Chapter 52: How to Decode a Hoard of Forbidden Things (2)
Before Antoril, before seals and flute players with black eyes, I learned to walk routes like this — where risk lives behind doors no one knocks on. I didn’t wear a cloak or carry a weapon. I wore an expensive watch and polished shoes.
I carried folders, memos, and a smile that opened more safes than any key. I worked in buildings with more glass than morals, surrounded by men who knew how to use the word "compliance" to justify anything — including the slow destruction of other people’s lives.
I was the middleman.
Modern smuggling, dressed like an executive.
Confidential information. Competitor dossiers. Transfers disguised as consulting. Sometimes people — people who wanted to disappear, or needed to show up under a different name. I didn’t deal in weapons. I dealt in data. In logistics. In small lies dressed up as clean appearances.
And never for money. The money came, of course. But the real reason was something else. Debts. Favors. Agreements no one dared to write down, but everyone honored — because they knew the cost of breaking silence.
And in the alleys of big cities — because yes, modern cities still have alleys, even when they call themselves "business districts" — the logic was always the same: the darker the path, the more it wants to hide.
But if it’s too dark... it’s an ambush.
I learned to feel that in the concrete, in the glass, in the distance between steps. Meeting spots were never completely silent. Absolute silence is ambush territory. For a deal to happen, there needs to be echo. A footstep. A creak. A scent. Something to prove that people exist — and that those people are breathing with fear.
That’s how you survive.
And it’s what saved me more times than I like to admit.