The city never learned of the hidden vault, and the council’s old zoning secrets remained buried. Alyssa, ever the puppeteer, kept the blackmail as a silent guarantee that the balance of power stayed exactly where she wanted it: in her hands.

Alyssa’s voice softened. “You have what you wanted, but remember, . I now hold proof that you entered a restricted area with stolen files. If you ever try to sell those lenses without me, I can expose everything.”

She didn’t need to spell it out. Son understood: . He handed over the encrypted drive, and Alyssa’s smile was the only acknowledgment she gave. The Heist Using the zoning files, Son and his small team of hackers mapped a forgotten service tunnel that ran beneath the city’s financial district. They slipped through the night, bypassing security drones and old flood gates, until they reached a rusted steel door marked with a faded alchemical symbol.

Alyssa’s demand had been simple, but the payoff was beyond anything Son imagined. He could sell the lenses to a secretive collector for millions, or use them to develop a new augmented‑reality platform that would make his startup the next unicorn. Back at the loft, Alyssa waited. She had already uploaded a copy of the lenses’ schematics to a secure server she controlled. When Son returned, triumphant, she handed him a sleek black envelope. “Your reward,” she said, “and a reminder.” Inside the envelope was a single photograph: Son, standing in the vault, his face illuminated by the glow of the lenses. In the background, a shadowy figure—Alyssa’s own silhouette—was captured on a hidden security camera that had been installed years ago.