Caleb stared at the decrypted data on Lyra's screen. The time credit shipment wasn't just being stolen—it was already gone, rerouted to an unknown account by someone inside the syndicate. This wasn't just a leak. It was an inside job, and whoever had set it up had covered their tracks so well that even the syndicate's own watchdogs hadn't caught it. Yet. He exhaled slowly. He had two choices. One—Tell Dante the truth, risk exposing a hidden player within the syndicate, and paint a target on his back before he had enough power to protect himself. Two—Alter the data, fabricate a false lead, and buy himself time to figure out who was really pulling the strings. Lyra watched him, her expression unreadable. "You tell Dante this as it is, and you're dead," she said, her fingers tapping lazily against the side of the console. "Whoever pulled this off isn't just good—they're connected. If Dante doesn't already know about it, it means you'd be exposing someone above his level." Caleb clenched his jaw. He already knew that. The only thing worse than being caught lying to Dante was revealing information that made him look weak. If the syndicate's leadership found out that a major shipment had been compromised under his watch, Dante wouldn't just go after the thief—he'd kill the messenger to clean up loose ends. He looked back at the screen. The numbers, the account trails, the movement of the credits. There had to be a way to manipulate this without getting himself killed. He turned to Lyra. "Can you rewrite it?" Lyra raised an eyebrow. "You want me to fake a lead?" "I want you to make it look like the breach was external. Push the digital trails toward an outside player—someone who doesn't exist." Lyra exhaled through her teeth. "That's a dangerous game, Caleb." He held her gaze. "It's the only one I can play right now." She sighed, but her fingers were already moving over the console. Data shifted, lines of code restructured, and within seconds, the ledger displayed an entirely new story. The theft was still there, but instead of leading back to an internal account, it now pointed to a fake shell company, a front for a foreign market competitor that the syndicate had already been suspicious of. Lyra leaned back. "This will hold for a while, but if someone decides to dig deep enough—" "I'll be long gone before they do," Caleb said. She studied him for a moment before shaking her head. "You're playing this like you have time to figure it all out. You don't." Caleb pocketed the altered ledger and met her eyes. "That's why I need to stay ahead of the game." Without another word, he turned and left.