Her fingers, usually so precise, hovered above the single blue plume. Her lips pressed into a flat seam. She didn't cry out; the stillness in her shoulders was starker than any shout. “A… a bird?” Pav stammered, stepping backward. He took a stumbling step back from the desk, as if the box might suddenly launch itself at him. “What in the—who would send… this?” Casimir stepped past Pav toward Lenka. Her stare was fixed on the cardboard flaps, unblinking, before her chin lifted and the familiar detachment settled across her brow. “Pav, can you wait outside?” Lenka’s voice was low, strained, but firm. “And perhaps… inform security that we have a package that needs to be handled as evidence.” Pav, still visibly shaken, nodded mutely. He glanced at Casimir, a silent question in his eyes, before backing out of the office, closing the heavy door with a soft click that felt impossibly loud in the sudden quiet. Lenka didn't touch the bird again. She slowly pushed the box away from her, as if it were contaminated. “This wasn’t a random act,” she stated, her voice regaining its usual steel. “This is a message. A very clear one.” She looked at Casimir then, her gaze piercing. “This is about the syndicate. Radek.” Casimir nodded. “It’s too specific for a general threat. The lack of a sender, the immediate delivery… it’s designed to unnerve, to intimidate.” “It’s working,” she admitted, a rare moment of vulnerability in her tone. “But it also tells me we’re close. Too close for their comfort.” She walked around her desk, picked up her phone, and made a curt call to the Ministry’s internal security, her words brief and devoid of emotional inflection. “A suspicious delivery. Ensure proper forensic handling. Expedite.” Two guards in grey wool arrived swiftly. They photographed the parcel, slid it into an evidence tote, and logged Lenka's brief answers. Casimir noticed her right index finger tapping an erratic rhythm against her cuff—a minor tic no one else paused to catch. Once the heavy door shut, leaving behind the smell of rubber gloves, Lenka turned back to Casimir. Slate dusk filtered through the high casements. “They’ll log it,” she said, her tone devoid of faith. “We can’t wait on their clerks. We need to know who dropped it, and why now.” “The old archive files,” Casimir suggested quietly. “The connection we found earlier. The misfiled embezzlement case, the witness in Radek’s team.” Lenka’s eyes narrowed. “You think this is directly linked?” “The timing fits,” Casimir said. “You pressed the audit, Radek confronted me in the hall, and now a parcel arrives.” He gestured vaguely at the empty space where the box had been. “Someone is reacting to us digging where we shouldn’t.” Lenka reached for her desk lamp, switching it on. “Then we dig deeper. Stay. We’ll work through it tonight.” Casimir felt a subtle hum of alertness, a familiar thrum just behind his eyes. He recognized it as the precursor to a headache, a warning from his condition. He was moving away from his detachment, engaging more deeply than he had planned. But looking at Lenka, at the fierce, unyielding resolve in her eyes even after such a brutal intimidation, he knew he couldn’t leave. He simply nodded. Hours blurred into a quiet rhythm. The overhead fluorescents hummed faintly against the dark windows. Casimir balanced his laptop on a low credenza while Lenka laid the paper files across her blotter. He brewed another pot of his calming tea, the gentle herbal aroma a subtle counterpoint to the sterile environment. He offered her a cup, which she took without hesitation, her fingers brushing his for a fleeting instant. Their work was a silent collaboration. Casimir meticulously cross-referenced names, dates, and financial records from the old embezzlement case with known associates of Miroslav Radek and the defendant's parent firm. Lenka, meanwhile, analyzed the legal precedents, searching for overlooked angles, inconsistencies in past testimonies, and potential leverage points. Her legal mind was a precision instrument, dissecting every paragraph, every footnote. “Here,” Casimir murmured, pointing to a name on an old financial ledger displayed on his screen. “Karel the clerk. The witness Radek brought against you in the fraud case. He was listed as a junior bookkeeper for Solara back then.” Lenka looked up from her documents, her brow furrowed. “Solara… I remember that name from the corporate registry,” she said. “A shell entity used in the original acquisition years ago, dissolved without charges.” “Dissolved on paper,” Casimir said, tapping his display. “Look at these wires. Irregular disbursements from that shell to an off-ledger account. Karel signed every voucher.” Lenka leaned closer, her eyes scanning the data. “Not embezzlement,” Lenka murmured, leaning in. “Retainers. Bribes to keep quiet about illegal land leases. And the bookkeeper signed off on them.” She tapped a silver pen against her thumb. “That defunct shell was absorbed by Astral Corporation—the competitor bidding against the conglomerate on the municipal transit line.” “Exactly,” Casimir said quietly. “Karel held the ledgers. He knows what Astral Corporation absorbed, and Radek knows Karel’s signature is on every payout. The witness isn't testifying out of civic duty; he's trapped, and Radek is steering the outcome.” **Jolt 1: Scheme Exposed** Lenka’s posture straightened. “So Radek’s star witness is compromised, and Radek is steering the trial to hand the city contract to Astral. This changes our entire subpoena list.” A thin, razor-sharp smile touched her mouth. “It isn't merely standard malfeasance anymore. It's treason against the department. And the parcel means someone inside their circle noticed our document requests.” A hot pulse flared behind Casimir's left temple, throbbing against bone. The sensation was clear and dangerous: an emotional spark taxing his skull. He dug his knuckle into his brow, inhaling through his teeth. He was knee-deep in her fight now. Standing beside her mattered more than his careful preservation rules. The pull to stay in Kavalina was turning reckless. Every heartbeat spent beside her narrowed his remaining margin. Lenka rose and stepped over to the wall-mounted console displaying the building's lobby cameras. She scrolled backward to the lunch hour. “Let’s check who trailed Pav through the north turnstiles.” Casimir watched over her shoulder as monochrome figures looped past the gates. Pav appeared on the video feed, stumbling sideways and clipping a brass umbrella stand with his boot. A soft laugh broke from Casimir’s throat before he could swallow it. Lenka glanced sideways, her mouth softening into an unexpected, low chuckle—a sudden break in the room's hard edges. **Jolt 2** As Lenka tapped the playback key, Casimir’s image flickered in the pane. His brows were pinched in a sudden wince, teeth bared against a spike of pain, his palm clamped hard over his temple. Within a second he smoothed his face flat and lowered his arm, assuming the glass had hidden it. Her laughter cut off. She struck the spacebar, freezing the lobby feed. Turning from the glass, her eyes locked onto his pale face. “Mr. Volkov,” she asked, her voice quiet, steady, yet laced with an entirely new kind of intensity. “What are you hiding from me?”

The Price of a Secret