FAZER LOGINHENDRIX The gunfire started before dawn, close enough to my room that I was moving before I’d fully woken, old instinct carrying me off the bed and into a crouch beside the door. I found the door locked from the outside — Erdem’s precaution, I realized it had probably been locked hours earlier, some attempt to keep me secured. It didn't matter now. I worked the lock with a wire I'd kept hidden, and it opened.What is happening?The corridor outside was in chaos — guards running in both directions, some toward the fighting, others away from it. I pressed against the wall, cataloguing threats, and moved toward the records room rather than away from the fighting, because whatever was happening tonight, I understood with cold certainty that the Red Ledger's full evidence needed to survive it. Smoke had already begun filling the lower corridors by the time I reached them, acrid and thick enough to sting my eyes, and I kept low, moving through it with my sleeve pressed against my face. I p
SILASWord of the vault breach reached me within hours — servants talked, guards talked, and a disturbed shelf in the most secure room in the estate was exactly the kind of detail no amount of discretion could fully contain.I called the council myself. They came. That alone told me how far my brother's standing had already eroded — a council convened without Erdem's explicit summons, and not one captain questioned whether they should attend."Gentlemen," I said, once the chamber had settled, Besnik and Yusuf and a dozen others watching like men waiting to see which way the wind was finally going to break. "I called you here because I believe my brother's judgment has become a liability this family can no longer afford to ignore.""That's a serious accusation," Besnik said, though his tone seem like someone just asking so it won't feel like he didn't."It's an obvious fact. His own vault was breached last night by the informant he's spent two months protecting, defending, and sharing
ERDEM I didn't have him restrained the way the first two interrogations had required. There was no need — he came without being forced, his expression carrying the same flat exhaustion it had held in the vault."Sit," I said, once Konstantin had closed the door behind us.He sat. I remained standing."Vera," I said. "Tell me about her. Everything.""She's my handler and my aunt, technically, though the relationship has always been more professional." His voice stayed low, stripped of the emotion that had cracked through it in the vault. "Niko.""Works with her. Against you both, as far as I can tell, playing each of you for whatever advantage the moment offers." Something flickered across his face — not quite guilt. "I don't know the full extent of what they've arranged between them."I studied his face, searching for something I could use against him. Regret. Guilt. Anything that would tell me that what we had, had mattered enough for him to hate himself for destroying it
ERDEMI woke to an empty chair and a cold fire.The device on my desk was no longer aligned with the documents beside it. I moved before I'd finished the thought, down through the sleeping house, dread climbing through my chest with every step toward the vault.I reached the lower corridor in time to see him standing in the vault's open doorway, the heavy door swung wide behind him, the emergency lighting throwing his face into pale, unsteady shadow. He froze when he saw me. Not guilt, exactly. Something closer to a man caught between two futures."Hendrix.""Erdem."Neither of us moved for a long moment. I looked past him into the vault — the Red Ledger's folders disturbed, one section of shelving visibly out of order."You have the code," I said. "The one I never gave you.""Yes.""You took it from my desk. While I slept beside you. And I thought we were supposed to do this together?""Yes."The simple, unflinching honesty of it landed harder than any denial would have. I crossed t
HENDRIX The vault held more than I expected — not just the physical ledger I'd already seen pieces of, but boxes of supplementary files, cross-referenced and indexed in a system that took me several frustrating minutes to understand before I found the section devoted to names rather than transactions.Vale, L. The entry sat exactly where alphabetical order would have placed it, thicker than I expected, a full folder rather than a single page.I pulled it free and knelt on the vault's cold floor to read it, the emergency lighting weak enough that I had to tilt the pages toward the thin glow to make out the typed entries.The first document was the acquisition order, authorized under Mara's hand, listing Liora as leverage against an unnamed witness. The second confirmed Silas's role, a transport log noting his signature on her holding assignment, dates spanning the weeks he'd admitted visiting her. The third was Damir's own transport record, his name beside two separate dates — the in
HENDRIXI avoided Erdem for four days.I trained when I knew he would be in meetings. I used the east staircase instead of the main one. I spent longer than necessary in the library and chose the gardens whenever I heard his footsteps somewhere nearby.It was ridiculous.A knock sounded at my door.I turned.Konstantin stood in the doorway."You're avoiding him."I almost laughed. "Good morning to you too.""It's been four days."I gave him a look but he stepped inside anyway. Konstantin had always been better than most people at knowing when not to push. Today, apparently, he had decided to disappoint me."He's been different," he said."Who?" He stared at me and I sighed. "Fine. Erdem.""Since after the interrogation with Damir."I looked away."Everyone has been different since then.""Not like him." There was something cautious in Konstantin's voice. "He dismissed two guards yesterday.""Why?""One was late to rotation by forty seconds."I frowned. "Forty seconds?""Exactly."That







