That would have been enough to open the door.

Aria’s files kicked it off the hinges.

The altered training reports led investigators to requisition mismatches. The mismatches led to shipment records. The shipment records led to account references.

The account references led to shell companies Mercer had treated like locked rooms.

But Aria had been raised by a man who taught her that locked rooms still have hinges.

One by one, Mercer’s clean explanations got harder to keep clean. A missing equipment pallet wasn’t missing — it had been redirected. A navigation-data transfer wasn’t an administrative error — it had been disguised.