Three hours after Julian walked out of the print shop with a sanitized copy of the ledger, Isabella stood in the dark corner of an auto body shop on the south side of the city. The auto body shop was a dead zone. No cameras, no traffic, no digital footprint. Maya had chosen it for exactly that reason.

The basement smelled of stale grease and rusted iron. Isabella stood behind a stacked wall of shredded tire treads, her breathing slow and controlled. The only light came from a single overhead bulb flickering through a dirty wire cage, casting long, fractured shadows across the concrete floor.

She didn't know who was coming. Maya had set the drop, but Maya wasn't infallible. If this went sideways, there would be no backup, no extraction, and no one to find her body in the grease pit behind the shop.

Maya had told her about the detective. About the deal. About the sanitized copy handed over to buy them time. Isabella hadn't liked it, but she understood. Sometimes you had to feed the wolf to keep it from eating you alive.

Her phone vibrated once against her thigh. A silent ping confirming the handoff time.

Isabella did not check the screen. She pulled the physical drive from her tactical vest, its cold metallic casing catching the amber light of the garage. She had handed the original drive to Maya for safekeeping. This one, the one she carried now, was a high-grade copy. The one that would go to the journalist. The one that would bring Sterling down.

Footsteps crunched outside on the gravel drive.

A pair of high-beam headlights swept across the corrugated metal door of the shop, washing the interior in a blinding white glare before cutting to black. A heavy engine died with a wet rumble.

Isabella's hand slid to her sidearm. She had memorized the contact's profile. Elena Park was a journalist who had spent ten years documenting corporate corruption and had the physical scars to prove it. Maya had vetted her twice. But contacts turned. People got bought. And Isabella had learned the hard way that trust was a luxury she couldn't afford.

The side door creaked open, hinges groaning against the damp night air. A silhouette stepped into the threshold, broad-shouldered and moving with the heavy, unhurried cadence of a man who owned the entire street.

Isabella cocked the hammer of her pistol, the metallic click swallowed instantly by the hum of a distant refrigerator. She waited for him to take a step inside. If he was the journalist, she would holster the weapon. If he was anyone else, she would fire before he cleared the threshold.