To grab him. To disappear. To erase this entire mess and rebuild somewhere far away.
But my sister was in a hospital right now.
Her body fighting to recover from torture.
I couldn’t abandon her.
Not after seeing her like that.
“Roman...”
“I’m not abandoning you,” he repeated.
There was frustration now — but not at me.
“At least let me work,” he continued. “I’m still digging through the CCTV footage. The system is layered deeper than we thought. Whoever built it tried to mask access logs — but they didn’t erase everything.”
Hope flickered through me.
“If I can’t crack it within thirty-six hours,” he said, “I’m escalating it to New York directly. They’ll force a review. Get eyes on the feeds. Audit the chain of command.”
His voice lowered slightly.
“But I’m not walking away from this.”
His resolve steadied me.
“Good,” I replied quietly.
“Because if Vincent sold us out — he’s not the only one who needs to fall.”
There was understanding on the other end of the line.
“I’ll call you when I have something,” Roman said.
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone slowly.
For a moment — just one moment — I allowed myself to feel the weight of everything collapsing around me.
A corrupted boss.
A mafia king who knew my secrets.
A sister fighting for survival.
And a father figure who might not survive betrayal once exposed.
Nothing about my life was simple anymore.
But one thing was clear:
The war had expanded.
