I blink. Enzo chuckles.
We sit at the table, and the staff immediately begin setting down plates—eggs, pastries, fruit, fresh-squeezed orange juice, more coffee than even I can handle. Enzo’s hand settles on my back as I reach for a croissant, grounding me.
It feels…almost normal.
But the moment shifts when Enzo straightens in his chair, eyes sharpening. He lifts one hand and signals the staff. “Grazie. That’ll be all.”
They file out swiftly.
He glances at Lars. “Close the doors.”
Lars nods and pushes the heavy doors shut behind them with a quiet thunk. The mood in the room changes. Violette sits a little straighter. I feel Enzo’s hand brush mine under the table before he speaks.
“I looked through the flash drive last night.”
I glance at him, heart skipping.
He’s calm, but it’s the kind of calm that comes before a storm. And I know whatever he’s about to say, it’s going to change everything.
Enzo’s fingers tap once on the table. Then he lifts his eyes, scanning the room—starting with Violette, then Lars, and finally landing on me.
“It’s worse than we thought.” The sentence lands like a stone.
Lars leans forward, setting his mug down. Violette, who had been mid-sip, lowers her espresso cup with the grace of a woman used to bad news but never surprised by it. I hold my breath.
Enzo opens a black leather folder that had been sitting beside him on the table. Inside are a few printed pages. He pulls one sheet free and lays it flat on the table.
“Rowan was able to decode the encryption, Lars pieced it all together. What’s on here…it’s not just dirty money or Falco affiliations. It’s targeted asset transfers. Shell corporations. Drugs. Laundered payouts to private contractors overseas. And every one of those contractors?” He looks up. “Are tied to your father, Zara.”
My stomach flips.
“What kind of contractors?” Violette asks, tone clipped.
“Hit squads. Arms dealers. Politicians. Cartel members. One of the transactions traces back to a company that has—until recently—been on the FBI’s radar. Lachlan wasn’t just bankrolling political favors. He was funding paramilitary activity. Under the radar, off the books.”
Violette exhales sharply. “Jesus Christ.”
Enzo continues, calm but charged. “There’s more. The timeline matches several recent events—incidents that made news in other countries. The kind of tragedies that spark chaos and then disappear under red tape. Lachlan didn’t just plan to take power here. He wants leverage beyond Chicago. He wants international reach. And those plans began over seven years ago. Who knows what he has his hands in now.”
I can’t swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Are you saying my father was planning to expand the Kavanagh power structure globally?”
“I’m saying he already started.” Enzo slides another document toward me. I glance down at it—numbers, names, offshore accounts. My name is on one.
My blood goes cold.
“We were able to hack into the accounts we found on the drive. All of them are still open, but this one stuck out from the others. He tried to move money in your name,” Enzo says. “Three days before the wedding. A shell account opened in Luxembourg. Which means he was trying to build a financial backdoor using your identity.”
My breath catches. “He was laundering through me?”
“And when you ran…” Enzo nods. “He panicked. Tried to reroute. But by then, I had you.”
Violette’s lips press into a thin line. “He used his own daughter as a fucking pawn.”
“That’s all I ever was to him,” I snarl. “A piece to move around the board.”
Enzo’s hand finds mine under the table, his grip firm, grounding.
“We have enough now to expose him,” he says, voice sure. “If we want to go that route. Or we use this information another way—pressure, trade, leverage.”
