“I would’ve overlooked it,” Alex said, tapping the margin. “TheDhere is subtle. Almost meant to blend in.”
“That’s what makes it dangerous,” Georgina murmured. “It’s a pattern. One meant to be invisible until it isn’t. If this were a network, there’d need to be shorthand, a way to communicate without spelling things out.”
They both looked up at the same moment. The mirror of it made Barrington, sitting in the armchair near the hearth, chuckle softly into his tea.
Before Alex could reply, footsteps approached. Kenworth appeared in the doorway with a sealed note and the faintest crease to his brow.
“Courier from the village,” he said, handing the envelope to Alex. “Left this with one of the stable boys just after breakfast. No return address.”
Alex accepted it with a nod of thanks, broke the seal, and unfolded the single sheet inside. His brow lowered in concentration as he read. Then, without a word, he passed it to Georgina. His fingers brushed hers, and she felt the faint tremor beneath the control he wore like armor. He was steady for her sake, but she recognized the effort it cost him.
The paper was coarse, folded roughly. But the handwriting was deliberate.
Denholm’s not your man. The others? Too much smoke to see clearly. Greyline’s where it starts.
No name. No signature.
“Carver,” she said quietly.
Barrington looked up from his chair near the hearth. “How can you tell?”
“The handwriting. He signed the ledger at the shaft office once while I was there,” Georgina said. “It’s him.”
Barrington rose, frowning. “He’s watching from the edges, then.”
“Or still too scared to come in,” Alex added. “But it narrows the field.”
Georgina read the message again. “Denholm is eliminated. That leaves Drexler and Dane.”
“And Greyline,” Barrington said, walking toward the wall map. “It’s always been the quiet ones. The firms with no face.”
“I want to trace Greyline’s structure,” Georgina said. “Not the public one. I want the real names behind it.”
“That may take some doing,” Alex said. “They use substitutes.”
“But not perfect ones,” she replied. “There’s always a slip. A letter.A pattern.”
Alex’s gaze lingered on her. “Then we’ll find it.”
There was promise in it, quiet and deliberate, the kind that reached further than words. She met his gaze and, for an instant, forgot the map, the names, the risk. She only saw the man who refused to stand apart from her fight.
Barrington had already reached for a clean sheet of parchment. “Edward will know where to start. I’ll send word through his private channel.”
Georgina rested a hand on the desk, eyes flicking back to the folio. “I want to be useful, not cautious.”
“You’re already more than that,” Alex said. “You’ve moved us further than we’d ever have gone without you.”
His voice was even, but something deeper hummed beneath it. The sound of it settled through her like warmth through cold stone, a reminder that belonging could come in the shape of belief. She didn’t answer with words, only glanced down at the message again before folding it and slipping it into the back of the folio.
Alex stepped around her to the window, then turned back. “What do you propose?”
“Listen to what isn’t said,” she replied simply.
That made him smile, faint and private. “We’re good at that, apparently.”
She returned the smile, just a flicker, and looked to Barrington. “I want to find out who owns Greyline Holdings. Not what’s in the public record. Who truly controls it?”
“You won’t find that on a letterhead,” Barrington said.
