Page 47 of Mr. and Mrs. Novak

"You know it's past 11:00 p.m.? Ah, love..."

"Stop your nonsense! Do you have information or not?"

Nicolas sighs.

"Yes. The tracker on her car shows that she always goes to the same place: a computer company that reeks of being a shell corporation. It's strange for an IT consultant not to move around more often. But we think there's another exit, and if her car stays there, nothing guarantees that she stays there too."

"Her phone?"

"I can give you a tracker to install on it and show you how if you think you can access it."

"No, forget it, she never parts with it."

"Her academic background is weird too. Always average, never at the top."

"So what?"

"She was brilliant before. At 15, she won the national junior programming championship. The following year, she won an international hackathon. And after that... nothing. Her grades dropped; she became ordinary."

I remember. The newspapers had talked about it: "A young French prodigy wins the Berlin hackathon."

"At 18, she started an engineering program..." Nicolas hesitates. "That's where it gets weird. On paper, she was enrolled at ESIEE Paris. But when I dug deeper, there are inconsistencies. Repeated absences from exams, compensated by special 'make-up sessions.' Internships that don't correspond to any real company. And the strangest thing: her final project was classified as confidential."

"Confidential? In an engineering school?"

"Exactly. And there's something even stranger," Nicolas continues. "We analyzed your installations: there's an ultra-secure network, military-grade. The kind of protection found in embassies, not at a freelance engineer's place."

I frown, a sudden realization hitting me. The ultra-secure network... When could she have had that installed? And suddenly, the puzzle pieces fit together.

I remember the day after our wedding. The network was unstable. She had called customer service. Two technicians had come and "fixed" the internet after two hours.

Damn. They had planned everything. The breakdown, the intervention, the installation of security equipment. What are you involved in, Sophia?

A thought chills my blood.

"Do you think she's spying on me?"

"Honestly? I doubt it."

"Why?"

"The installations are made to protect your communications, not to intercept them. It prevents any external intrusion. I know because my guys tried to penetrate your system. Impossible to get in. It's military equipment, Ruslan. The kind of protection found in secret services."

"Ok. Keep digging. I want to know everything she's hiding from me!"

"Remember how you described her to me? 'A nice shy girl who will raise our children while I enjoy life.' I told you, 'Still waters run deep.'"

"Yeah, laugh at me. Anything new about Stanislas?"

"He's furious. I just intercepted a call he made to Natasha. They had a seizure this afternoon in Le Havre. A container full of interception equipment intended for someone named André."

"André? Doesn't ring a bell. Without a last name, impossible to know more. And you're telling me customs was waiting for them?"

"Yes. They're on edge. According to the call he made to Natasha, they're tracking a female hacker. Claire Dumont. Two million in Bitcoin on the Dark Web for her identity."

"An alias?"

"No idea. Stanislas just asked Natasha if she knew anyone by that name. I searched, nothing on conventional search engines. Even on the Dark Web, nothing beyond this bounty. It's as if someone erased her tracks."