I cupped her face, thumb brushing her cheek. "Noelle, I—"
"Boss."
Dmitri's voice cut through from the doorway, interrupting what I was about to say.
I frowned, looking toward the entrance. Dmitri stood there, his expression grave.
"What is it?" My tone carried displeasure. Being interrupted felt awful.
"Urgent matter to report." He glanced at Noelle. "About... that matter."
I understood his meaning. That situation—the ambush three years ago that nearly killed me.
"I see." I released Noelle and stood. "Go back to your room. I need to handle something."
"Okay." She nodded obediently, taking her sketchbook as she left the library.
At the doorway, she looked back with concern. "Don't work too hard."
"Alright."
Once she was gone, my expression turned cold.
"Boss." Dmitri's voice was unusually hoarse. "We need to talk."
I looked up, seeing his expression, and felt an ominous premonition.
"Speak."
"About the firefight that left you critically injured three years ago." He paused. "We've made some new discoveries."
Dmitri pulled an encrypted file envelope from his briefcase, placing it before me.
"This came from our source inside Kieran O'Connell's operation. We caught one of Kieran's old crew members—he'd just been used as cannon fodder by Kieran last week and spilled some information."
I opened the envelope, extracting the documents.
The first page was a handwritten statement, scrawled but clear.
"...That winter, Kieran approached Marco Bellucci. Marco owed gambling debts he couldn't pay. Kieran said he could help with the money, but Marco had to do a favor—provide Morozov's whereabouts. Marco hesitated for a long time, but finally agreed..."
My breathing stopped.
I continued reading.
"...On Christmas Eve, using Marco's information, we set up an ambush in South District. Didn't expect Morozov to fight so hard—lost several brothers... Afterward, Kieran was pissed, said Marco's intel wasn't accurate enough. Two months later, Marco jumped off a building..."
The document slipped from my hands, fluttering down to the desk.
"There's more." Dmitri's voice was quiet. "These are financial records between Marco Bellucci and Kieran. The timeline matches perfectly."
He handed me more pages of bank transfer records.
I stared at those numbers, each transaction like a knife driving into my heart.
"Confirmed?" My voice was hoarse.
"We cross-referenced this testimony. Look here." Dmitri pointed to one transaction. "Three days before your attack, five million dollars was transferred to his account. The source was a shell company, controlled by Kieran O'Connell."
