The live feed of the apartment remained on the monitor. The woman on the screen reached for a cookie, her movements slow and domestic. She was currently the only currency that mattered.
Lu Sheng sat in the armchair, the shadows swallowing the fresh blood on his shirt. His rage had gone sub-zero.
"Turn it off," he said.
"I can't. Song has a hardware lock. If I kill the process, it triggers a containment failure alert at the apartment."
Lu Sheng didn't blink. "Then minimize it. I don't want to see her while I'm thinking about what I have to do to you."
The hotel's industrial air conditioning felt like ice. I minimized the window, my hands moving with a mechanical steadiness that I didn't feel.
"I thought Song was a bureaucrat," I said. "He's a collector."
"He's a scavenger," Lu Sheng corrected. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You wanted to be the architect, Lin Xiao. You wanted to move the pieces. But you forgot that in this city, if you build a wall, someone else will always own the gate."
"I can get her out."
"No, you can't." He looked at the laptop lid. "You can move numbers and crash grids. But you can't stop a 9mm round from a Ministry sniper a block away from her kitchen. You've traded my leverage for a leash, and now you're going to pay for the upgrade."
"How?"
"From now on, we don't consult," Lu Sheng said. His voice was flat. "We do exactly what Song wants for the next seventy-two hours. We give him a win. We make him feel like the leash is working."
"And then?"
"And then I'm going to find the man who's holding it."
He stood up and walked toward the kitchenette, pouring a glass of water with a precision that ignored the tear in his shoulder.
"Open the Qin Group's secondary ledger tonight," he continued, not looking back. "Not the lottery funds. The political payouts. Song wants the money, but his superiors want the names. Give them one. Just one."
"It'll start a purge," I noted.
"It'll start a distraction. While the Ministry is busy arresting a Deputy Mayor, the surveillance on the apartment will slip. That's our only window. Seventy-two hours, Lin Xiao. If you miss it, she dies. If you miss it, I won't have a reason to keep you alive either."
He took a slow sip, watching me over the rim. The partnership was over. This was a countdown.
I turned back to the screen. The ledger was open, a list of names that represented the structural pillars of the city. I had to choose which one to topple first. If I stalled, the blade Lu Sheng was holding wouldn't be for the Ministry it would be for me.