Chapter 44 Chapter 44
"I have the flash drive." The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. "I took it from Victor's office, and I have been keeping it from you."
Damien went completely still. His face showed nothing, but his eyes burned with something dangerous. "You what?"
"I needed leverage. Something to protect myself if things went wrong." My voice shook, but I forced myself to keep talking. "I did not know what was on it at first. I was scared to look. Scared of what I might find."
He crossed the room in three steps and grabbed my shoulders. Not rough but firm enough that I could not look away. "Do you have any idea what you have done? That flash drive contains information people would kill for. Information that got you kidnapped tonight."
"I know that now."
"Where is it?" His grip tightened. "Tell me where it is right now."
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the small USB drive. It looked so harmless. Just a piece of plastic and metal. But it held secrets that could destroy everything. I placed it in his palm, and his fingers closed around it like a vice.
"Show me everything," he said. "Every file. Every name. Every transaction. I want to see it all."
He led me to his office and booted up a laptop. The screen glowed in the dark room and cast shadows across his face. I sat beside him and watched as he plugged in the drive. Files appeared on the screen. Dozens of them. Spreadsheets and documents, and encrypted messages.
Damien opened the first file, and his jaw clenched. Numbers filled the screen. Money moving between accounts. Shipments are tracked across the country. Names I recognized and names I did not. But what caught my attention was the pattern. Every transaction had two signatures. One from Damien's organization and one from Victor's.
"This makes no sense," Damien muttered. "I never authorized these deals. These are not my men."
"Look at the dates," I said softly. "They all happened right before major conflicts between you and Victor. Right before warehouse raids. Right before ambushes."
He scrolled through more files, and his face got darker with each one. Email chains between anonymous accounts. Instructions to feed false information to both sides. Plans to escalate tensions. Everything is designed to push Damien and Victor into open war.
"The Syndicate," Damien whispered. "They have been playing us from the beginning."
"They wanted you to destroy each other. While you fought over territory, they moved their own operations through the gaps. They used your hate against you."
Damien slammed his fist on the desk and the laptop jumped. "I have lost men because of this. Good men who died thinking they were protecting something that mattered. And it was all a lie. All of it."
I put my hand on his arm and felt the tension in his muscles. "We can stop them now. We know the truth. We can expose what they have done."
"Exposing them is not enough." His voice went cold. "I want them to pay for every life they took. Every lie they told. Every manipulation."
He kept scrolling and then stopped on a file that made my breath catch. A meeting schedule. Dates and times and locations. The Syndicate was gathering in three days at a warehouse across town. All their major players would be there.
"This is it," Damien said. "This is our chance to end them."
"You cannot just walk into their meeting. They will kill you."
"Then I will make sure I kill them first." He looked at me, and something fierce burned in his eyes. "I am going to that warehouse. I am going to find every person who orchestrated this war. And I am going to make them regret the day they decided to use me as a pawn."
"Damien, please think about this. You are angry right now. You are not thinking clearly."
"I am thinking more clearly than I have in months." He stood up and started pacing. "Everything makes sense now. The attacks that came out of nowhere. The intel that was too good to be true. Marcus being on that list, even though I know he would never betray me. It was all The Syndicate pulling strings."
I stood too and blocked his path. "If you go in there guns blazing, you will die. They are expecting retaliation. They are probably waiting for you to find this information and do exactly what you are planning."
"So what do you suggest? That I do nothing? That I let them keep playing their games?"
"No. I suggest we be smart about this. We gather our own information. We find their weaknesses. We hit them where it hurts most." I grabbed his face and made him look at me. "But we do it together. You do not go alone."
Something shifted in his expression. The anger was still there, but underneath it I saw something else. Fear. Not for himself but for me. "I cannot let you walk into danger again. I almost lost you tonight."
"And I almost lost you a dozen times since this started. We are in this together now whether you like it or not." I let my hands drop but I did not step back. "Besides, they think I am just some girl who stumbled into the wrong place. They will not see me as a threat. I can get close in ways you never could."
"Absolutely not."
"You need me, Damien. You know you do. I can help you end this."
He stared at me for a long moment. The war happening behind his eyes was clear as day. He wanted to protect me. Wanted to lock me away somewhere safe. But he also knew I was right. The Syndicate had underestimated me once. They would do it again.
"Fine," he said finally. "But you do exactly what I say. No running off. No playing hero. You stay close to me at all times."
"Deal."
He turned back to the laptop and pulled up the meeting details. "Three days. That gives us time to plan. Time to gather weapons and manpower. Time to make sure we do not walk into another trap."
"What about Victor? Should we tell him what we found?"
"No. Not yet. If The Syndicate has people in my organization they probably have people in his too. The fewer people who know about this, the better." He closed the laptop and looked at me. "Get some rest. We have a lot of work to do."
But I could not rest. Not with adrenaline still pumping through my veins. Not with the memory of that needle coming toward my arm. Not with the knowledge that in three days we would be walking into a room full of people who wanted us dead.
Damien must have seen it on my face because he pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. I buried my face in his chest and breathed in his smell. Leather and smoke and something uniquely him.
"We are going to end this," he said against my hair. "And then you are going to be free. Free from all of it."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to think that freedom was possible. But deep down, I knew the truth. Once you stepped into this world, you never really left it. The darkness always found a way to pull you back.
Three days later we stood outside the warehouse, and Damien checked his gun one last time. "Ready?" he asked.
I nodded even though my heart was racing. "Ready."
We walked toward the door together and I knew nothing would ever be the same.