CHAPTER 40: CHAPTER 40

At exactly 8:00 PM, the disposable phone Ramos had given Ace vibrated harshly against his thigh, the sensation jolting him like a physical shock. He pulled the cheap burner from his pocket. The screen displayed only a string of numbers, map coordinates and a time: nine o’clock tomorrow morning at Pier 14 South Warehouse. There was no greeting, no signature; only a direct command.

Ace stared at the screen, feeling the familiar cold dread tighten inside him. Ramos had given him his first task, which felt more like a test than real work: find the leak. The image of Marcus’s scarred face and threatening eyes filled Ace’s mind. He knew failure wasn’t an option. Ramos punished failure with punishments far worse than just paralysis.

He met Evelyn inside the newly named "Aegis Workshop," Unit B-17. The place still had a faint smell of motor oil and the nervous sweat of a man named Silva. Evelyn was bent over her laptop, looking at the sleek Aegis screen. It showed a green "ACTIVE PROTECTION" status for something called Borland, which seemed reassuring. Meanwhile, Silva was trying to clean decades of dirt off a workbench. He whistled without a tune but stopped every time Evelyn looked at him irritably.

"Ramos has moved," Ace announced flatly. He tossed a cheap, disposable phone onto the only clean spot Silva had managed to clear on the bench. "He messaged to come at Pier 14 South Warehouse at nine AM tomorrow,."

Evelyn looked up, her eyes sharp. "What’s the job?"

"He wants me to investigate a discrepancy in the shipping ledger," Ace explained, the words feeling bitter. "He says money is disappearing, costing him five thousand dollars every week."

Silva stopped scrubbing, and his face turned pale. "Pier 14? That is a very dangerous area, Ace. Vance’s old bodyguards still spend time around the docks. They are not going to appreciate Ramos’s new accountant snooping around."

When Silva called him an "accountant," Ace let out a dismissive laugh. He knew that title was not fooling anyone, especially himself. In reality, he was Ramos’s bloodhound, a man sent to track people down. "I do not need them to like me," he said. "I just need them to avoid shooting me." He tapped his temple to indicate his greatest weapon. "I have my wits to rely on."

Evelyn frowned with concern. "Please be careful, because this situation feels like a trap. You can give him the information he wants, but make sure you aren’t the one he decides is the bigger problem afterward."

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The place known as Pier 14 South was not only rough but also falling apart. Salt-crusted warehouses made from corrugated metal sagged over concrete that was cracked and stained with oil and fish guts. The heavy air smelled of saltwater, diesel fumes, and something faintly rotten. Overhead, seagulls screamed with a sound like rusty hinges. Ace immediately saw Marcus leaning against a black SUV, which was parked near a warehouse door marked "OFFICE." Marcus looked both deeply bored and dangerous. Two other thugs stood on either side of the entrance, and they watched Ace approach with open hostility.

"Listen, kid," Marcus pushed himself away from the SUV and looked at the young man. he grunted. He didn’t offer to help but instead pointed a thumb toward the office door. "The boss’s financial records are inside with an old man named Harkin. He manages the place, and it’s important you don’t make him angry because he is very useful to us."

Then, Marcus leaned in close enough that the kid could smell his stale coffee and chewing tobacco breath. "Your most important job is to find out who is stealing from us," he said urgently. "You need to do it quickly because our boss, Ramos, has no patience for people who let his money disappear."

The office was a small, windowless room that felt like a box. A single flickering fluorescent light bulb lit everything with a pale, sickly glow, and you could see tiny dust particles floating in the air. A metal desk was piled high with messy stacks of thick accounting books that had green leather covers, which were old and cracked. Behind the desk sat Old Man Harkin. He had thin white hair, skin that was as tough and wrinkled as old leather, and his eyes were sharp and suspicious as he peered through his thick glasses.

"Are you Ramos’s new accountant?" Harkin rasped without looking up from the document he was squinting at. "The ledgers are on that desk, with records from the last six months. I expect you to not touch anything else or ask me any stupid questions." He gestured with a gnarled finger to a rickety wooden chair. "Now sit, do your work and make sure you are gone by lunch."

Ace sat down with the current month’s ledger. The book felt heavy in his hands, its pages were thick and slightly damp from the air. As he looked at it, the long columns of numbers—listing shipment IDs, weights, values, fees, and the final amount for a man named Ramos—seemed to blur together. The writing was extremely careful and detailed, done in a tight, neat handwriting that he assumed belonged to a man called Harkin. To anyone just glancing at it, the whole record appeared to be perfectly legitimate and in order.

Ace closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back his exhaustion and the constant mental strain of the System. He then triggered his Neural-Interface, and a sharp, familiar pain shot through his temples as his vision was flooded with a sterile blue overlay. His cramped office seemed to fade away, and the ledger pages in front of him snapped into impossibly sharp focus. His fingers began to trace the columns; he wasn’t just reading them, he was scanning them with enhanced precision.

The system immediately initiated its analysis, comparing the current month’s shipment records to the official cargo manifests from a nearby filing cabinet. It almost instantly detected a problem with a specific shipment, noting that while the manifest declared its value at $28,000, the ledger only showed $25,000—a difference of $3,000. The system didn’t stop there. It recognized a pattern, finding similar discrepancies in other recent shipments that added up to an average weekly loss of about $4,800.

The analysis traced the source of the theft to modifications made to the ledger entries after they had already been signed off by a supervisor named Harkin. A handwriting analysis concluded with 89% certainty that the forger was the dock foreman, Leonid Petrovich.

Now with a name, Ace’s Info-Finder tool quickly sifted through public records. It confirmed that L. Petrovich had worked at Pier 14 South for eight years and lived at 37 Harborview, Apartment 3B. While his financial records showed no major red flags, his recent internet search history revealed a heartbreaking motive: he had been searching for information on pediatric oncology, specifically for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

The cold calculation of the System warred with a sudden, unwelcome pang in Ace’s chest. Pediatric Oncology. That meant a child was sick.

He now realized that Petrovich wasn’t stealing money to pay for something selfish, like a new car or gambling debts. Instead, he was stealing from a dangerous criminal to pay a different kind of monster—the incredibly expensive medical system..

Marcus’s urgent warning echoed in Ace’s mind: he had to find the leak, and he had to do it fast. Ace knew that Ramos was expecting a name. A specific person to punish for the betrayal. Handing over Petrovich would certainly earn Ace some favor with Ramos, and maybe even a small amount of trust.

However, the thought of delivering a desperate father to face Ramos’s brutal form of justice made him hesitate. A sudden, painful memory of Deke’s bloody final moments flashed in his mind.

His thoughts were interrupted by Harkin’s wet, rattling cough. "Finding anything, numbers boy? Or are you just enjoying the view?" he asked.

Ace blinked, and the blue digital overlay from his system faded from his vision. He looked up and met Harkin’s shrewd gaze, keeping his voice calm and neutral as he replied, "I’m just getting started. The books are complicated."

He spent another hour carefully examining the physical ledgers. He was manually confirming what his system had already discovered, making notes in a small notebook. The pattern was unmistakable, and the evidence was impossible to deny. He had his answer: Petrovich was the one stealing the money.

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Marcus was waiting outside, leaning against the SUV and smoking a thin cigar. "Well, did you find anything?" he asked.

"Yes, I found the proof," Ace said, holding out his notebook. He pointed to the list of discrepancies. "It was the foreman, a man named Petrovich. He was modifying entries after Harkin signed off. He’s been stealing an average of forty-eight hundred dollars every week."

Marcus scanned the notes, his scarred face impassive. "Petrovich? Huh. I didn’t think he was the type to do something like this." He looked at Ace and asked for the man’s motive. "So why would he do it? Does he have debts? Is he a gambler, or is he having trouble with a woman?"

Ace hesitated. The System’s data on the pediatric oncology searches felt like a physical weight. The logical choice was to tell Ramos the real reason for the searches; it was a cleaner and safer explanation. But then he pictured a terrified child and a desperate father...Silva’s panicked face flashed in his mind. He knew that in his world, showing weakness made you a target, and mercy was often punished.

So he lied, his voice deliberately emotionless. "I didn’t look into his motive," Ace said. "I just followed the data. The method and the suspect are clear. As for the ’why’... that’s not my department to figure out."

Marcus studied him for a long moment, his eyes cold and assessing. Then he grunted, a sound that could have meant anything. He took the notebook and flipped through it. "The numbers are all in order," he stated. "The boss will be satisfied with this." However, his tone made it clear he was not convinced about the missing explanation for why the numbers were the way they were. "Now get out of here, kid," he ordered. "You know Harkin doesn’t like people hanging around."

Ace did not need to be told again. He quickly walked away from the pier, but the smell of diesel fuel and rotting fish seemed to follow him, making him feel unclean. He felt guilty for his role in the scheme. He wondered if his decision was an act of mercy to protect someone or simply an act of cowardice to protect himself. He imagined the man, Petrovich, probably finishing his shift right now without any idea that he was in terrible danger. He was likely on his way home to care for his ill child, completely unaware.

SYSTEM ALERT

TASK COMPLETED: IDENTIFY LEDGER DISCREPANCY

BONUS FOR SMART THINKING

NEURAL-INTERFACE WILL WORK 10% FASTER NOW

The blue words flashed, clean and without feeling. A reward for doing a bad thing well. There was no reward for the guilty knot in his stomach. He’d passed Ramos’s test. But surviving was starting to feel heavier than any penalty.