Alex looked at the candy beans in his younger brother's hand and remained silent for a few seconds.
"It's enough," he said. "But don't use them unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I know," Hale put the candy beans away carefully. "Once we use them, they'll know, and then they'll escalate."
"So we can't let them know," Alex said coldly. "At least not yet."
He turned back to the computer, his fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard again. A new window popped up on the screen — an encrypted file with a filename consisting of meaningless numbers and letters.
"What is this?" Ella leaned closer.
"Yamamoto Joichi's dark web activity records," Alex said, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "I spent the entire night yesterday tracking them down. He has three accounts on the dark web: one for posting tasks, one for trading, and another —"
He paused and pressed Enter.
A list of files appeared on the screen, all in Japanese, with filenames marked by dates and numbers.
