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He kept typing.

"Code, please."

His fingers stilled. He didn't look at me.

"How possible is it?" I had to know. Needed to hear the truth without everyone else trying to manage my emotions. "That my friends are going to go through exactly what I'm going through. Don't sugarcoat it."

He turned to face me. His eyes were bloodshot, exhausted, but his gaze was steady.

"Technically, it's very possible, Katherine. It depends on motivation."

"Show me."

"Katherine..."

"Show me what you found."

He hesitated, then pulled up files on the screen. Video thumbnails filled the display. I recognized the backgrounds. My hotel room in New York. The suite in Chicago. That Airbnb in Santa Monica where Marissa and I had spent a weekend planning my publicity tour.

"These two." Code highlighted images showing Chris and Marissa. "They appear in seventeen and twenty-three instances respectively. Most are brief. A few minutes here and there during video calls or meetings in your hotel room."

"But brief is enough?"

"Potentially. With the right editing, you can build a narrative from fragments. String together five-second clips across multiple sessions. Make it look like a continuous conversation."

He clicked to another folder. My heart seized.

"This is Angelica?"

"Yeah."

The number of thumbnails made me dizzy. Dozens of images. Angelica laughing during FaceTime calls. Angelica curled up on my hotel bed watching movies. Angelica getting ready for a premiere, trying on dresses, asking my opinion.

"How much footage?"

"Approximately fourteen hours total." Code's voice stayed clinical. "That's more than enough to create convincing deepfakes. Train an AI model on her voice, her mannerisms, her expressions. With this much source material, they could make her say anything."

My legs gave out. I sank back into the chair.

Fourteen hours.

Fourteen hours of Angelica being herself, trusting me, never suspecting that someone was watching. Recording. Planning to use her openness against her.

"This is my fault."

"No."

"I left my laptop unguarded. I was careless. I brought this into her life." My voice cracked. "She's been nothing but kind to me. She dropped everything to help me. And I repaid her by making her a target."

"Katherine, listen to me." Code crossed the room and crouched in front of my chair. His hands covered mine. "This is not your fault. You couldn't have known."

"I should have been more careful."

"You were targeted by someone with military-grade resources and expertise. No amount of consumer-grade security would have stopped them." His fingers tightened on mine. "They chose you. They planned this. You're a victim, not the villain."

Tears burned behind my eyes. I refused to let them fall.

"Angelica's going to hate me."