You don't beat men like Calder by playing fair.
You sure as shit don't survive them by staying clean.
To kill a monster, you stop pretending you aren't one.
And I'm done pretending.
I turn back to the laptop and pull up my Silt system. A full identity wipe paired with believable death trails. I built it years ago for people who needed to disappear permanently. Targets. Assets. Loose ends. Anyone who got in my way or needed to die.
Never thought I'd be running it on myself, but this will buy me some breathing room.
Calder might not know my name yet, or I'd already be dead. But he knows someone is trying to find him. It's only a matter of time before he connects the dots.
The screen shows a blank field, the cursor blinking.
I type in the access code from memory and add Tristan Barlowe to the list, watching myself get erased from the face of the earth.
TRISTAN BARLOWE — STATUS: DECEASED
The cause of death populates automatically once I select the scenario.
Vehicle accident off Isle of Skye. Body unrecovered due to tide and rocky terrain. It'll seed the local reports first, then insurance databases, then the webpages that trade in obituaries before families are even notified. The journalists in Wall Street's business sector will pick it up. It'll spread everywhere, and Calder will mark me as dead—no longer a threat, if I ever was one before.
Problem solved.
Except for the part where the people I actually care about are going to see this and assume the worst.
I can't have that.
And as much as I hate admitting it, I'm past the point where I can do this alone. That's why the secure line to Aaron exists.
I pull up the encrypted channel and type fast.
Had to reset. Trail went colder than expected.If you see something about me, don't panic. Or do. Might help sell it.
The cursor blinks back in a different color. Aaron logs on.
A: Target confirmed?
Yes.
A: Backup?
My fingers hover over the keys.
Negative.
The moment I send it, one of my background codes blinks. I lean in, pulse kicking up…then it flattens. It appears to be a corrupted job log with no timestamp. Half the text shredded and every name scrubbed clean except for one word.
Viavilda.
That's one of Aaron and Caterina's shell companies.
Why the hell is it buried in Calder's data trail?
Why is their world even touching his?
I dig deeper, trying to force the pathway to open, but the firewall snaps back hard enough to nearly lock me out completely.
