CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT – DIRT TO DIG UP

Over the next few weeks, Kayla worked tirelessly to insulate herself from suspicion. She soldiered through filming and editing sessions with Maverick, careful to couch any remaining skepticism about his narrative choices as respectful creative disagreements. All the while, encrypted status reports trickled in from Kozlov's investigative team, chronicling the growing dossier of evidence against the filmmaker's litany of abuses. Kayla pored over each meticulously detailed file, digesting the damning revelations until her mind felt numb. Then finally, one innocuous Wednesday afternoon, her phone pinged with a message she'd been anticipating like an artisan awaits their final, most exquisite brushstroke: "Operation is a go." Heart thudding, Kayla forwarded the message to a pre-arranged number, hit send, and settled in to await further instructions. When the disposable phone vibrated with a series of coded coordinates, she felt a perverse surge of satisfaction course through her veins.