Chapter 119 - CHAPTER 119 – PETER BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND

The corridor lights outside the operations floor had not fully stabilized after the last system inversion, and Peter stood still near the exit line as if waiting for something inside the building to catch up with his thoughts. Caro approached behind him slowly, but he did not turn immediately, and that delay alone told her something had already shifted in the way he was seeing her. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than usual, controlled but no longer distant, as if the system between them had changed from professional distance to something more fragile. "You didn't react like someone seeing a breach," he said quietly, still looking ahead. "You reacted like someone confirming a pattern." Caro stopped walking for a second, her fingers tightening slightly at her side, because that was not something she could easily dismiss or redirect without revealing more than she wanted.