Page 56 of Make Them Cry

---

GAGE

She kissed me.

Last night, behind that alley, she kissedme.

She doesn’t know it. Not really. Not yet.

But her lips tasted like wildfire and trust and the kind of hope I’ve spent years teaching myself not to crave.

And now—after the way she looked at me, after the things she told me about Mask—my entire body is on edge. The mask may still be on, but the lines are blurring fast.

Too fast.

I heard her whisper my name in her sleep.

NotGage.

Mask.

Over the encrypted mic feed I left running—because I wanted to make sure she was okay—I heard her say it. Low. Breathless. Like a secret laced in silk.

And I fuckinglost it.

I’m still losing it.

But that was nothing—nothing—compared to what I felt when I saw the image.

Her face. Her body—or at least, what someoneimaginedher body looked like—plastered across Cathedral’s splash screen like some sick marketing gimmick, twisted with malice and intent.

I nearly blacked out from the rage.

Not protective rage. Not rational anger.

Animal fury.

I’m trained to keep my cool under pressure. But when I opened that screen, when I saw her humiliation, the way they digitallytouchedher?—

I wanted to punch something. Murder someone.

The crew at NovaPlay doesn’t even know the half of it.

But I do.

Because now I’ve traced the entry point.

And I wish I hadn’t.

It came from her laptop. Not her current system—but an old backup repository. One that hadn’t been connected to the network in over a year.

Which means it wasn’t pulled from the cloud.

It was taken from inside.

Someone had access to her local drive.

Someoneinside the building.

That leaves Mason out.

---