Chapter 12 · The Boss Has a Balance

"You knew." I don't ask it. I say it flat, watching Mara's face go still in the elevator light.

"Jace—"

"You knew your boss fed the engine, and you walked me into that warehouse anyway."

She doesn't answer. The elevator drops, smooth and silent, forty floors of glass and steel between us and the street. Her hand's still on the rail, knuckles white. I'm close enough to see the pulse jump in her throat.

"Say it," I tell her.

Her jaw tightens. "I had a job."

"Your job was me."

"My job was the audit trail." She turns, and now we're face to face, six inches between us and nowhere to go. "You were the access point. The ledger chose you, not me."

"And when your boss decided I was done being useful?"

She looks away. That's the tell. That's the crack.

"Mara." I catch her wrist, hold it against the rail. Not hard. Just enough that she has to feel it. "When did you know they'd try to erase me?"

Her pulse hammers under my thumb. She could pull free. She doesn't.

"Two days before the rooftop," she says quietly.

The ledger flares cold against my ribs.