Semua Bab The Mafia King's Obsession.: Bab 21 - Bab 30

*Rowan*The car cut through the streets like a blade, silent and steady.Inside, the lights were dimmed, but I wasn’t interested in resting. My hand rested over the file folder on my lap, filled with names, photos, and detailed intel. Everything we’d gathered in the last seventy-two hours.The federal agents weren’t working alone, there were watchers, embedded and untraceable. Someone was protecting them, someone with teeth.Across from me, Rafe sipped his black coffee, his eyes locked on the window as if he were studying the patterns of the streets. He hadn’t spoken since we left the apartment, and I hadn’t asked him to. We both understood the gravity of what came next.“You’re sure it wasn’t a coincidence?” I asked finally.Rafe turned his head. “Two shadows we’ve never seen before trailing her. Unmarked car. No plates. They weren’t FBI. They weren’t ours. They were watching the watchers.”I clenched my jaw. “Which means the game’s

*Rowan*The apartment was just as always, quiet.But what was not the same, was the woman inside it.I stood near the edge of the room, half in shadow, watching her from a distance. Harper sat curled into one corner of the leather couch, wrapped in one of my dark gray blankets, a mug of tea between her hands. Her fingers trembled slightly, but her face was unreadable. Not calm. Not shaken. Just somewhere in between.She hadn’t said much since I brought her here. And I hadn’t forced her to.It was strange. I knew how to extract confessions from men twice my size. I could silence a room with a look, end a life with a gesture, make a city bleed. But I didn’t know how to ask the girl on my couch if she was okay. Because she wasn’t. And I hated that I hadn’t protected her from this.The elevator clicked. I turned.Rafe stepped into the room, coat still on, boots leaving faint water prints on the floor. He nodded once, then glanced toward H

*Harper*I stood by the entrance a full five seconds before stepping into my ‘family’ house, the door clicking softly behind me.My shoes were still by the rug, untouched. Sophia’s heels, however, had multiplied.Everything looked exactly the same, but I wasn’t. I headed to my room, a place I felt now foreign, and grabbed a duffel bag I had in the closet. I didn’t feel like much of the things in the room were really “me” so, I decided to pick up some clothes I wanted to take, and all my university things.My red dress was a must, and was one of the few pieces of fabric I had that I really felt like were part of me. After that and my books and notes, I only grabbed a small moon-shaped pillow I have had with me since I came to live here. A piece of me I didn’t even know why I wanted to hold, but it was part of me anyway.I walked into the kitchen and found Helen hunched over her tablet with a steaming mug of tea. Cole was reading the paper, glasses h

*Rowan*Harper was safe. For now.But that didn’t mean the game had ended, just that the pieces had shifted.I stood in front of the digital wall, watching security feeds flicker through every corner of the city where I had a stake. The screen in front of me held the paused image of a man with a scar under his left eye and a habit of wearing expensive suits like they were bought with someone else’s money.“Victor Roush,” I muttered under my breath.Rafe nodded beside me. “Confirmed. We traced the payment for the concierge bribe to a shell company in Prague. The board shows Roush’s name nowhere, but it’s his style. He uses proxies, always two levels removed.”“Why Harper?” I asked, even though I already had a theory.Rafe didn’t hesitate. “Collateral. She’s your softest link. A way to reach you, or throw you off the real target.”I stared at the screen, jaw clenched. The real target wasn’t me. Not entirely.“This is bigge

*Rowan*The club never truly slept, but behind the walls of my office, I made sure the night obeyed me.Rafe stood by the corner, arms folded, eyes flicking between Nolan’s tablet and my desk where maps, financial printouts, and a single photo of Victor Roush stared back at me like an open insult.Nolan’s voice was even, calm, but I could see the tension in his jaw. “Victor’s laundering channels changed last week. He’s clearing the Prague account, diverting funds through an old contact in Lisbon. It’s textbook cleanup, he’s covering his footprints faster than we can chase them.”Rafe grunted. “He’s not afraid. That’s the problem.”“He should be.”I traced a finger along the map’s edge, Lisbon to Prague to here. A neat little circle that had dared to brush Harper’s life. That was his mistake.Nolan cleared his throat, tapping a new line of numbers. “One more thing. The warehouse manifests you lost last month? They didn’t vanish. They w