Roman's Trade

Roman calls from a borrowed number at 3:17 a.m., which feels rude even by criminal standards. Nico puts it on speaker before I answer. Roman sounds bored, maybe because boredom is the mask men like him wear when the room might still belong to them.

"Callum's alive," he says. "For now."

"Location," Nico snaps.

"No. Trade." Roman yawns softly. "Original Nina recordings and the live donor sequence for the journalist. No copies. You know how this works."

"You're working for Bell now?" Tessa asks, stepping into range.

The line goes quiet a fraction too long. "I'm working for whoever still understands containment," Roman says.

"Meaning whoever still pays."

"Meaning the side that doesn't confuse spectacle with rescue."

He gives us a deadline, a drop site, and one proof-of-life clip. Callum in a chair under industrial lights, blinking hard, tied but conscious. No blood. no heroics. just anger. "Do not trade voices for me," he says before someone jerks the camera aside.

The call ends. Nico immediately assigns half the office to tower triangulation while the rest of us stare at the blank speaker icon like it insulted us personally. Tessa paces once. "Roman doesn't freelance under Bell unless Vivian sanctioned it or Owen lost the room."

"Owen never had the room," I say. "He rented it from his mother."

Still, the trade matters. The recordings hurt the live officials. The donor sequence hurts the whole lattice. Roman is telling us where the pressure truly sits. Not on sympathy. Not even on murder. On voices that make polite people impossible to defend.

While Nico builds a fake exchange, my phone buzzes with a location ping from Poppy's school-issued tablet. Not the estate. Not the newsroom. Hart House. She is home.