He does not wait for my answer. Turi bows his head slightly, turns, and walks out of the room. The door closes. The deadbolt slides back into place.
I am locked in again. But the cage feels different now.
It is not a prison. It is a fortress.
I walk back to the desk. I look at the sterile, typed dossier on top of the pile. The asset profile. I pick it up, carry it to the small metal trash can beside the desk, and drop it in. The paper flutters down into the dark. The contract is dead. The lie is gone.
I reach for the second drawer again, unable to stop myself. I want to see the chaotic scribbles. I want to read the margins where his control slipped. I pull the drawer open.
Before my fingers can brush the messy folder, a sharp, metallic burst of static shatters the silence of the room.
I freeze.
The sound comes from the third monitor on the desk. A small, black encrypted radio sits behind the screen, a blinking green light pulsing in the dark. Enzo must have left the channel open in his rush to leave.
Static hisses again, loud and harsh.
I step around the desk, my heart hammering against my ribs. I stare at the small speaker.
"Command, this is Underboss One."
The voice is deep, distorted by the encryption, but the cadence is unmistakable. It is Matteo. The underboss, eldest of Carlo's sons. Turi said Matteo went to the rail yards to hunt Jeff, while Enzo and Dante hit the transit hub.
I lean closer to the speaker. Three agonizing seconds of dead air.
"Go ahead, Underboss One," a calm voice replies from the compound's communication center.
“Target acquired,” Matteo reports, the sound of heavy rain hitting a tin roof echoing through the transmission. “Jeff isdown. I have the secondary drive—the internal backup from his office. It has the shipping reroutes, but not the shell-company filings. Rourke still has the full upload.”
"Copy that. Status on Fixer One and Enforcer One?"
The radio goes dead for a long moment. Only the hiss of the static fills the bedroom. My hands grip the edge of the oak desk. The wood digs into my palms.
"Fixer One is off the grid," Matteo's voice returns, the authority of the underboss suddenly laced with a sharp edge of tension. "Dante is securing the perimeter at the hub. But Enzo..."
A loud, booming sound echoes through the transmission. Gunfire. Or an explosion. The audio peaks, whining in the small speaker before leveling out.
"Enzo broke formation," Matteo bites out over the radio, the static crackling violently. "Rourke didn’t come for the physical ledgers. He already pulled the full upload. The building is wired. Enzo overrode the extraction protocol. He’s running his own math down in the lower tunnels."
My blood runs cold. The breath I didn't realize I was holding escapes in a ragged gasp.
"Repeat, Underboss One," the command center voice says, losing its calm. "Fixer One is in the tunnels?"
"He's hunting Rourke," Matteo says, low and sharp. "He blew the whole fucking operation. The fixer is still in there—he's just solving for one variable now. And it isn't ours."
The radio clicks off. The green light stops pulsing.
Absolute silence falls over the bedroom.
The documents in the drawer mock me. The floor plans. The security assessments. The obsessive need to control every outcome. He threw it all away. He walked into a wired building and went underground because the man who threatened my name was still breathing.
He didn't just break his rules. He shattered them.
I stare at the dark monitor, the silk robe suddenly feeling far too thin against the chill of the room. The cynical mask is gone. The fake fiancée is dead. I am the woman waiting in the fortress, staring at the radio, praying to a god I haven't spoken to in years that the monster comes home.
8
Enzo
