“You expect me to believe you forgot how the game’s played?”
I say nothing.
He tosses another pad onto the desk. “In return, full logs. Raw data. The cleric who tagged your girl? He’s not running solo. He’s paid. Funneled dirty creds through two fronts. One of ‘em’s tied to Alliance legacy accounts. Deep money. Vengeful money.”
“Family?”
“Looks that way. Name on the original trace matches the file you brought last time. Probably a cousin. Uncle, maybe.”
My jaw tightens.
I reach for the pad. “No copies.”
He chuckles. “You wound me.”
“I’ll bring your tag back in forty-eight hours.”
“See that you do.”
—
I shadow the target for two nights.
Renna walks like she’s always checking the corners. Sharp eyes. Smarter than she lets on. Teaches encryption out of a mechanic’s bay during graveyard shifts. Most of her students don’t even realize who she is.
She keeps her comms off-grid. Wears a signal bouncer under her coat. Smart, but not smart enough. I triangulate her routine. Build a pattern. She buys synth noodles at the same stall every night, feeds stray dogs behind the vendor crates.
She’s got kindness, buried under years of running.
I hate what I’m about to do.
The tag’s small. Quarter-size tracker with a low-ping burst. I slide it into the lining of her rucksack when she leaves it unattended during a fire drill—one that I may or may not have caused with a well-placed short in the power grid.
Clean. Fast. Efficient.
Dirty work done with clean hands.
She’ll be gone in days. Quietly.
And I’ll be the ghost who marked her grave.
—
Back at the flat, I don’t bother turning on the lights. I’ve lived in this space long enough to see in the dark.
I sink into the old chair. Pull the secure pad from its compartment in the wall.
The files flicker open.
Every transaction is there. Dates. Times. Routing paths. Credits transferred from a shell fund on Andel Prime. Then bounced through an educational nonprofit—classic laundering. Ends up in the account of High Cleric Vasso, Coalition mid-ranker with just enough authority to initiate a flagging process on an undocumented subject.
That subject? Kelsea.
It’s not speculation anymore.
I lean forward, elbows on knees, staring at the data. The name attached to the fund burns like acid in my vision. Vasso. The brother of the man Kelsea killed in Alliance space.
He didn’t forget.
