"You’re suggesting I kill my own child?"
"I’m suggesting you think about what’s best for the family. For the business." His smile was sharp as a blade. "But then again, maybe love has made you soft enough that you can’t see the bigger picture anymore."
The words were too similar to the challenges I’d been hearing from my other men, too perfectly aimed at my deepest insecurities. For the first time since I’d known him, I found myself looking at Declan, noting the way his loyalty always came with conditions, the way he seemed almost pleased when I showed weakness.
"The family comes first," I said carefully, testing.
"Always." His smile widened. "I’m glad you understand that."
But as I sat there in the candlelit church, watching my most trusted advisor nod approvingly at the suggestion that I eliminate my own child, something cold and certain settled in my chest.
I was surrounded by enemies. But maybe the most dangerous one wasn’t hiding in shadows or rival families.
Maybe he was sitting right beside me.
Declan’s phone buzzed, cutting through the tension like a knife. He glanced at the screen, and something shifted in his expression—satisfaction mixed with anticipation.
"We found the mole," he said, meeting my eyes. "And Roman? You’re not going to like who it is."
21
ROMAN
The drive back to the estate felt like a funeral procession—silent, suffocating, heavy with the weight of decisions that couldn’t be undone. My knuckles were still tight from gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled rage coursing through my veins as two betrayals warred in my chest.
Pregnant.The word echoed in my skull like a death knell.
She’d hidden it from me. While I’d been laying my life on the line to protect her, she’d been keeping the most important secret of all. The heir to everything I’d built, growing inside her body, and she’d said nothing.
And somewhere in my organization, a mole was feeding intelligence to my enemies. Someone I trusted, someone who’d sat at my table and sworn loyalty, was working to destroy everything my father had built. Two knives in my back, twisting deeper with every breath.
The taste of betrayal was bitter as copper in my mouth.
The estate gates loomed ahead, wrought iron twisted into Celtic knots that spoke of old power and older secrets. Home. Or what passed for it in a world where sentiment was weakness and love was a target painted on your back.
Declan arrived a few minutes before me and was waiting in the marble foyer when I walked through the front doors, his pale eyes scanning my face with the efficiency of a man who’d learned to read danger in a glance. He didn’t comment on the way my shoulders carried violence like a second skin.
He just nodded toward the stairs that led to the basement levels.
"He’s downstairs."
Two words that carried the weight of judgment, of justice served cold in rooms where screams couldn’t reach the outside world. I followed him down, past the wine cellar with its imported bottles worth more than most people’s houses, past the storage rooms filled with legitimate business records that masked the real empire underneath.
The interrogation room was stark concrete and exposed pipes, lit by a single bulb that cast harsh shadows across every surface. And there, tied to a steel chair in the center of it all, was Sean.
My personal bodyguard. The man who’d taken a bullet for me just days ago, who’d limped through that warehouse disaster with his leg torn open by shrapnel. Fresh bandages wrapped around his thigh were already stained with blood—the wound had reopened during whatever struggle had brought him here. His face was a map of fresh bruises, his lip split, and his eyes—those loyal eyes that had watched my back for more years than I could count—were bright with defiance.
"Roman." His voice was hoarse but steady. "Thank fuck. Tell this bastard he’s got the wrong man."
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because looking at him—really looking—I saw all the opportunities he’d had. All the conversations he’d overheard, all the meetings where he’d stood silent in corners, absorbing intelligence like a sponge.
Declan moved to a metal table against the wall, retrieving something wrapped in black cloth. "Found this hidden in his quarters," he said, unwrapping a burner phone with the reverence of a priest handling sacred relics. "Twenty-three calls to a known associate of the Torrino family. All made in the last month."
The phone looked innocuous enough—cheap plastic and worn edges. But in my world, communication was currency, and unauthorized contact with rival families was treason punishable by death.
"That’s not mine," Sean said immediately, his Irish accent thicker with stress. "I’ve never seen that fucking thing in my life."
"Liar." The word came out of me like a blade. I crossed the room in three strides, my fist connecting with his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. The sound echoed off concrete walls like a gunshot.
