Page 14 of Veil of Dust

Ink smears along my knuckle. I press my thumb down on the margin. Not a ritual—just a habit. A way of confirming the mark is mine.

This whole operation breathes because I feed it numbers. And now, those numbers run through her bar.

I grab a pen and start adjusting figures. These aren’t just numbers; they’re triggers. One wrong digit, and three cities go up in smoke. One misplaced name, and someone gets buried in a ditch. The system is sensitive. But it breaks when I say so.

A noise catches my attention—chewing.

I look up.

Some kid, early twenties, leans against the doorframe. He’s too clean, doesn’t belong in this room. He’s chewing gum like he’s bored. His eyes are flat, with no shine. No respect.

I don’t raise my head. “Stop chewing.”

He freezes. Then, he swallows. Loud. The gum’s gone.

I go back to the ledger.

The next entry is a funnel account—a seafood supplier out of the Gulf. It’s fake. Just a front to move money. Another shell.

The one after that?

Harder to finish.

Because it involves her.

Vespera.

I shouldn’t have picked her.

She doesn’t blend in, doesn’t follow, and doesn’t fit.

I need her anyway. She doesn’t know that. I’ve already tied her to this. She’s the only part of this whole machine that still feels clean. And I’m already dragging her into it.

I flip back a few pages and look at the routing paths I built around her. Her address is buried deep, five layers down. You’d have to know the whole key structure to see it. I never wrote it down. No second copy. Just memory.

She’s my exit plan.

If this whole thing collapses, she’s the only one I trust to get me out without leaving a trace.

She’s going to hate me for it.

I can live with that.

The room creaks from the heat. The stacks of cash slump inward slightly, like they’re caving under their own weight. The light above buzzes harder. A ceiling tile shifts, warped from moisture.

The door opens again.

Not the kid.

Someone else. Black shirt, heavy bags under his eyes. One of Ramiro’s men. I don’t know his name. Doesn’t matter. Him being here means the Order’s watching more closely now.

He walks in and tosses a folder onto the table. The edge clips the ledger.

I raise an eyebrow.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t have to.

I open the folder.

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