"Plausible deniability," I said.
"Through bureaucracy."
I opened the scheduling interface. Searched for Soo-jin.
Nothing. No calendar. No assistant. No meetings. No location updates. No digital footprint tying him to anything tonight.
My jaw tensed. "He scrubbed himself."
"Yes."
Eamon had followed us in, standing behind and to my left. Close enough to anchor. Far enough to give me space.
I stared at the empty slots where Soo-jin's name should have been. Bitter anger sharpened into certainty.
A man setting a stage.
"He's setting up an edge event," I said.
"Define." Eamon's voice was low.
"Something ambiguous. Defendable as routine. Still dangerous enough that if I don't intervene, I look negligent. If I intervene, I risk looking unstable."
Do-hyun didn't argue. His silence was confirmation.
It was a trap.
I thought about Rune, how he'd looked at me when I told him about Redwater. Eyes steady, believing me without the need for proof.
I pushed that aside. This was about countering Soo-jin's efforts to define me.
I forced my breathing to slow. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
"What do we have?" I asked Do-hyun.
He tapped his screen. "No specific evidence. Only patterns."
I scanned the operations feed again. Three contractors I didn't recognize were near the loading docks, all wearing valid badges. Something about their movement was wrong: clustering where sightlines mattered, and waiting for a signal instead of working.
Soo-jin's staging.
"He's removed himself from traceability," I said. "So when something happens, we can't link him to it."
Eamon shifted his weight, quiet but present.
"If he wanted to be somewhere he shouldn't be, he could," I said. "If he wanted to pull a lever nobody could see, he could."
"And you think he will," Eamon said.
I had two layers to that answer.
What I believed, stubbornly, was that Soo-jin might be violent. His obsession with control could cross into something physical.
What I knew, beyond belief, was that he didn't need violence to win. He only needed me to make a wrong move. So I'd confirm what Seattle had already decided I was.
I chose the layer I could act on.
"He's gone. And he wants me to notice."
