Chapter 40 · The Grain Silo Sit-Down

Victor's men strip my gun before I'm three steps past the heavy metal door.

The big one racks the slide, stares into the empty chamber, and sneers over my head at Dominic. "Cute."

"Sentimental value," I tell him.

He tosses it into an oil drum full of scrap iron. It lands with a hollow clatter that echoes straight up into the rafters.

They pat down my ribs, my waist, the inside of my boots. Fast, rough hands. They don't find the ledger page folded against my ribs, and they don't find the carbon transfer slip. Not because I'm slick. Because I'm holding both sheets clamped flat inside my left fist, right in plain sight against my thigh.

Dominic stays one inch behind my left shoulder.

He doesn't touch me. He doesn't have to. The heat radiating off his chest burns through the thin denim of my jacket. Heavy. Steady. Pure muscle wound tight enough to snap.

The silo is a concrete tomb. Three stories of choked dust, rotting corn smell, and one blinding floodlight bolted over a long plastic folding table. Nine dock capos sit around it with their heavy wool coats buttoned to their chins.