Elias felt the air leave his lungs. He looked down. The peach seltzer was right there, condensation pooling on his mousepad.
The prompt was a blinking cursor at the end of a line of text:
The video didn't start with the usual high-octane network montage. There were no credits, no pulsing soundtrack. Instead, the screen flickered with the grainy, greenish hue of a night-vision security feed.
His phone buzzed on the desk. A new notification from an unknown sender. He swiped it open with trembling fingers. It wasn't a text message. It was a file transfer receipt.
The thumping stopped directly outside his door. The handle turned, slow and deliberate. Elias realized then that the "Most Wanted" file hadn't been a request for a TV show. It had been a search warrant—and he was the series finale.