Shark replied. "But it's organized. Systematic. Someone with access."
Her mind moved fast. Badge logs. Compliance. Corporate curiosity disguised as procedure.
Adrian.
The name slid into place without resistance.
She scoffed once, bitter. "He got emotional."
Shark studied her. "This ValeTech man?"
She nodded. "CEO type. Thinks control fixes everything."
A faint, humorless smile touched Shark's mouth. "Those are the worst ones."
Nyra leaned against the desk, arms crossing. "I didn't bring my life there. I kept it clean."
"I know," Shark said. "That's why this pisses me off."
He paused, eyes sharpening. "I'm tightening the city."
Her head snapped up. "Shark.."
"No," he cut in, calm but final. "Not loud. Not sloppy. Just enough that anyone pulling threads feels resistance."
Nyra exhaled slowly. "I can handle him."
"I'm not worried about him," Shark replied. "I'm worried about what happens when people like him don't like unanswered questions."
Silence settled between them.
Nyra looked away first. "This is my fault."
Shark's voice softened, just slightly. "No. This is what happens when worlds get curious about each other."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "You're home now. You move slow. You don't react. Let me see who keeps asking."
She nodded, jaw tight.
Somewhere downtown, servers were humming. Reports compiling. Curiosity feeding itself.
And Adrian Vale had no idea that the pressure he'd applied had just been noticed by a man who didn't believe in warnings.
Nyra returned to her bed, lying back, staring at the ceiling.
ValeTech had felt like a cage.
Eastside felt like a battlefield again.
And for the first time, she understood
The safest place she'd built for herself was starting to fracture.
Not because of bullets.
But because someone with clean hands had gotten reckless.