Karl’s POVThe expansion meeting ran long on purpose, I wanted every handler on that new corridor walking out knowing the route existed because I let it exist, not because they'd gotten clever on their own and figured they'd earned it.Rafael stood at the table with the map pinned flat while the ops lead wrapped up the last of the numbers."Phase two can move next week if the first line stays clean," Rafael said, "conservative volume, layered payments, no direct contact between the new hands and the old core.""Keep it that way," I said, "anybody improvises, cut them loose before the improvising turns into a damn habit, I'm not building a corridor so some guy can get famous running his mouth inside it.""Yes, boss."I was about to wave them off when Rafael hesitated and pulled a thinner file out from under the map. "There's also the Lena report.""Talk to me.""She's clean on the surface, check-ins land on time, hospital logs match up, routes look ordinary enough, but the pattern's st

Ace's POVMonday morning I walked back into the office like the Japan trip and the whole Clara blowup had just been one long interruption instead of a full reset, and the building responded the same way it always did whenever the CEO stopped ducking through side doors and started walking the main floor again.Nadia met me at the elevator with the tablet already lit up. "Hey, welcome back. Board summary's on your desk, the Japan legal stuff from Qing's office came in overnight, and your ten o'clock with outside counsel is still on.""Good," I said, grabbing the tablet, "bump the Japan follow-up to eleven, and tell the corridor guys to stay on standby, I don't want any lag on getting those signatures done.""You got it."In my office I dropped the bag, rolled the chair back, and for a second just stood there staring out at the city through the glass, the same damn view I'd left behind back when everything still had soft edges around Clara's claim and Lena's situation and Jonathan poking

Marcus’s POVAce's name was doing half my work for me before I'd even opened my mouth.I sat across from Jonathan in a quiet booth at the back of a members' club he liked, two glasses of water between us and enough distance from the main floor that nobody would catch a word worth repeating. He looked composed, but there was a sharpness underneath it that told me the soft pressure on Sinclair's corridor had already drawn blood."He's back from Japan and already swinging," Jonathan said, turning his glass slowly. "Legal noise on the personal side, tighter defense on the business side. Whatever you figured was gonna keep him distracted is just making him sharper instead.""Sharp under pressure still leaves cracks," I said. "He's fighting on too many fronts at once. The wife's claim, corporate interference, whatever else he's carrying with that woman. People fighting everywhere eventually leave a door unlocked somewhere."Jonathan let out a short, humorless sound. "And you want me to keep

Jacobi’s POV The facilitator's name was Cole, and she didn't break easy. I found her through the storage unit off Binder Road, the one the docks guy gave up once I leaned on him, and it took two days of watching before she moved somewhere quiet enough to force a real conversation without an audience. She was smaller than the guys Hale usually hired, sharp-eyed, the kind of person who stays alive by knowing exactly which information is worth more than loyalty. When I finally got her alone in the back of the closed auto shop she used as a cut-through, she tried running her mouth first. "You're Jacobi," she said, backing up until her shoulders hit a metal shelf. "Hale said you were getting desperate enough to start grabbing the wrong people." "Then Hale should've paid you enough not to leave a trail straight to Binder Road." I stayed planted between her and the exit. "I'm not here for a speech. I want the list of who actually moves his money and his introductions in this city, a

Karl’s POVJonathan finally showed up at the private room above the club twenty minutes late, which was already a message before he even opened his mouth.I had a bottle on the table and no patience left. My ribs were still screaming from the hit on the industrial road, my shoulder pulled every time I moved wrong, and the fact that my own brother had spent days dodging my calls sat under all of it like a second bruise."You're late," I said.Jonathan shut the door and didn't bother apologizing. "I told you I was busy.""Busy's what you say when you've decided my calls don't matter." I stayed in my seat because standing would've made the pain obvious, and I wasn't giving him that. "I called you to the base. I called you after. You sent back one-liners like I was some asshole chasing a payment."He took the chair across from me and leaned back. "I answered when I could. Your base isn't my office, Karl."I let out a short, ugly laugh. "There it is. The clean-boy speech. Every time the st