The server room morphed into their shared territory, a cold, humming purgatory where the only exchange was competence. Working next to Leo was like being locked in a cage with a sleeping panther: still, yet deceptively so, for she knew he was aware of every breath she took and every keystroke she made. And so they fell into a tense, unspoken rhythm. He was the architect, and with a native's fluency, understood the sprawling network infrastructure of the estate. She was the artist, able to see the patterns and foretell the possibilities within that structure that were perhaps too blurry for his rigid, security-focused mind. Their fingers would occasionally brush while reaching for the same mouse or keyboard; each accidental touch was an electric shock-a reminder of the adversarial nature deeply ingrained in their forced partnership. Muted whispers gave way to intense concentration as they worked together to build a cage for a ghost.

After coding the bait for several hours, the bait being nothing more than a well-done file of fake financial projections intended for a new bright market, Serena ventured to break the silence. "He is not just a thief," she pondered, staring at the screen. Her eyes were glued to the screen. "A thief is sloppy. This one appears to be too personal. The targets are far too specific. It just feels like someone is trying to dismantle the Moretti empire from inside, one step at a time." She was fishing, hoping to provoke a reaction or get hint of who might have quite a personal grid against them. Leo did not even turn his head. "In our world," he rumbled, "everything is personal. And everyone is a potential threat." That was a wall, solid and closed. She twisted in another direction. "The level of access required is immense. This simply must limit our list of suspects." Leo stopped typing at last. He turned his head slowly, and his dark eyes found her with an unnerving intensity. "You have the clearance you need to build this trap, Miss Vale. You do not have the clearance to conduct your own investigation into personnel. Focus on the code." He had made himself very clear. She was not to tread into the inner circle. His fierce protection of that boundary signified an unmistakable clue. The traitor was someone important.

The notification system was at the very heart of the trap. When a file bait was opened, it activated a silent alarm that notified the person's ID and terminal. Then, when the ghost logically was running his erasure script on the access logs, he would set off the secondary trigger locking him out of the system entirely. While building the initial alerting protocol, which would ping both Leo and Damiano, Serena saw her opportunity. It was a crazy risk, but the only reason she had agreed to the partnership. With Leo watching her screen on his monitor, she set to work on building a secondary script. "What's this?" Leo's voice was razor-sharp, instantaneously questioning her deviation. "It's a redundancy," Serena said, smooth as silk, not missing a beat. "A fail-safe. If Ghost is smart enough to compromise the primary alert system, this creates a heavily encrypted, time-stamped log of the breach on a local, isolated server partition. It's a dead man's switch. Theoretically inefficient, but guarantees the data won't vanish even if he foils our original trap." She framed it as obsessive caution, a "belt-and-suspenders" mantra. Leo stared at the code for a long moment. In her own words, inefficient. It would just complicate matters. Not overtly malicious, though. He grunted-a sound that was neither approval nor disapproval-and allowed it. He did not understand that the "isolated server partition" she was referring to was, in fact, a hidden folder on her laptop, which she had linked to the core network of the estate. She had just constructed herself a secret backdoor into their own alarm system!

Just as she finished compiling the code, embedding her secret within the public function, there was an intercom crackle. "Leo. Report." Damiano's voice droned from the intercom with an undercurrent of command. Serena's fingers froze over the keyboard. Leo tilted toward the microphone: "The trap is almost completed. The trap logic is almost perfectly designed by Miss Vale. It is sound." Stunned, Serena heard the last slant of acknowledgment that, ever since, by reputation, had mattered to anyone because it was directed to Leo. It was not a compliment; mere words would not suffice to convey the depth of Leo's distrust. And yet, he had to concede, at least to himself, her skill. She must then be a pragmatic asset above all; her loyalty was to the estate, against which she was now a valuable resource. With one final command, Leo activated their creation. On the main monitor, one single line of green text emerged, set in stark contrast against the black background: TRAP ACTIVE. AWAITING TARGET. The cage had been set. The bait was laid. There was nothing left to do but wait. They remained silent, two predators eyeing the same clearing in the jungle, both silently aware that each danger was as potent as the prey being hunted. Serena focused on the screen, her heart a halting and cold drum. She had set a trap for the ghost but had also set up a secret portal for his capture. Only one question remained: who would be exposed first when the trap finally closed?