Stephano's POV
I stopped looking for three reassigned names way too late.
That was my failure not moral, not emotional, but methodological. I'd been trained, like everyone else, to look for motive first. Anger. Fear.
Ambition. Jealousy. We were taught that power announces itself through desire, that when something breaks, it does so loudly enough to identify who struck it.
But nothing had broken.
It had smoothed.
Jonas Rell's reassignment had registered as an oddity, not an alarm. A competent officer redirected to a role that technically mattered but no longer placed him near decision-making corridors. The kind of change you could justify easily. The kind you wouldn't bother questioning unless you were already uneasy.
I hadn't been uneasy yet.
I was now.
Because Jonas wasn't alone.
