Page 60 of Until the Ink runs Crimson

I open a digital folder on the iPad Lazaro passes me—its screen glowing with the De Corsi crest—and my stomach knots instantly.

It’s not the symbol itself. It’s what it stands for. The instant the folder expands, I know I’ve opened something vile. Just thumbnails alone are enough to make me want to throw the whole device through the wall.

Footage. Manifests. Spreadsheets coded in indifference. Every file is another scream that went unheard. Every log is another life sold off like cargo.

I almost gag, but I force myself not to. I grip the edge of the desk and breathe through my teeth, locking my focus in place. There’s no running away. Not anymore.

The screen floods with data—video files, shipping manifests, encoded logs. A sickening trail of logistics and depravity. Girls. So many girls. Their names are redacted, but the timestamps, the footage—grainy clips of them being herded into shipping containers, stripped of dignity and identity—are all there. Click by click, the screen turns into a graveyard.

Some are barely teenagers. Most look terrified. Some aren’t moving at all.

I scroll deeper, ignoring the bile rising in my throat. I won’t look away. I can’t. Every line of code, every manifest, every fucking transaction... it’s evidence. It’s power. And it’s going to bury him.

"Fucking sick bastard," Aaron mutters beside me, eyes locked on the screen.

"This is what Zano De Corsi built his empire on," I say, my voice shaking but unwavering. "Chains, blood, and lies."

I mean every fucking word.

"He’s not just going down," Ethan growls. "He’s gonna wish he never crawled out of whatever sewer he was born in."

Lazaro nods, voice low and lethal. "We’re not just exposing him. We’re erasing him."

We upload the dossier to every black-market server we have access to. Syndicate heads, allies, fence-sitters. If you’ve got power, you’re getting the file.

Hours pass like a blur. Somewhere between the third and fourth round of coffee, Ethan grumbles about needing to crash before his eyes bleed and disappears with Aaron not far behind. Even Lucrezia finally steps out, muttering about reorganizing her notes upstairs—but I know she’s going to sleep. They’ve earned it. We all have.

But neither of us moves.

Now it’s just Lazaro and me, alone in the low light of the archive floor, laptops humming and screens flashing as intel continues to roll in.

Attached is Lazaro’s message: Support him, and you die with him.

We sit side by side on the worn leather couch, both of us hunched over laptops and iPads, surviving on shitty coffee and pure adrenaline. I’m pretty sure none of us have slept in over twenty-four hours, but the energy in the room is electric—sharp and buzzing with purpose.

Lazaro watches the screen, then glances over at me. "You need rest, Calla."

I just smile without looking up. "Once this is done, we’re getting all the rest in the world."

He leans in, murmuring near my ear, voice low and smug. "I’m not letting you rest. Not when I’ve got plans for that mouth."

I laugh, nearly snorting coffee down my throat. "You’re such an asshole."

"And you love it," he smirks, eyes still on the flood of encrypted messages hitting the screen.

One by one, alliances shatter. Zano’s so-called loyalists drop like flies, falling all over themselves to backpedal and distance themselves from the De Corsi name. Good. Let them crawl.

This is just the beginning.

"Don Arvelo just pulled out," Lazaro mutters.

I cock a brow. "Wasn’t he balls-deep in Zano’s accounts?"

"Yeah. He ran the Bolivian ports. Now he wants distance."

I smirk. "Cowards always run when the fire starts."

Lazaro looks at me with an intense heat in his gaze. "You didn’t just weaken him. You gutted him."

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