I roll my eyes. “Enlighten us, Grim.”
“Found something. A file buried so deep it may as well be in hell.”
He move the mouse and shows us. It’s called “El Fantasma”. I shake my head seeing the words. Not understanding how Alejandro can really keep preaching the ghost is not real.
Grim keeps going. “There’s a voice file—five days old. It’s just labeled Phone call 174 but it’s the only one in here.”
“Play it,” I say, voice flat.
A burst of static. Then two voices—both run through heavy distortion, genderless, originless, every syllable blurred by tech. Impossible to pin which one is which. They speak in measured, professional tones—every word cold,calculated.
The room stills. Alejandro and I both lean in, all that argument collapsing into a single, focused silence.
Grim presses play.
Two voices, both warped by distortion—neither is identifiable, but both are calm, deliberate. The first speaks, a hint of command beneath the tech filter.
“…Everything’s in place. We proceed as discussed.”
A pause, then the second voice. “Where do we meet, once it’s done?”
A cold beat, then: “Kurohana Palace. Main garden entrance. Neutral territory—no weapons. You’ll get your confirmation.”
The file ends. Just like that, the temperature in the room drops.
Alejandro stares at the screen, stone-faced. I keep my breathing steady, but my mind is spinning.
The Kurohana Palace—a garden, a casino, a fortress for the syndicates and Guilds. It’s neutral ground in name only; the kind of place where no one dares bleed unless they’re ready to spark a war. Whoever picked it knew exactly what they were doing.
I piece it together in my head, cold and methodical. The accountant found the plot—maybe even before it was set in motion. He knew where they were meeting, and when. He was desperate to reach El Fantasma. It was practically screaming from his files, the panic, the urgency, the last-ditch messages to every burner account he could find.
And now he’s dead and I’m framed for it. But it doesn’t end there. I’m not just collateral—they’re setting me up as the trigger for the next kill. I’m supposed to take the blame for assassinating the golden boy senator. Theyaren’t building an alibi—they’re constructing an entire narrative, brick by bloody brick. The kind that will outlast my corpse.
The accountant had a file on the ghost—just like everyone else. Only this one was buried deeper, harder to crack. Paranoia or survival instinct, hard to say.
One of those voices has to be El Fantasma. I just don’t know which.
Grim’s voice cuts through my thoughts, harried now. “Gotta go—Mamá’s screaming at me. I’ll keep digging, text if I find anything.” In the background, a woman’s voice rattles off a list of sins and groceries, rapid-fire Spanish. Grim curses, then disconnects. The cursor goes still.
The laptop’s mine again. I click around, restless, half hoping for some magic bullet. There’s a folder—Pictures. I open it.
Nothing. Black and white images, out of focus, as if the camera was shaking or the photographer was moving fast, too fast. One is blurry, like whoever took it had to duck away.
Based on the count in the corner of the folder there are forty six pictures like that, all the same. Fragments. Ghosts of a bigger picture, and nobody has all the pieces.
It’s almost funny. This is what the world’s deadliest men look like up close—blurs, shadows, a single foot on a helicopter rail. No faces. No names. Only proof that someone was close enough to take the shot, but never close enough to see the whole thing.
That’s the point, isn’t it? None of us ever see the whole thing. Not until it’s too late.
I shut the laptop, turn to Alejandro. “We needto get to Dubai. Kurohana Palace. Scope out the senator. Watch for whoever’s sent to take the shot.”
He nods, eyes narrowed. “And if we can’t stop it?”
“We kill the assassin ourselves. Take the body, take the story, take the last move away from the ghosts who think they can script every ending.”
He cocks his head, studying me. “You sure you’re up for this?”
I meet his gaze, unflinching. “What other choice do we have?”
