Chapter 14. Echo Chamber

By the time Yara woke, her name was trending.

Her phone buzzed against the nightstand like it was trying to escape.

She blinked at the screen: 49 missed calls, 132 messages, 18 new emails.

“God, I hate being right,” she muttered.

The blog had gone viral overnight. Major outlets had picked it up, quoting her headline word for word.

She opened her laptop, half-expecting the screen to combust.

Her inbox was a mess—requests for interviews, offers for exclusives, three polite death threats disguised as debate. The metrics were climbing like fever.

Then came the call from her editor.

“You seeing these numbers?” he said, voice pitched somewhere between awe and panic.

“Seeing, regretting, living them.”

“ESPN wants a segment. They’re asking if Cassian’s back in the league.”

“He’s not.”

“You sure?”

Silence. Then: “Careful, Yara. You poke this bear again, and it might not just swipe—it’ll remember.”

She ended t