“Hard,” Brutus said. “But yeah.”
Cap looked to Ghost. “You’ve been quiet.”
Ghost straightened. For a second, I thought he might not speak at all.
Then he reached into his jacket and slid a single folder onto the table.
“I didn’t want to bring this until I was sure,” he said. His voice was calm, but there was something coiled beneath it. “But I’m sure now.”
Cap opened the folder.
I leaned forward instinctively. Amanda did too.
Inside wasn’t much. A handful of printouts. A still image pulled from a street cam. A spreadsheet with names redacted except for one column.
Scout frowned. “That’s not one of ours.”
“No,” Ghost said. “It’s not.”
Amanda’s breath caught softly. “That’s?—”
She stopped.
Ghost nodded once. “Jasmine.”
The name landed heavier than it should have.
Cap looked up sharply. “Why is her name in this room?”
“Because she’s already in theirs,” Ghost said.
Silence.
Not the explosive kind. The kind that presses inward.
“She hasn’t been taken,” Ghost continued. “Not touched. Not hurt. Not yet.”
Amanda swallowed. “Yet.”
Ghost met her eyes. Something passed between them. Recognition.
“She works for a firm connected to one of the shell companies we’ve been tracking,” Ghost said. “At first I thought she was incidental. Low-level access. Background noise.”
“And now?” Ranger asked.
“And now I know she isn’t,” Ghost said. “Her ID badge was logged in a system that shouldn’t exist. A document she processed was pulled and rerouted within forty-eight hours. Her commute overlaps with two known watchers.”
Scout pushed back from the table. “You’re saying they’re watching her.”
Ghost shook his head slowly.
“They’re not watching her,” he said. “They’re cataloging her.”
That word sat wrong.
Amanda’s fingers curled against the edge of the table. “Why her?”
Ghost didn’t answer right away.
