18. hunter #3
The answer stripped the last trace of amusement from her face.
Ronan’s phone buzzed a few minutes later.
He checked the screen, went back to the elevator, and returned with a narrow archive box that looked absurdly ordinary for something tied to this much blood.
The old Quorum inventory number was still printed across one end.
He set it on the coffee table and opened the lid carefully, moving through several folders before pulling out a worn black ledger.
Echo recognized it immediately, her shoulders changing before her expression did.
I took the book from Ronan and opened it near the middle.
The pages were packed with dates, initials, short strings of numbers, abbreviated notes, symbols, and marks that clearly formed a system.
A few entries were obvious enough to understand without help but most of them meant nothing beyond the fact that somebody had recorded an obligation.
Ronan sat on the edge of the table and read over another page.
“This is structured, but it’s missing half the information required to use it.
There are initials that repeat under unrelated entries, marks with no key, references to people who don’t appear anywhere else, and debts that say what was exchanged without identifying who actually owes it. ”
“That’s because you don’t know what any of it means.” Echo came closer and held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
I kept the ledger long enough to look at the page again. Desmond had described exactly this. Records without control. An operation they acquired on paper and could never actually use.
“What does H-seven mean?” I asked.
Echo barely glanced down. “Harper family, seventh favor in their chain. That one was their oldest son. He needed disciplinary footage removed after he put another student in the hospital.”
Ronan turned several pages and pointed to a pair of initials written beside a triangle. “LM, triangle, two lines.”
“Lydia Mercer. The triangle means the favor originated through someone else instead of directly through us. Two lines means she owed twice because we had to use another contact to complete it.”
He moved again, picking something that looked even less useful. Echo answered without hesitation. She knew the alias behind the initials, what had been asked for, which person had connected the favor, and why the notation beside it changed who could collect.
I stopped letting Ronan test her after the fourth one.
“How much of this do you remember?”
Echo looked at me as though the question itself was strange. “All of it that mattered.”
“The names?”
“The real ones, yes. Most of the aliases too.” She took the ledger when I finally handed it over and flipped through pages she had not seen in years without needing time to orient herself.
“The book was never supposed to explain itself. That would’ve been fucking stupid.
If somebody stole it, they’d know there were favors and debts, but they wouldn’t know enough to walk into somebody’s life and collect. ”
Ronan leaned forward, attention fixed on her now. “You know which entries connect to each other.”
“I built most of the connections.” Echo tapped two marks on opposite pages.
“These look unrelated unless you know the second person got access through the first one. That favor led to another family, which led to a professor, which led to somebody in admissions. The book kept track of what happened. I kept track of why it mattered.”
Desmond’s words came back with irritating clarity. We got the records. Never got control of the operation.
I looked at Echo standing there with the ledger open in bloodstained hands and finally understood what his people had failed to acquire.
“They didn’t need the book,” I said, and Ronan’s eyes came to mine before Echo’s did. “They needed you.”
Echo closed the ledger slowly.
Everything Ronan had found shifted around that fact.
Organized searches, money spent across multiple channels, people continuing to look for Echo after Westbridge collapsed.
Desmond had wanted the operation. The Quorum had obtained the physical records and discovered they had taken possession of a code without the person who could read it.
I did not know yet whether my father personally ordered anyone to hunt her. I knew enough to stop treating the possibility like coincidence.
Echo looked down at the ledger before meeting my eyes again. “If you’re about to tell me this changes the Nichlas deal, save your breath.”
“Nichlas is still yours.” I picked up my whiskey and finished it, watching the suspicion replace whatever argument she had prepared. “That isn’t the part of the deal I’m changing.”
Ronan went quiet beside us.
I set the glass down and faced her fully.
“You’re under my protection now. Not because you need permission to breathe or because I suddenly think you can’t handle yourself.
My father wanted control of something that only works if he controls the information in your head, and somebody spent months trying to find you after his people failed to get it. ”
Echo’s gaze hardened. “You already promised me Nichlas.”
“I know.” I let the grin come because she still had not understood what I meant. “If my father wanted what’s in your head badly enough for somebody to hunt you over it, I know damn well you’ve got more names you’re going to want eventually. Nichlas is just the priority.”
For the first time since I had met her, Echo had absolutely nothing to say.