All Chapters of Whispers of Loyalty: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

ZACHI used to believe war had a peak.That there was a moment where the chaos reached its highest point, one final crescendo before the pieces settled. A breaking point. Something you could brace for.I don’t believe that anymore.Now I know war doesn’t climb. It spirals.It spins until everything around you blurs until you’re not even sure if you’re standing on your feet or drowning in your own blood.That’s what today felt like. A spiral.Eliot was dead. His betrayal confirmed. His cowardice buried with him. But it was what he said before the end that haunted me.A woman with a scar. Inside access. Tied to Alana.Francesca.I remembered her vaguely. Quiet. Efficient. One of Roman’s many shadows. She was a ghost even when she was on payroll. The kind of operative you used when you needed a whisper to sound like a scream. She disappeared not long after the estate fell into our hands.Alana had mentioned her once. Said she always watched the room like it was about to turn on her.Turn

ZACHThe shadows in this place know my name.They echo it back to me when it’s quiet, carved into the concrete walls, soaked into the foundation. This estate used to belong to Roman. Then it was Alana’s. And now it’s mine.But I’ve never felt more like a stranger in it.I stared down at the file in front of me, the edge of the paper crumpled from where my fingers had tightened without realizing. My name, Veronin, was buried in one of the documents. Not directly, not blatantly. But through an old financial channel from a dormant Veronin shell corp, long since shut down. Or so I thought.Alana stood across the room with Gia, their voices low. She was giving orders about the safehouse we needed to move, the men we needed to question, the bank accounts that needed to be frozen before they disappeared again.But all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears.I picked up the paper again, looking at the routing numbers. It wasn’t just dirty money. It was our money, my father’s empir

ZACHI’m not sure when the noise in my head became louder than everything around me.It drowns things out like the creak of floorboards, the hum of low conversations in the hall, the echo of Gia’s orders through the comms. It even silences Alana’s voice sometimes.But it’s there. Always.It sounds like betrayal. Like memories. Like blood. Like guilt.It sounds like them.I sit in Roman’s old office with the door locked, staring at a wall that doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not about what I see, it’s about what I can’t.I can’t see the next move. And that’s what makes this dangerous.I’ve lived most of my life expecting people to hurt me. It’s easier that way. Safer. Cleaner.But now?Now I expect it from people who share my blood. People who were supposed to be dead. People who built me like a weapon and waited to see who I’d point myself at. And worse, Alana’s in the line of fire.I close my eyes and lean back in the chair, pinching the bridge of my nose.The folder from the safeh

ZACHThere’s a silence that comes after you kill someone you once trusted.It’s not the silence of regret or grief. It’s something colder. Heavier.Like the world around you goes still because it knows something inside you just snapped and it’s waiting to see what you’ll do with the pieces.That’s where I was. Standing over Vincent’s body. Watching the blood creep across the tile like it had somewhere to be.I felt nothing. No anger. No guilt. Just finality.One less liar breathing in my air. One less thread tying me to a legacy I never asked for.But it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.Vincent was the messenger. The symptom. Not the disease. The disease was older. Deeper. Rooted in blood and ash and the twisted legacy that was the Veronin name.My name. And I was done running from it. I was going to own it.Or I was going to burn it to the ground.Back at the estate, the air was thick with tension. Dom avoided eye contact. Gia didn’t say a word. Niko watched me with the kind of silence th

ZACHI didn’t feel the first crack until after I’d already walked away from her.Not in the moment when I dismissed her in front of the others.Not when she called me out, eyes like ice and mouth laced with venom I knew was only half pretend.No, the first crack came after - when I got into the car, closed the door, and sat in silence with Niko riding beside me like this was just another op.It wasn’t.It was the beginning of a lie so big I wasn’t sure either of us would survive it. And it was my idea.She hated me for it. She didn’t say it, but I saw it in her eyes. That flicker of something like betrayal, like I’d sold her out to save her.And maybe I had.But if this worked, if this whole fucked-up plan actually worked, she’d be alive to hate me. And I could live with that.What I couldn’t live with was losing her for real.“You good?” Niko asked as we pulled away from the estate gates.I stared ahead, jaw locked.“Yeah,” I lied.He didn’t push. I was grateful. Because if he had, I