"I had people looking into your background from the moment Wahl Capital published that protection contract," Aidan said, still in the same unhurried Mandarin, as though they were having this conversation over coffee rather than across a room full of bodies. "I kept wondering — why would a company like Wahl Capital hire a firm nobody had ever heard of? Palisade Security didn't have the profile for a client that size. And then I pulled the security footage from the Graham Wilson rescue."
He leaned back against his couch cushion. "That told me everything I needed to know. I started digging after that. You came out of the Frontier with nothing — no record, no affiliation, no history anyone could find. But the things you can do don't come from nowhere." He paused, tilting his head slightly. "T
