The First Strike

The First Strike
Sofia’s POV

The drive back from the safehouse was quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that meant peace.

It was the kind that buzzed under your skin. The kind that made your stomach twist because you knew the moment you opened your mouth, you were going to say something that couldn’t be unsaid.

Leandro kept one hand on the wheel, the other on his thigh, fingers tapping slowly. Like he was thinking too fast for his body to keep up. The streetlights cast soft gold shadows across his face, but there was nothing soft about his expression.

He was a storm.

And I was sitting in the eye of it.

“I think we need to talk to Lucas,” I said finally.

His jaw clenched. “I already did.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Two nights ago. Before the raid. He said he didn’t know how the guest list got leaked. Acted surprised. Said maybe someone from security got sloppy.”

“Do you believe him?”

Leandro didn’t answer right away. “I want to. He’s been with me since the beginning.”

“But?”

“But he knows everything. Too much. If anyone could clean up a leak or plant a false list to frame you, it’s him.”

Silence again.

I looked out the window, my fingers curling around the seatbelt.

“You think he would do that to you?”

“I think anyone’s capable of anything when the right pressure is applied.”

His voice was quiet. Not bitter. Just… honest.

I didn’t know what hurt more, the idea of Lucas being the traitor, or the fact that Leandro sounded like he expected it. Like part of him had already accepted that betrayal was just another cost of power.

When we pulled into the private garage under the house, he didn’t get out right away.

Neither did I.

He turned toward me in the dim glow of the lights. “You sure you’re okay being this deep in it?”

I met his gaze. “I’m already in it, Leandro. We both are. Whether we like it or not.”

He reached over, brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. His touch was warm, but his eyes were tired. Worn.

“I don’t want to see you hurt because of me.”

“Then let me help. Let’s figure this out together.”

\---

We didn’t sleep that night.

Instead, we sat in his private study, large leather chairs, dim desk lamps, and the faint hum of a whiskey being uncorked. He poured himself a glass but didn’t drink it. Just held it in his hand, swirling it slowly.

We went through names. Cross-checked logs. Looked at internal movement between the day the footage had been pulled and the day the guest list was leaked.

One name kept showing up in places it shouldn’t have.

Marco Delgado.

“Isn’t he one of your auditors?” I asked.

Leandro nodded slowly. “He was assigned to Ros’Notte’s financial wing two months ago. He has access to the archives.”

“And you trust him?”

Leandro hesitated.

That told me everything.

“I want to question him myself,” he said, standing up and setting the untouched whiskey down. “If he’s clean, fine. If not…”

“Then we deal with it.”

He glanced at me, surprised.

“What?” I said. “I’ve seen what you do, Leandro. I know what world I’ve walked into. I’m not going to flinch now.”

His expression was unreadable for a second. Then, something like approval flickered through his eyes.

“You’re stronger than I gave you credit for.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to back down.”

“Either way,” he murmured, “I like it.”

\---

Marco was brought in the next morning.

He didn’t know it was a trap.

He walked into Leandro’s office like it was any other day, pressed shirt, polite smile, a small laptop bag slung over his shoulder. He greeted the guards at the door. Nodded to me as if we were meeting at a business luncheon.

Then he saw Leandro’s face.

And the color started to drain from his.

“Boss,” he said slowly. “Didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

“Marco,” Leandro said calmly, motioning to the chair across from him. “Sit.”

Marco sat.

His hands didn’t shake. But they were too still. Too perfect.

“I need you to walk me through a couple of system accesses you made last week,” Leandro said, sliding a folder across the table. “Explain why your ID shows up at the East archive two nights before the raid.”

Marco opened the folder.

Saw the security log.

And paused just a second too long.

“I was… doing some cleanup,” he said finally. “Clearing duplicate logs. It was routine.”

“Was it routine to also request a password reset for the off-site backup server?”

Marco looked up. “I didn’t do that.”

“Really? Because the IP address matches the one from your company laptop. The one assigned to you personally.”

Silence.

And then, Marco did the dumbest thing he could’ve done.

He ran.

He shoved the chair back, leapt to his feet, and bolted for the door.

He didn’t make it halfway before Leandro’s guards tackled him to the floor.

No guns. No screaming. Just brutal efficiency.

Leandro stood slowly, walked over to where Marco was struggling, and crouched down beside him.

“You should’ve stayed loyal,” he said quietly.

Marco didn’t say a word. Just stared up at him with a mix of rage and panic in his eyes.

“You don’t want to talk?” Leandro said. “Fine. You’ll talk eventually. Everyone does.”

He stood and nodded once. The guards dragged Marco out of the room.

I stood there watching, chest tight, mind racing.

“That was fast,” I whispered.

Leandro turned toward me. “This was just the first crack.”

“You think there are more?”

“There are always more.”

Later that day, he made another call. Quiet, low-key. Someone on the inside who specialized in tracing digital footprints. Someone who could dig deep into the corruption without alerting the rest of the organization.

And that night, Leandro let me stay close.

No walls. No distance.

He wrapped his arms around me in bed and held me like I was the only thing anchoring him to what was still real.

“I don’t know how this ends,” he whispered against my shoulder.

“Then we find out together,” I whispered back.

And we fell asleep like that, tangled in each other, while the rest of the world started to burn.