Chapter 45 · Acting Head of Operations

"Santos," Jae Min said, and his thumb didn't move off the page.

My wrist was still trapped under his. The ledger lay open between us on the service cart, one page bent back where his hand had forced it flat. Rosa Santos. Ink gone brown at the edges. Forty years old, maybe more.

"Let go." I yanked. He didn't.

"Rosa Santos." He said it slower the second time, like he was tasting it for a lie. "That's not your name."

"It's my mother's grocery list. Get off it."

"Grocery lists don't have percentages next to them." His eyes cut to the margin, to the number written small and old, and something in his face went very still, the way a screen goes still right before it crashes. "Forty."

My stomach dropped through the floor. I slammed the ledger shut on his fingers. He didn't flinch, just pulled his hand back slow, like he'd gotten exactly what he came for and the bruise was worth it.

"You don't know what that is," I said.

"I know a page in the vault