Page 30 of Vamp CEO Bit You Where?

"It is consequence."

"No," he says. Not loud. "It is you telling every clan in New York that the network has a God."

I send the command anyway. The first shelter goes dark in Harlem. The second loses its access tunnel under a clinic with no public name.

Jasmine watches the screen, colorless now. "You can do all that from here."

"Yes."

"Then they were right to be afraid of you."

I ignore her comment. Gid's phone sounds before sunrise. Once. Then again. By the third call, he stops rejecting them.

"Gregory's office wants to know why three protected routes just went blind," he says.

"Tell them to ask Dain why they were open."

"Adriana's people have withdrawn their cooperation from the courier trace."

"Expected."

"Two families who'd have given Elias names yesterday are suddenly remembering old protocol."

"Let them remember."

Then he turns the phone toward me. Cyrus has sent no threat. He has done something smarter.

An old system survives by restraint. A broken one spends secrecy on appetite. Tonight, protected routes were burned, neutral doors punished, and ancient agreements damaged because one human woman was frightened. Ask yourselves who governs the network now. Ask what governs him.

No name. No accusation. No blood. Just a blade dressed as principle. Jasmine reads it from the stairs.

"He's talking about me," she says.

"No, he's insinuating things about me."

"No. He's using me to talk about you." She descends the last step. "And you're letting him, because you're angry."

Gid says nothing. He doesn't need to. His silence has teeth.

I close Cyrus' message. "He put a camera in your bedroom."

"He tried to poison me," she says. "I know. I was there for the horror show." Her voice thins, then firms again. "But if every answer you give tells them I'm the lever, they'll keep pulling."

Elias' phone lights. He reads, and his expression empties.

"What?" I ask.

"The handler is dead. Ash already. Someone reached him before we did."

Cyrus cleaning his own board. Jasmine glances at the morning sun.

"So the next one won't be a camera," she says.

"No."

"And it won't be pills."

"No."