Chapter 7: The Weight of the Past
Julian remembered the warehouse on the river, the smell of salted fish and diesel fuel, the day Clara had first shown him the ledgers. Back then, she had worn denim and grease-stained work shirts, her blonde hair tucked under a baseball cap, laughing as she balanced crates of smuggled electronics on the back of a flatbed. It seemed like another lifetime ago, before the money got dirty in a different way, before the names in the notebooks changed from local distributors to federal indictments. He looked down at the children in the cage. They weren't couriers; they were leverage, insurance policies kept in the dark because Clara didn't trust the people she worked for, and she trusted Julian even less. "Who knows about this house?" Julian asked, his voice dropping into a register that made Clara’s shoulders stiffen. "No one," she said, though the word lacked conviction, falling flat against the damp stone. "Just the courier service, and they only have the drop coordinates for midnight." Julian let out a short, bitter breath that smelled of cold air. "Midnight was two hours ago, Clara. Look at the driveway. That’s not a courier. That’s an audit." The phone in her hand buzzed again, a long, continuous vibration that signaled a data dump from the perimeter sensors. She looked down at the screen, her pupils dilated, the blue light carving deep hollows beneath her cheekbones.
