Three weeks after Istanbul, life moved at a gentler pace. The world hadn’t ended. Reika was in custody. And for once, there were no emergency alerts lighting up the Legacy Network’s servers.

Do Rae hated it.

Peace made her restless. So when she got assigned to consult on a joint patrol operation with Seoul’s police department, she jumped at the chance. Not that she needed the help—but that was before she saw who would be partnering with her.

Jin Seok.

Rookie cop. Local celebrity for breaking up a smuggling ring last year. Absurdly brave. Slightly ridiculous.

And totally unaware that the woman he’d been paired with could lift a car without breaking a sweat.

“You’re the one from the apartment fire, right?” he asked, squinting at her as they stepped into the patrol car. “The girl with the insane reflexes?”

Rae raised an eyebrow. “That’s one way to put it.”

He grinned. “Cool. I’ve been meaning to ask how you pulled that guy out of a six-story building without a ladder.”

“Gymnastics,” she said.

He bought it. Of course he did.

Meanwhile, Do Rin sat in a secure conference room beneath Legacy HQ, flipping through a classified file. She paused when she hit the name: Kang Jae.

Encrypted transmission logs. Unauthorized data access. A flagged message from six months ago: Do Network Node: Trace Confirmed.

She knew it was him. Only one person could’ve breached their firewall that cleanly and left a signature on purpose.

Kang Jae wasn’t just a hacker. He was an ex-operative for one of Reika’s deepfield mirror networks. And the last time they’d spoken, he’d told her he wanted out.

Now he was in Seoul.

Rin closed the file and stood.

“Bring him in,” she told Ji Woo.

“Voluntarily or not?”

Rin stared at the dark glass wall. “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Back in the patrol car, Jin Seok tried and failed to not stare as Rae yawned and stretched, her jacket pulling tight over her frame.

She caught him.

“Eyes on the road, officer.”

He coughed. “Right. Sorry. Just—you remind me of someone I used to train with. Except, you know, with better hair.”

Rae rolled her eyes. “Flattery won’t get you promoted.”

“I’ll take a smile instead,” he said.

And she did smile.

Just a little.