The crate is down, the foreman is turned away, and the ashtray sits exactly where Francesco saw it before. The folded paper waits under it like a dare.
Francesco reaches in, lifts the ashtray, and slips the paper free. It is not just manifests. Lines of numbers and initials run beneath the cargo list, a second hand inside the first.
Francesco Fontaine
It is coded.
The mark on the paper matches Corvi bookkeeping, hidden in plain sight. Compromised names. Addresses. Dockmen. A chain of pressure Benny can squeeze any time he wants.
Benny Mallory
Move it, you docksleeping fools! I want that line clear before the whistle blows!
Benny’s voice cracks over the yard, red-faced and sweating, but he does not look at Francesco. He is busy bullying men who cannot answer back.
Across the yard, the Dockman catches Francesco’s eye for one sharp instant and goes still, reading the paper's importance in the change of Francesco’s posture.
Lorenzo
Good. You saw what mattered. Now remember it.
“I hide the coded ledger and try to blend back in with the workers”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +0)
Francesco folds the ledger tight and slides it into the inner seam of his work shirt. The paper vanishes against his ribs as he straightens by the crate line, shoulders down, eyes on the labor instead of the clues.
He takes up the nearest box with the others, letting the weight hide the quickness of his hands. The coded names are still there, but now they sit with the day’s sweat and dust, where a foreman’s glance is less likely to linger.
Benny barks again from the yard, and the men keep moving. No one calls out the paper, no one stops him. Francesco blends into the line as if he has been there all week.
The Dockman
He’s got it hidden. Good. Don’t let them look twice.
Lorenzo
Easy now. Keep your face empty, Tony. The yard forgives work faster than it forgives fear.
A rough edge catches the inside of Francesco’s shirt as he moves, scraping skin and leaving a thin sting. The ledger stays hidden, but the cost of keeping it close is a shallow cut and a quick, warm line of blood.
Ahead, the freight shed door yawns open for the next load, and the men flow toward it. Benny’s voice still rides over them, but now Francesco is inside the rhythm of the crew, holding the secret and the yard at once.