Chapter 71. Echo Protocol

“Some ghosts wear the face of your own ambition.”

“You don’t understand,” Harper said, voice low, frayed. “It wasn’t just betrayal. It was exposure.”

Lucien leaned against the frame of her office door, arms folded, eyes dark with caution. “Then make them regret watching.”

“I did.” She laughed once, brittle. “And they turned it into a headline.”

Outside, the Ledger Tower glimmered in polished silence. Inside, Harper Quinn—the woman they called unbreakable—was breaking herself, carefully, systematically, in ways no one else could reach.

Lucien stepped forward. “You’ve lost control of the public thread.”

“No,” she corrected. “I gave it away. The second I let my name become a brand.”

He watched her. Quiet now.

“KnightFade wasn’t just a scandal,” she said. “It was a test. Every thread I buried, every command I locked behind encryption, every loyalty I thought was coded into the system… they dug it out and sold it for clicks.”

“You’re