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 ki

Last Updated : 2026-06-18

Chapter 12

Rodrigo's POV Javier Morales.That was the name. The missing piece of this whole fucking puzzle. The source of the migraine that had been boring into my skull for weeks, a dull, persistent ache that no amount of whiskey or pussy could quiet.He had a family. They always did. A wife. A son. A neat little life tucked away in Mexico, far from the reach of my world. But distance was never an obstacle for consequences. I’ve crossed oceans for less.“Keep a close eye on the pest for me,” I said into the phone, my voice flat, measured. “I’ll be in Mexico soon. It’s time to nip this in the fucking bud.”I ended the call. The city sprawled beneath my window, a glittering grid of lights and shadows, of people who had no idea what moved in the dark spaces between their lives. For the first time in weeks, I felt it — that low thrum in my blood, the hunter’s pulse. The anticipation of getting closer. Closer to the truth. Closer to whoever thought they could compromise me, cost me millions, em

Last Updated : 2026-06-18

Chapter 13

Chris's POV It’s been a little over a week now.Paid my tuition. Well — ninety-five percent of it. The remaining five percent is something future Chris will figure out after the next gig. Present Chris is choosing not to think about it.My ass has also been doing fine, since I know you were worried. The pain’s gone. Healed faster than expected, which honestly says more about how often my body’s had to bounce back from things it shouldn’t have had to bounce back from than it does about my resilience. Got fresh bruises courtesy of my father — but you already knew that chapter. Nothing new there.Mostly I’ve just been healing, attending classes, and sitting with my new goal:Move out.Get out of that apartment. Find somewhere — anywhere — that doesn’t share walls with the man who technically gave me life and has spent every year since trying to take it back.Simple goal. Expensive reality. Story of my life.Today I was meeting Aubrey at the café on campus.I’d been drowning in m

Last Updated : 2026-06-20

Chapter 14

Rodrigo's POV The following day after the call, I made my way to Mexico.Right now I'm inside my Mercedes-Benz S-Class, moving through the rural roads of Tepito. The landscape outside is grey and waterlogged — cracked concrete, rusted iron gates, the kind of poverty that doesn't ask for your pity. It just exists.All that's on my mind is Javier.Getting those answers out of Javier.And for once, I have a good feeling about this. Because this one — this one has something to lose.A wife.A son.And yes, I will go that far. If he doesn't talk, they get it too. In this life, nobody has time for sentiments. You mess with my business, you pay for it. Hard. Simple as that.The car halts in front of what looks like an abandoned warehouse.My warehouse.The exterior is deliberate — designed to blend into the decay around it, to avoid any reason for suspicion. And in a place like Tepito? A slum law enforcement barely bothers to drive through? It was the perfect place to disappear. W

Last Updated : 2026-06-25

Chapter 15

Counting the days to my demise.Yes.My demise.The day I have to see that brute again.The same brute who wrecked my ass so thoroughly that I spent weeks walking like I had a stick shoved permanently up my spine. The same brute who somehow looked at an entire human body and thought, "Yeah, no lube necessary."Like genuinely.Who does that?What kind of upbringing produces a grown man who sees lube and decides it's optional?I have questions.Many questions.And absolutely no desire to ask him any of them.I'd tried talking to Esteban about it.And by talking, I mean I complained every single chance I got.Could I get another client?Could Rodrigo get another escort?Could Silver Slippers suddenly develop a policy against attempted murder by dick?Apparently not.Esteban didn't care.Actually, scratch that.He cared enough to laugh at me.Which somehow felt worse.The more I brought Rodrigo up, the more obvious it became that he wasn't just another client. He was

Last Updated : 2026-07-14

Chapter 16

A lot happened after Mexico.The moment I was done with Javier Morales, I was on the next flight back to California.Satisfied I’d cracked the mystery behind my failed consignment, yes. But the revelation itself sat like poison in my gut.Dante Gambino.The old bastard hadn’t sabotaged me for money. He hadn’t wanted my routes. He hadn’t considered me a threat.He did it because of my father.To men like Dante, I wasn’t Rodrigo Valdino. I was Hermes Valdino’s son. Collateral damage. A tool. A convenient weakness to exploit.That was what pissed me off. Not the lost money. Not the damaged routes.The disrespect.Everything I built belonged to me. The coastal routes. The partnerships across Europe. The business relationships stretching through Portugal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Colombia. California. All mine.Yet every time these old men looked at me, all they saw was my father’s son.Javier swore loyalty in exchange for relocating his family out of Dante’s reach. Business. N