She exhaled through her nose, which was Natalia for I hate that this might work. "Walk it through. Slowly. Because if you're wrong about even one variable, people die and it's on your name."
Fair.
"Seventeen active combatants in the Hounds," I said. "The contract requires a minimum of six for a B-Rank, maximum of eight for Gate stability. That leaves nine bodies unassigned and completely unaccounted for in any official documentation."
"Nine people who can be somewhere else on Wednesday morning without anyone noticing."
"Nine people who can be sitting on a residential block in Meridian Heights at five in the morning with a full loadout and no paperwork."
Natalia was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers moved across the datapad, building a second roster beside the first, dragging names between columns with the ruthlessness of a woman who'd been planning battles in her head since she was old enough to hold a spoon.
