The Steward’s Gambit

The fluorescent lights of the Forensic Audit Division hummed with a frequency that vibrated against Leo’s jaw. Across the steel table, Auditor Miller didn’t look up. He had been turning the pages of the decoy ledger for twenty minutes, his thumb tracing the ink-stained margins where Leo had spent three sleepless nights manufacturing 'errors'—calculated inconsistencies meant to mimic decades of authentic, messy community record-keeping.

Leo sat still, hands clasped on the cold surface. He had traded his career, his reputation, and his freedom for this gamble. If Miller looked past the surface-level discrepancies—the slight variations in ink density, the deliberate miscalculations in the 'Face Debt' columns—he would see the void beneath. He would see that the ledger was a hollowed-out shel

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