Page 187 of Fractured Devotion
“Together,” I agree, my voice steady.
She leans in, her breath ghosting over my ear. “Get ready,” she whispers.
Because this isn’t the start of the war.
It’s the moment we end it.
I don’t waste time.
As soon as she speaks those words, I begin typing and pulling up the purge interface embedded within the encrypted layers of the drive.
The code is precise.
Ruthless.
It crawls through the directory trees like wildfire, searching, targeting, and setting the countdown.
“Sixty-eight minutes,” I mutter, watching the clock initiate.
Celeste watches with calm and terrifying focus. “Good. It’s enough.”
The purge will rip through everything here first. Every stored node, every hidden folder, every residual trace of their experiments.
And after that?
The offshore servers.
I can see the mapped route blinking on the screen, already tracing the worm into Meridian’s networks. Layers of shell companies, false holdings, and fake executives, nothing more than smoke and mirrors shielding their vault.
But the drive’s keys bypass every layer.
“Once this finishes,” I say, glancing at her, “the offshore server will open to us.”
She nods. “And then we finish it.”
There’s no hesitation in her. No fear.
Only resolve.
The first purge begins, systematically shredding through every local node and cutting deeper with every passing second.
She turns toward me, her eyes sharp.
“We’ll need to move fast,” she says. “Once they notice the breach, they’ll try to shut it down. If they sever the offshore link before we finish, the data could survive.”
“Then we’ll strike before they can blink,” I reply, my voice low.
She watches the screen, her lips curving just slightly. “We strike,” she echoes.
And I know we both mean it.
This isn’t just destruction.
It’s execution.
We watch the purge progress together, every second dragging us closer to the edge.
“When this finishes,” I say, “there’s no way back. No recovery. Not even for us.”
