The room was quiet, save for the sound of a match striking. Viago lit his pipe with a practised flick and exhaled a slow, contemplative stream of smoke. Across the polished table, Caterina sat with her gloved fingers steepled under her chin, her expression unreadable. Lucanis leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching Viago with the wariness he reserved for moments like this - when Viago's amusement began to resemble calculation.
"This is starting to get embarrassing," Illario said, breaking the silence. He stood near the window, arms folded, posture sharp. "Another safehouse hit. Four more of our people made fools of, and with some kind of child's graffiti, no less."
"And left our people alive," Teia added. Her voice was calm, but her eyes held steel. "Unconscious, restrained. Not killed. It's deliberate."
"It's a message," Lucanis murmured, gaze distant. "They want us to know they were there. Want us to feel it. But they're controlled. They're not careless, not looking for blood."
Viago puffed on his pipe. "Professional, then."
Caterina's voice was low and clipped. "Professional and patient. There are weeks between each attack. They're not rushing this. They're gathering...something."
"Leverage," Teia said. "Which they now have a great deal of. But to what end?"
Illario turned from the window. "Blackmail us? Use our own network against us? It doesn't make sense. Why not demand something? Or strike harder while they have momentum?"
Lucanis's brow furrowed. "Unless this isn't about the usual. Maybe this isn't coin or power. Maybe they truly are trying to dismantle the organisation from the inside. Bit by bit. Pull out the foundation before the house collapses."
Viago let out a low hum. "Revenge, then."
"Revenge is usually messier," Teia said. "This is too… clean. It's efficient and precise."
Caterina finally moved, reaching for a sheet of parchment - handwritten notes, sketches of timelines, safehouse names, and red marks tracing the pattern. "There is a pattern," she said. "It's slow, yes, but methodical. Each hit cripples a different branch of our operation. Recruitment. Financing. Influence. And now… secrets."
"They're taking out every arm of our reach," Teia added, nodding toward the list. "And they're not slashing wildly. They know what to take."
Lucanis leaned forward, elbows on the table. "They've studied us."
Caterina's expression darkened. "Which means they're close."
A beat of silence.
Illario snorted. "Then we need to look inward. If we've been infiltrated-"
"No." Caterina's voice was firm. "This doesn't feel like betrayal. It feels like… exposure."
"A rival guild?" Viago mused. "Though even the Antivan underworld isn't usually so... noble as to leave witnesses alive."
"Witnesses?" Illario asked. "They saw and heard nothing."
Teia shook her head. "No one else would waste time tying up our people instead of killing them."
"Unless they're trying to prove something. Or someone," Lucanis said.
Caterina tapped the edge of the paper, her eyes narrowing. "They're careful, they're quiet, and they're patient. Whoever they are, they aren't just thieves. They're planners. Strategists. And if we don't root them out, they're eventually going to have enough to bring us to our knees."
Teia tossed a sketch onto the table - an idle recreation from one of the interrogated Crows. A crude phallus scrawled in ink across a man's face, bold and unmistakable. Her mouth twitched in something like disbelief.
"I can't stop thinking about this," she said, tapping the page with two fingers. "Why do it at all? Of all things, why this?"
Illario rolled his eyes. "Maybe they're twelve."
"No," Lucanis said quietly. "They're precise. These hits are cleaner than most of ours. This-" he gestured at the drawing "-doesn't fit."
"It's humiliation," Viago said, puffing his pipe. "But there are better ways. Names leaked. Letters published. Secrets aired. This is… juvenile. A child's idea of shame."
Caterina's brows furrowed. "Unless one of them is a child."
The table stilled.
"They've been careful, but this?" She continued. "This is impulse. Or boredom. Or someone very, very young, holding it together until they can't. What if it's not a crew of seasoned professionals? What if it's a mentor and student? Or someone just learning how to do this and still learning where the line is."
Lucanis looked down at the sketch again, unease prickling at the base of his neck. "You think we're dealing with someone who hasn't finished growing up?"
Teia leaned back, arms crossed. "That, or someone who never did."
Lucanis's jaw worked, something prickling at the back of his mind. A thread he couldn't quite catch.
"They're playing the long game," he said finally.
"And they're winning," Teia answered grimly.
The silence that followed wasn't stunned. It was resigned.
"They're slipping through every net," Caterina said, rising to her feet, hands braced against the edge of the table. "They move between shadows like they know them better than we do. They dismantle our safehouses like they've been there before. And they don't kill, which means they want us to see the mess they've left behind. They want to shame us."
"They are shaming us," Viago muttered. "Four hits. Four. And every time, we tighten our grip. Every time, they wriggle out from under us like eels."
"We underestimated them," Lucanis said quietly. He didn't like admitting it, but it had been circling in his mind since the second hit. "We thought they'd make noise. Come fast and desperate. But they wait between hits, they plan."
"And now they've got leverage," Illario added. "They have ledgers. Blackmail. Names. They know where we sleep. And I guarantee they're not finished."
Caterina began to pace. Her movements were slow and controlled. Every bit of tension was gathered like a blade waiting to be drawn. "We respond in kind. We don't wait for the next blow."
Teia raised an eyebrow. "Trap them?"
"We bait them."
She turned, facing the others now. "We create something they can't ignore. Something too tempting. A transfer schedule. A meeting. A shipment. Doesn't matter. We place it somewhere we know they'll find it. And then we watch. We don't spring the trap the moment they touch it. We watch who comes to sniff. We trace their route back."
Illario grinned, sharp. "Use their patience against them."
Caterina nodded once. "We start now. And quiet surveillance on every location that's been hit. Go over every detail again. Find the holes. We assign new eyes, discreet ones. We're not just trying to stop them. We're trying to unmask them. Whoever they are, they've gotten too comfortable. Let's make them sweat."