Page 68 of Veil of Smoke

She lifts the decoy device. It’s heavier than it should be. Dead metal and dry wires.

“This could end it?” she asks.

“It could start something else,” I reply.

Her gaze lingers on the crate for a long moment. Then she sets the device back down. “Then we move.”

I reach for the real unit on the bench, the one still faintly humming in its protective casing. I power it down. The whine dies slowly, like a machine gasping for its last breath. A thin curl of warmth escapes from the vents. The box clicks shut, sealed. It won’t open again.

We stand still.

The room feels hollow without that sound. Like we’ve silenced the heartbeat of a monster.

I watch her closely. She’s not shaking. She’s not pacing. Her hands are steady as she folds the blueprint again, sliding it back into its weatherproof sleeve.

“This is betrayal,” I say.

“Then it’s about time,” she replies.

I pull the old Caldera route map from beneath the bench. Spread it flat. A spider web of black ink, shipment lines, contact zones. Some of these routes I helped carve with my own blood. Some took lives. Some left me more dead than alive.

“This map is Caldera,” I say, my voice quiet.

Viviana walks to my side. “Then burn it.”

I flick open the matchbook. Strike the strip. Flame catches.

I hold the match an inch above the paper. The corner of the map curls and darkens. The edges start to smoke.

“I walked these lines with Massimo,” I murmur. “I thought they’d get us out.”

She steps closer. “They buried him instead.”

I drop the match.

The flames lick upward fast. The ink melts. Routes vanish in a wash of black. The paper twists, shrivels, cracks. A line that once meant life now means nothing.

“I’m going to make them bleed for him,” I say.

She looks at me, calm, measured. “And for me?”

My voice is low. “For both of you.”

The fire dies to ash in the steel tray.

We say nothing for a long time.

Then she walks back to the bench and locks the decoy into the transport case. The last of the blueprint tucked inside, scorched at the edges. The new plan. Our plan.

“I’ll take the north side,” she says. “You’ll have to climb to the east crate and plant it.”

“You trust me to do it right?”

She meets my eyes. “No. I trust you not to die trying.”

I almost smile. Almost.

She throws on her coat, black and fitted. The same one she wore the night her shop burned. There’s a new tear at the cuff, threadbare and angry. She doesn’t fix it.

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