“Pike’s crew from storage to staging. Ash verified seal integrity. Broker pickup occurred within the scheduled window. Temperature stayed within tolerance the whole time, and there are no gaps in custody on our end.”
I move to the desk and hold out my hand. Moth gives me the tablet without a word. The chain of custody is clean at first pass, every timestamp where it should be, every handler listed, every seal confirmation checked, and counter-checked. No missing minutes. No substitution point. No delay long enough for exposure or tampering unless somebody had access after the warehouse, which means either the buyer is full of shit, the vial was swapped, or someone wants our attention pulled to the idea of contamination.
Moth answers the next question before I ask it. “Everything went to plan on our side. If something happened after the warehouse, it wasn’t ours.”
Sol exhales smoke toward the ceiling. “That’s comforting.”
“It’s accurate.”
Bricks leans forward, forearms braced on his thighs now, the lounge creaking beneath him. “Buyer new enough to think he can shake us down?”
“New to direct purchases, not new to the product,” Moth says. “He came through Harlan’s brokerage line, paid full price, and passed background on liquidity and discretion. There are no known law-enforcement ties.”
“The symptoms don’t match degradation,” I say, scrolling through the report again.
“No. They match contaminated product or a counterfeit vial being passed off as ours.”
Sol taps ash into the tray on his desk. “Or someone wants the market whispering that Obsidian’s clean little miracle isn’t so clean.”
That’s the part already working under my skin. XR3 is valuable because it doesn’t behave like street garbage. Clean onset. Clean euphoria. No slop, no collapse, no seizure rumors attached to our name. Rich users don’t pay for risk; they pay for the illusion that risk has been engineered out of the experience.If somebody wants to hurt us without hitting a truck, quality is the right pressure point.
Sol looks at me through the smoke. “Why don’t you grab your toy and ask him what he thinks?”
My fingers tighten around the tablet, and for half a second I see myself breaking the screen against the edge of his desk. Instead, I set the tablet on the desk before my grip cracks it. “My ‘toy’ wouldn’t know shit about why a new buyer is lying about their goods. What we need to ask is what the buyer thinks he gains. Refund, discount, access to a higher-volume line, or cover because someone handed him a counterfeit and told him it came from us.”
Bricks rubs a hand over his beard. “Are we sure the Rogues don’t have shit to do with this? I know we’re in an alliance and all that, but undermining product quality would—”
I glare at him and he immediately shuts up. “Oisín isn’t doing shit,” I tell him.
Sol’s mouth curves around the cigar. “You sound sure.”
“I am.”
“Because you’ve had him here a week and he’s pretty when he falls apart for you?”
Sol has always enjoyed this part, the fine needlework of provocation. As a kid, I thought his calm meant he wasn’t angry. Later, I learned his calm meant he’d already decided what kind of pain would teach best.
I step closer to the desk. “Careful.”
Sol laughs softly. “There he is.”
I hate that he sounds pleased.
Moth clears his throat. “There’s no evidence tying Oisín to the complaint. The timeline doesn’t support it, and he hasn’t had access to outbound product, broker channels, or handoff seals. He’s seen route structures and board-level inefficiencies, not batch handling.”
My attention shifts to him but Moth doesn’t apologize for the depth of his monitoring. He probably knows exactly which floorboard outside my room creaks when Oisín gets up in the night and which mug he uses when Tally makes him coffee.
Sol keeps his eyes on me. “Ah, yes. Access. He met Varina the other day, didn’t he?”
Bricks’ head turns slowly in my direction.
Moth says nothing.
I feel my jaw lock. “It’s handled.”
“Is it?”
“It’s not him.”
