The ledger room smelled of ink and rust, the kind that lingers in ventilation shafts and clings to old paper. Narrow shelves groaned under the weight of stacked books. A faint hum ran beneath the floor, vibrating against the soles of my boots.
rustle… hum… drip…
Kara stepped inside, carrying a stack of thick, shadowed ledgers. Her eyes darted from one shelf to another, calculating, cautious. The bruise along her jaw caught the dim light, dark against her skin, but she moved with precision.
"I've been tracking anomalies," she said, voice low, clipped. "Patterns that don't match operations. Shifts in nodes… ledger gaps."
I leaned against a steel column, arms crossed. "Numbers kill faster than knives," I murmured. Not to her, but to the room. To myself. Every ledger was a weapon if wielded right.
clink… scrape…
She laid the ledgers on a table, carefully aligning the edges. Her fingers hovered over the pages, tracing sums and signatures as if reading whispers. I watched, cataloging micro-expressions, hesitations, the slight tilt of her wrist. Useful information. Always useful.
faint buzz… flick…
I opened one ledger, pretending to scan alongside her. The mis-indexed sums were small, almost imperceptible, but the pattern was deliberate. I'd let it lie, knowing she'd notice eventually. If she followed it to its false conclusion, it would serve nicely later.
If she falls for this, it's practically murder by math.
She bent closer, murmuring figures, convinced she'd uncovered some vital Syndicate secret. I let her glow. Let her believe she was ahead, that she held the key. Small loops, fake codenames tucked between the lines, she would chase them blindly, thinking the knowledge was hers. Still liar, still useful.
rustle… hum…
I tapped the side of my boot against the floor, letting the vibration pass under the table. She glanced up once, suspicious, then returned to the ledgers, unaware of the trap quietly weaving beneath her fingertips.
"You're doing well," I said lightly, letting the words linger. A compliment, not sincere, but enough to keep her engaged. "Just… make sure it's worth my time."
tap… tap… fade…
She nodded, absorbed, oblivious. I stepped back, watching her silhouette bend over the ledgers. Let her swim in numbers while I read her every move. Every flicker of thought a thread I could pull.
A smile tugged at my lips. In the world of shadows, allies are rare. Pawns? Even rarer.
The room hummed, shelves vibrating faintly. Every drip, every creak, every whisper of paper was a reminder: I was still calculating, still in control. And the real game the one no ledger could measure had just begun.