홈 / MM Romance / CHAMPAGNE FOR THE DAMNED {MxM} / 챕터 51 - 챕터 60

CHAMPAGNE FOR THE DAMNED {MxM}의 모든 챕터: 챕터 51 - 챕터 60

61 챕터

051.

༒ ℑ𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔫༒I know something was wrong the moment Pierre stopped joking. That was the thing about him, even when shit was bad, even when the police dragged him into questioning rooms for hours or our lives started looking like the setup to a fucking crime scene documentary, Pierre still joked. It was how he copied. Sarcasm, bad timing, smart comments that usually made me want to punch him and laugh at the same time. So when he walked into the apartment that night looking pale and tense instead of annoying, my stomach tightened immediately. “What happened?” I asked before he could even sit down. Pierre glanced towards the windows first, then towards the hallway behind me like he expected someone to be listening. “You alone?” The question itself already pissed me off.“Yeah.”“And Raffaele?” “Out.”Pierre exhaled quietly through his nose before dragging a hand over his face. “Okay. Good.”I stared at him harder. “Pierre.”“I found something.” That got my attention instantly. Th

052.

༒ ℑ𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔫༒The apartment felt too quiet after Pierre left. Not peaceful quiet. Heavy quiet.The kind that sat on my chest and made every thought louder than it should've been. I stood near the kitchen counter for a long time after the door closed behind him, staring at the flash drive sitting beside my laptop like the damn thing might explode if I looked away for too long. Rain hit the windows steadily outside, soft at first, then harder, turning the entire city beyond the glass into blurred lights and shadows. My father was dead… or missing.Hell, at this point, I didn't even know which truth was worse anymore. But one thing had become painfully clear tonight. He hadn't disappeared because of debt, he disappeared because he knew too much.And somehow, without meaning to, I had inherited the fucking fallout. I dragged both hands over my face slowly, exhaustion sitting deep in my bones now. My head hurt from thinking too much, connecting too many things at once, and every answer

053.

༒ ℑ𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔫༒I leaned back in my chair, my eyes fixed on the papers spread across the table while Pierre sat across from me looking just as exhausted as I felt. The apartment was quiet except for the sound of rain hitting the windows and the occasional scratch of Pierre's pen against paper. We had been at this for hours, maybe longer, and my head was starting to throb from staring at numbers.Still, I couldn't stop. Not after everything that had happened. Not after finding out my father had been involved in something far bigger than simple fraud. The file says open in front of me, thicker now than it had been when Pierre first handed it over. We'd added notes, highlighted names, connected dates, drawn lines between people and transactions until the entire thing looked fucking insane. Half the pages were covered in my handwriting now, rushed and messy from trying to keep up with every realization hitting me at once.Pierre rubbed a hand over his face. “Tell me again why we're doing

054.

༒ ℜ𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔢༒The meeting room smelled like cigarette smoke, whiskey, and tension.The kind of tension that settled into the walls long before anyone walked in, heavy and stale, impossible to ignore. I sat at the head of the table with my elbow resting against the arm of the chair, my fingers pressed lightly against my mouth while the men around me argued over shipment routes and missing money. Half of them were talking over each other, voices rough, impatient, trying to prove points nobody gave a shit about anymore. Normally, I would've shut it down faster. Normally, I would've already decided what needed to happen before the meeting even started. But things weren't fucking normal anymore. That realization had been sitting under my skin for weeks now growing heavier everyday.The warehouse attack, the kidnapping, the leaks inside my own operations, the information Imran's father left behind–all of it had changed the balance of things in ways nobody fully understood yet. In

055.

༒ ℜ𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔢༒The first time I realized I was depending on Imran, it pissed me off enough to ruin my entire fucking day. Not because I thought he was incompetent. That would've been easier to deal with. No, the problem was worse than that. The problem was that somewhere between dragging him into my world, fighting with him, losing control over him, nearly losing him completely, and watching him adapt faster than anyone expected, I had stopped seeing him as someone temporary. Stopped treating him like an outsider I was tolerating. Now, when things didn't make sense, my mind automatically wondered what he would notice.That was dangerous. I stood near the windows of my office, one hand in my pocket while the city stretched below me in blurred lights and rain. The weather has been shit all week, dark skies hanging over everything like a warning nobody could ignore. Thunder rumbled faintly somewhere in the distance while voices carried from the conference room behind me.Marco

056.

༒ ℑ𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔫༒I noticed it before anyone said a fucking word.It was in the way conversation slowed down when I entered a room, the way eyes lingered a second too long before looking away, the way certain men acknowledged Raffaele immediately but barely looked at me unless they absolutely had to. Nobody challenged me openly, not yet, but I could feel it sitting underneath everything like a loaded gun waiting for the safety to come off. Suspicion. Disapproval. Maybe even resentment. And honestly? I couldn't even blame them. A few months ago, I had been drowning in debt, running from loan sharks, trying to survive one disaster at a time. Now I was sitting in rooms with men who had spent their entire lives inside this world, listening to conversations about shipments, alliances, money trails, disappearances, leverage, power. Worse, Raffaell was starting to involve me in those conversations openly.That was the part they hated. Not me, what I represented. Change. I leaned back against

057.

༒ ℜ𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔢༒The problem with betrayal was that it never started loudly. People liked to imagine betrayal as something dramatic, something obvious, a knife on a table, a confession, a gunshot in the dark. But real betrayal? Real betrayal was subtle as fuck. It hit itself inside patterns, inside time in, inside information moving a little too fast and the wrong direction. And lately, I had been seeing too many fucking patterns. I stood near the window of my office, the city glowing beneath the rain while Carlo explained the details of the interceptor shipment behind me. His voice blended into the background at some point, my attention drifting towards the papers spread across my desk instead.Dates. Routes. Times. Movements. Too clean. Every hit against us over the last few months had looked random on the surface, but once I started stripping away the noise, something on the next became impossible to ignore. They weren't guessing anymore, they were anticipating, that changed

058.

༒ ℑ𝔪𝔯𝔞𝔫༒I stopped seeing the file as paper a long fucking time ago. At first, it had just looked like scattered information, random transactions, heating accounts, names without context, coded notes that barely made sense unless you stared at them long enough to make yourself miserable. Back then, I thought the hardest part was figuring out what my father had been involved in.Now? Now I understood the real problem, it wasn't about what he knew, it was about who else knew it too.Rain hammered softly against the windows while I sat cross-legged on the floor of Pierre’s apartment, papers spread around me in uneven piles, empty coffee cups sitting forgotten near the couch. The room smelled like exhaustion and cigarette smoke, the kind that settled permanently into walls no matter how many windows you opened. Pierre stood near the kitchen counter, flipping through another stack of documents while muttering curses under his breath. “This shitvid fucking impossible to follow,” he

059.

༒ ℜ𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔢༒Something was wrong.I knew it before I had proof.Hell, I knew it before I could even explain it.For weeks, information had been moving through the family in ways that didn't make sense. Operations that should have remained private were somehow anticipated. Meetings were being watched. Routes were being avoided before we even used them.At first, it looked like coincidence.Then it started happening too often.Coincidences were for idiots.Patterns were different.And I was looking at a pattern.The conference room fell silent as I flipped through the reports spread across the table.Three operations.Three separate teams.Three different leaks.The same result.Someone knew too much.Someone inside the family was talking.Nobody around the table said a word.Vinny's absence still lingered over everything, even weeks later.People didn't mention him.Didn't ask questions.Didn't discuss what happened.But they felt it.The entire organization felt different now.L

060.

༒ ℜ𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔢༒The mistake people made about betrayal was assuming it announced itself.It didn't.Betrayal was quiet.Patient.It sat beside you at meetings, shook your hand, shared drinks with you, then sold pieces of your life when you weren't looking.The truly dangerous traitors weren't the greedy ones.They were the convinced ones.The ones who believed they were doing the right thing.Those were the bastards that got people killed.I stood near the office window, staring down at the city below. Rain had fallen most of the morning, leaving the streets dark and reflective, every passing headlight turning the pavement into streaks of gold and white.Behind me, Marco finished speaking."So you think the leak is still active."I glanced over my shoulder."I know it is."The room fell quiet.Nobody argued.Nobody questioned it.At this point, they couldn't.Too many things had gone wrong.Too many operations had been anticipated.Too many movements had been predicted.The evidenc

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