It also made him a target, as his notoriety led to him bing one of the most wanted individuals in the world.


    When Hera discovered the truth, she was seething with anger. She feared it was only a matter of time before Sasha was caught and imprisoned.


    His only hope for survival seemed to be following the path of the previous hacker who had infiltrated the Pentagon—being captured and then employed to bolster their defenses.


    However, Hera saw an opportunity in the situation.


    Rather than giving Sasha to the authorities, she made a bold decision.


    She hired him to work with the Avery Consortium, vowing to protect him from the looming danger that threatened his freedom.


    With Sasha’s excitement sparked and the green light from Hera, he stretched his neck and fingers, a mischievous grin tugging at his lips as he locked eyes with his monitor.


    "Are you sure about this, sister?" he asked, double-checking with her.


    He wasn’t about to cross her—Hera could be downright terrifying when she was angry, and that was something Sasha wanted to avoid at all costs.


    "Yes, track the flow of money," Hera instructed, her voice steady and focused.


    "When you reach the Swiss ount, gather everything—IP addresses, physical addresses, the name used to create the ount, the ount’s creation date, everything. The more detailed, the better. We need all the information we can get."


    When Sasha heard her instructions, his grin grew wider, and he began typing at an incredible speed, far faster than before.


    Hera, confident in his skills, left him to track the funds, while she focused on sorting the tampered documents from the untouched ones.


    As she worked, she noticed the assistant standing beside her, his face pale and his mouth hanging open, looking as though he’d just seen a ghost.


    "Can you still print out the original ounts from the previous months?" Hera asked, her focus sharp as she sought the unaltered documents.


    "Don’t worry, Miss," the assistant replied, his voice more assured now as he adjusted his expression and scratched the back of his head.


    "All departments have been working hard to sort and prepare the reports. This way, we can present them to the tax bureau, and they canpare them with the tampered documents."


    "But it will take time," the assistant said sheepishly, his voice tinged with guilt.


    "The original documents were all destroyed, so every department has to start from scratch." He paused, clearly frustrated.


    "Honestly, we have no idea how things turned out like this. We’ve been trying to track down the mole within thepany, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack."


    "We started with those who had ess to the archive room and even investigated the higher-ups, but we’ve found nothing—no clues at all."


    The assistant’s face flushed with embarrassment, feeling the weight of his perceived ipetence.


    Even Vince had been caught off guard, as if the mole had appeared out of nowhere.


    Hera caught the underlying meaning in his words, and her gaze hardened as she processed the implications.


    <i>’Maybe they’ve been nning this for a long time, lying in wait, blending in with everyone so they could carry out their n when the time was right, leaving no one the wiser.’</i>


    But she couldn’t say that aloud, not without making it sound like she was using everyone—like she trusted no one within the branch, except Vince.


    The mole could be anyone, and revealing that suspicion would only breed distrust among her team. It was a dangerous line to walk.


    Or perhaps, this was exactly what the enemy wanted them to believe.


    They might be aiming for the Avery branch to descend into chaos—fueling suspicion, turning everyone against one another, and ensuring that they would tear each other apart.


    Even if they managed to clear their names, the damage had been done.


    No one would ever truly feel safe, unable to identify the perpetrator or understand how their supposedly secure files were tampered with.


    The result?


    Paranoia.


    To protect themselves from being implicated, many of the senior and key employees might start seeking opportunities elsewhere—looking to escape the murky past that could ruin their careers.


    It wouldn’t matter how much better their sries and benefits were at Avery; once the seed of doubt was nted, it would no longer be a ce anyone wanted to remain.


    As Hera’s thoughts took this turn, she felt her heart pound in her chest.


    It made more sense now—almost too much sense.


    Even if their enemies failed to take down the Avery branch directly, they could still bring it to ruin from within.


    By sowing distrust and paranoia, they could dismantle the organization until it became nothing more than an empty shell.


    Once that happened, the enemy could easily sweep in, seize whatever remained, and rebuild it—using the same framework to construct something entirely different, something under their control.


    This n seemed entirely usible, especially without Vince.


    Vince was the mastermind behind the entire branch, the one who managed and ran the whole operation.


    Perhaps that was the reason they had targeted him first—trying to get him into police custody, no matter the cost.


    With this thought in mind, Hera began tapping her index finger against the ss desk, her mind racing through the possibilities of this theory being true.


    <i>’If that was the case, who exactly was targeting the Avery branch? Was their goal to seize control of the branch and dominate Barcelona’s economy? Or was there a deeper, more sinister motive at y?’</i>


    Being the overthinker she was, Hera always sought to consider every possible oue so she could prepare for any scenario.


    Now that this new possibility had crossed her mind, she began devising an alternative n.


    Her next moves would depend on Sasha’s findings and Gerald’s investigation—only then would she decide on her course of action.