To put my hands on her, feel her breathing, prove she’s still here—real, untouched, not swallowed by whatever nightmare this file is pointing towards.
Then the next thought lands, clean and lethal.
She’s alone.
No guards. No Points protection. No one watching her back in real time.
Fuck.
Every instinct I have is screaming to shut the laptop and go, to stop thinking, stop digging, and get to Lily. But instinct isn’t enough. Not when I don’t know who’s watching her, who’s connected to this, how deep it goes, or if I’m even right. Running blind could get her killed.
So I force myself to keep digging. Not because it matters more than her but because answers are the only way to keep her safe. Because every name, every pattern, every ugly truth I uncover might be the difference between reaching her in time or walking straight into a trap.
These girls aren’t just disappearing. It’s orchestrated, premeditated. A machine of human trafficking coded into neat, clinical files. And I’m seeing it all, helpless, two hundred miles away from her—my mind spinning with images of Lily, trusting, soft, laughing—and wondering if Rosa, ifanyof them, ever had a chance.
I slam the laptop shut and press my fists to my eyes so hard I see stars.
It’s like the entire room is tilting. Like the floor’s been ripped out from under me. I thought I was joining a Mafia family known for their vineyards and drugs. That this was a necessary sacrifice to help strengthen the Points. But this… this isn’t vineyards and alliances. This isn’t politics or power plays. This is something else entirely, something that will rupture the fragile alliances as we know them.
It’s fuckingkids.Girls who should be finishing high school, trying on formal dresses. Not sold like fucking inventory.
I shove back from my laptop so hard the chair bumps into the wall. The room feels smaller with every breath, like the walls themselves are pressing in. My pulse hammers in my teeth. I can’t just sit here, not when girls are being stolen right now, ripped from their lives while I remain paralysed.
My fingers are still trembling when I ring Jonathan’s number. The phone feels slick in my palm.
He answers on the third ring, voice low and alert, the way it always is when he’s working in the shadows. “Matt?”
“Yeah.” My voice is tight, cracking under the pressure I’m trying to cage. “I’ve got something. You’re not gonna believe it.”
“You sound wired,” he drawls the words out slowly. His calm does nothing to slow the panic crawling under my skin.
“Because I fucking am.” My hand presses against the back of my neck, trying to ground myself, but it doesn’t work.
“Talk to me.”
“I’ve been digging into things like we agreed,” I’m already pacing, already wound too tight. “I know the Table rules say I shouldn’t be hacking into Salvatore’s servers, but I didn’t have a choice. Shit’s not adding up, Jonathan.”
My hand slices through the air. “There’s a file that someone tried to bury. It’s loaded with names, dates, photos. A goddamn inventory of girls who’ve just vanished.”
I stop, chest tight. “One was only seventeen. Took a modelling job Nico set up and then—poof. Gone. Liam saw her name pop up on that dark web server last week, but outside of it?” I shake my head. “It’s like she never existed. They’re labelled as assets just like—”
“Lily.” His shocked hiss cuts me off.
The line goes quiet. Not the empty kind but the kind that hums with danger. The kind that makes the air feel heavier in your lungs. I can almost hear Jonathan calculating, stripping emotion from the facts, mapping consequences, deciding who lives and who burns.
Finally, he speaks, low and steady. “Are you certain it traces back?”
“Positive.” My knuckles whiten around the edge of the desk. “Every name on that list went missing after an audition at a modelling agency Salvatore’s been funding. There are dozens of photos from their auditions, but not one legitimate modelling job to show for it.”
I swallow hard. “If it’s not tied to the ring, then what the hell is funding it? And why hide it?”
Jonathan exhales, the sound like steel scraping against stone. “Fuck. All right. Encrypt everything you have and send it over. I’ll get Brennan on it immediately. This—this betrayal cuts deep, especially after Helen. But panic won’t fix it.”
His voice firms, controlled, absolute. “We need to be careful. If they catch you digging, they won’t hesitate to retaliate, but that won’t happen. Not on my watch. I refuse to lose anyone else to this bullshit. We’ve lost too much as it is.”
“What’s next?” My throat burns as adrenaline tastes like copper. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing. Girls are being stolen right now. The longer we wait, the more they suffer. You can’t expect me to play happy families, pretending in a few months I’m going to marry into these bastards.”
“We’re not doing nothing,” Jonathan snaps down the line, the words landing like orders even through the crackle of the call. “You’ll stay invisible and feed us everything you uncover—every name, every transfer, every shadow connection. No cowboy shit.”
