All Chapters of The Price Of Us: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

ELIASI had known there was something amiss the minute Cathan's name flashed on my phone. "A bomb just exploded." That was all the message said.I was unable to catch a breath for a moment as the words branded themselves into my retina. I sat in my office, the windows behind me causing a jagged shadow of the cityscape.A bomb? Where?My fingers shook as I called him. He picked up on the first ring."Where?" I snarled."Downtown," he answered ominously. "It was the car Louis was in. We got the word right after it happened. It was a hit. A calculated one."My blood ran ice-cold.No.Not him.I stiffened and bolted upright, the chair crashing to the floor. My heart thrummed in my chest, beating as if struggling to escape its confines. Louis. Sweet Louis whose bruises, both external and internal, had just started healing.No, this can’t be.And then, as if by a twisted fate, my phone started buzzing again. A new message. It had no name and no number. “I have him. If you'd like to get hi

ELIASThe hallway beyond Louis's door was quiet—too quiet. Even the guards in front of the stairwell didn't want to breathe too hard.I stood there, my hand on the door handle, staring at the wood grain like it contained some kind of answer. Three days. Three days before, I dragged him out of that blasted warehouse. Ever since I held him in my arms, motionless and with blood all over his shirt, cursing and praying the entire time, I hadn't seen him. I’d been avoiding Louis during all that time.I told myself that it was for his own good. That he needed space. Rest.But the truth was I didn't want to see the look in his eyes. The fear and lingering hatred for me after what he passed through.I opened the door expecting a raging Louis to come at me with hurls and screams but he didn’t turn when I entered. He just sat, huddled up on the chaise by the window, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like armor, Aria's soup uneaten and congealing on the tray next to him. His hair was wet a

ELIASThe moment the door shut behind him, silence surrounded me.Louis was gone, and I hadn’t stopped him.I just stood there like a fool in the middle of the room, the ghost of his presence still hanging in the atmosphere. My fingers tingled, not for a weapon this time, but for him. To pull him back, to make things clear, to do what I never did: beg.But I didn’t move. I couldn’t.The confession I'd given him already exceeded everything I’d ever intended to share. And yet, it was still not nearly enough.The weight of it settled over me like ash from an old explosion—quiet, invisible, choking. I breathed in but the air felt thick. I’d once thought truth would be liberating, but instead, it carved me open. Now he knew.But how could I ever expect him to stay?I ran a hand down my face and finally sank into the leather chair next to the fireplace. he shadows in the corners of the room seemed to draw closer, stretching toward the space Louis had filled just moments ago. A hollowness c

ELIASThe conference room reeked of money, cigars, and mistrust.Five of the oldest bastards I knew sat around the table—each wearing a suit that cost more than some men’s lives, each of them looking at me like I was still the eighteen-year-old boy who had inherited his father's empire too soon.But I wasn't him anymore. I was the Don now. And they were all too aware of it. Even if their gazes dared to test me.“I’ll say it again,” murmured Castelli, his voice slick with false politeness. “There’s a rat amongst us.”I leaned back in my chair, my fingers steepled in front of my mouth.He wasn’t wrong and for the first time ever, I agreed with him.“The recent arrests,” he continued. “Intercepted shipments. Surveillance drones catching things they shouldn’t. These are all too much to be a mere coincidence. Either the feds suddenly grew brains or someone’s feeding them crumbs.”My jaw tightened.To my right, Cathan folded his arms and kept quiet, seething but saying nothing. He loathed

ELIASI'd always known there was a mole leaking information.But today, I finally had a name.The name of the bastard was Suanche. He was one of the finance clerks on the east side of the company. An innocuous-looking man with a receding hairline, slight limp, eyes too neutral to set alarm bells ringing. But I'd learned many years ago that snakes didn't always hiss before they bit. They smiled.I watched him now through the one-way mirror in my office. He was in the other room, pale and shaking, his hands fidgeting at the hem of his shirt as though it might stitch him a new spine.Cathan stood beside me, arms folded.I traced it through a burner network," he said. "The bastard's been selling shipment schedules to the Red Dragon cell for weeks. They've been rerouting guns under our noses."I didn't blink. "How did he get that deep into the books?""Charmed a secretary, bribed a floor guard. You know the drill."I exhaled, my voice low. "Did you lock down the perimeter?""No one gets o