The lower stair access opens into the storage level, and Mercer men are already there, shadows with badges and rifles. Elena Vane is half-hidden behind a concrete pillar, breathing hard. Murderbone growls low at Dallas's side. Somewhere deeper in the facility, a radio crackles with a name, then goes to hiss.
Elena Vane
Dallas, they found the route. I am still alive, but not for much longer if this keeps going.
A steel door at the far end hangs open. Beyond it, a control room glows sickly green, and Rowan Mercer Holdings files lie scattered across a table beside wet footprints and a black ledger wrapped in plastic. The air smells of salt, oil, and something rotten underneath.
Jackson Temple
I have the copies, Dallas. The harbor office, the routes, all of it. Mercer is finished if you walk out of here with proof.
Julian
Too late. The cleanup crew is already moving. If Mercer falls, they bury everyone with him.
A Mercer cleaner staggers from the control room, face pale, one hand clamped over a bleeding shoulder. Behind him, a locked cabinet door trembles from repeated blows, and something inside knocks back, slow and wet, as if answering. Elena flinches. Murderbone's hackles rise.
Dallas Fontaine
The cabinet is newer than the room. Someone wanted this hidden fast.
The cleaner backs toward the stairs, terror cracking his composure. Jackson raises the folder higher, ready to run the evidence. Elena waits for Dallas's call, eyes fixed on the trembling cabinet and the men between her and the exit. The whole harbor seems to hold its breath.
“I rush the control room and seize the ledger”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +0)
Dallas cuts across the room in a hard blur, boots skidding on the damp concrete as the control room door swings wider behind him.
He snatches the plastic-wrapped ledger off the table before the trembling cabinet can draw the room’s last attention away from it.
A Mercer Cleaner
No, no, not the ledger...
The cleaner recoils from Dallas’s path, blood still slick on his shoulder, and loses the courage to block him.
Jackson Temple
Got it. Move, Dallas. Move now.
Jackson lifts the evidence higher as if to shield it from the room itself, while Murderbone drives forward at Dallas’s side, forcing the mercenary back.
Elena Vane
He actually reached it...
Dallas pulls the ledger free, and a thin service slip drops from beneath it, marked with a routing note that matches the files on the table.
The control room goes quiet except for the hiss of the radio and the cabinet’s muted knocking, now smaller and less important than the proof in Dallas’s hand.
The control room went quiet except for the cabinet knocking once, then stopping.
Dallas Fontaine
Got the ledger. That is enough to choke this harbor with truth.
Jackson Temple
Then move. We have what they feared.
Elena Vane
At last, the rot had a name.
Murderbone
Cleaner is running. Good. Let him tell the others.
Dallas left the storage level with the ledger secured and the service slip tucked away like a promise kept. Rowan Mercer Holdings still stood above the docks, but its mask had cracked, and the harbor could feel the truth breathing underneath. For now, the case was closed, and the dark had been dragged into the light.