The ledger sat open on my desk, its rows of neat, black ink mocking me. For three weeks, I had been the Iron Reapers’ accountant, a title that still felt like a punchline to a joke I didn't understand.
I traced the line of a transaction. A payment, four thousand dollars, routed to a medical supplier in Chicago. A wheelchair. Then, a deposit, identical in amount, from a donor listed only as Anonymous.
Every entry in these books was like a polished stone—smooth, perfect, and impossible to find a crack in. If there was blood money here, it had been scrubbed until it shone.
I closed the book with a soft thud that seemed too loud in the empty office. My life in Blackridge had become a strange, unsettling rhythm. Days spent reconciling accounts that refused to be dirty; nights spent listening
