Chapter 80: The Blood on Her Palm

The Viper’s interrogation notes were spread across the war room table in a grid she had arranged herself—compound profiles on the left, distribution routes down the center, confirmed Caruso network contacts on the right. Raven had been standing at the map for forty minutes. She hadn’t needed to consult the notes once.

"The primary node isn’t the east warehouse." She touched the marked location, then moved her finger three inches south. "It’s here. The warehouse is the decoy—it’s where they want us to look. The real throughput runs under the Caruso-controlled freight corridor at Pier Eleven, which the Viper confirmed moves shipments every seventy-two hours on a rotating schedule he personally managed."

Sebastian was already writing. Lucian hadn’t moved, but that meant nothing—Lucian never moved. Adrian leaned forward over the table, his gaze tracking from her finger to the map coordinates. Dante sat back in his chair at a slight angle, watching her the way he sometimes watched things he was trying to understand.

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