Chapter 11

Rodrigo's POV

It’s been one week since I buried myself back into investigating who caused my failed consignment.

A shipment worth millions on the black market — intercepted by Customs. Thirteen crates of cocaine stacked into tight bundles. Guns. All of it. Gone. And with it, one of the few secure routes I’d spent years carefully threading through Mexico, Moscow, and Colombia — exposed. Just like that. Years of work. Years of trust built on silence and fear and blood.

Compromised.

I’ve lost money.

I’ve lost trust.

And worst of all — I’ve lost face.

The question that keeps eating at me is devastatingly simple:

How?

No ordinary person could have done this. Not against me. Not against my operation. Every road I follow, every thread I pull, every name I trace — it all eventually circles back to the same place.

The High Table.

The council that houses the most powerful mafia bosses across multiple continents. Men who govern the underworld with truces, sanctions, favors, and the kind of threats that don’t need to be spoken twice. The only people I know who wield enough power to orchestrate something like this.

But who?

Who the fuck would dare?

And more importantly — why me?

My desk is buried. Documents. Reports. Phone records. Transaction histories stacked so high they’ve become their own kind of architecture. I’ve spent the last week chasing shadows — tracing interactions, following money, looking for a crack. A mistake. Anything.

Nothing.

Not a single fucking lead.

I drag a hand down my face. There’s a headache that’s lived behind my eyes for days now, dull and persistent, like an uninvited guest that’s made itself comfortable. The cigar in the ashtray has gone cold. Paper after paper. Report after report.

Nothing.

There are moments — brief, dangerous moments — when I want to sweep every file off this desk and be done with it. Light the whole pile and watch it burn.

But every time that thought rises, I see his face.

My father’s.

That look.

That fucking look.

The one that doesn’t need words. The one that says, quietly, with devastating satisfaction:

You couldn’t do it on your own. You never could.

My jaw tightens.

No.

I will not give him that.

I toss another useless report onto the desk.

Then my phone rings.

I answer immediately.

“Don.” The voice on the other end carries the particular tension of a man who knows exactly who he’s calling.

Good.

“What is it?”

“We may have a lead.”

Something shifts in the room. The headache doesn’t disappear, but it recedes — pushed back by something sharper. Something that feels almost like focus.

“Talk.”

“He was at the cargo site the night Customs swept the container in Mexico. Definitely knows something.” A brief pause. “There are also reports placing him in direct contact with members of the Customs department several days before the operation. We believe he informed them of the load.”

Silence.

My hand slowly curls into a fist against the desk.

This better be real. This better not be another ghost.

I take a slow breath. My mouth has gone strangely dry.

“What do you want us to do, Don?”

I lean back in my chair. Thinking. Calculating the weight of every possible next move.

Then I speak.

“Get everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.” My voice drops. Quieter is always colder. “His house. His family. His finances. His friends. What he eats. What side of the bed he sleeps on. I want every single detail you can find.”

Silence.

Then — “Yes, Don.”

“We’ll be having a meeting with him soon.”

The implication settles between us like smoke. Neither of us needs to explain what kind of meeting that will be.

The call ends.

I set the phone down and stare at the far wall of my study — at the dark wood paneling, the rows of files, the portrait of a man I was never meant to become. The mansion breathes around me, quiet and watchful.

For the first time in a week, something resembling hope stirs in my chest.

Not much.

Just enough.

Enough.

Whoever is responsible for this is still breathing.

That is a problem I intend to correct.

Then my phone rings again.

I glance at the screen.

My mood closes like a fist.

Don Hermes.

My father.

The last man I want to hear from.

I answer anyway.

“Hello.”

A dry chuckle rolls through the line. Unhurried. Unbothered.

“No ‘father’ anymore?”

I say nothing.

Silence is its own kind of answer.

This conversation has never been about family. It never is. He’s about thirty-five years too late to start now.

“Well,” he continues eventually, as though my silence is nothing more than background noise, “I’m calling about the High Table council meeting. Two weeks from now.”

“I’m already aware.”

The irritation sharpens my voice without permission. I’m not some teenager being reminded about curfew.

“I know you are.” His tone is measured. Patient in the way that feels deliberately designed to be condescending. “I’m not calling to remind you. I’m calling to speak to you with reason.”

A beat of silence.

“This meeting is important.” His voice lowers. “A new president will be chosen soon. I intend to stand at the absolute forefront of the members’ favor. I need to be their first thought when that decision is made.”

I stare at the far wall.

“Why the fuck are you telling me this?”

Longer silence this time.

When he speaks again, his voice has hardened into something that doesn’t bother pretending.

“Because I need you to handle your loose ends. Properly.”

There it is.

“This failed consignment is a stain on my name.” Each word is measured. Deliberate. Dropped like stones into still water. “You carry the Valdino name. A name built on excellence. Not on failure. Not on embarrassment.” A pause that has teeth. “Handle this before the meeting, Rodrigo. Because your failure is not helping my chances.”

The line goes quiet.

I can hear my own breathing.

Slow. Controlled. Measured.

He’s doing it again. Looking down at me from whatever throne he’s constructed in his own mind. Treating me like an unfinished project. A disappointment he tolerates because my last name happens to be useful.

I wait for the anger to come.

It doesn’t.

Not at him.

The heat building in my chest isn’t pointed outward.

It’s turned inward, burning slow and precise, aimed directly at myself.

Because he’s not wrong.

I made a mistake. I moved too slow. I assumed control where I should have been certain of it. I treated routine as security and paid the price.

I know it.

And I hate that I know it.

“You have my word.”

I end the call before he can say anything else. Before he can land one more stone.

My pride is already bruised enough for one evening.

I dial immediately.

One of the men overseeing the investigation.

He picks up after a single ring.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have anything substantial on the lead?”

“Enough to report.”

I rise from my chair.

The study stretches around me — dark, quiet, impenetrable. The walls of this mansion have never once let the outside world see what happens inside them. That is by design.

Everything I do is by design.

My reflection catches in the glass of the cabinet across the room. Cold. Focused. Carved into something that doesn’t negotiate with doubt.

A Valdino.

And I intend to remind everyone — everyone — exactly what that name means.

“Talk to me.”