Page 46 of The Mafia Bloodline
Then there was the courier. A rat-faced man with a broken nose and a half-collapsed jaw, sitting in a pool of his own blood. He talked fast, too fast, words tumbling over each other in terror. “Pier… drop point… Caesar moved…last night! He knew you’d come! He knew!”
Roman’s hand shot out, without even touching the man he dragged him up so fast his feet barely touched the ground. Roman didn’t usually use his powers unless he was starting to lose his shit. That is not something any of us want to see. “How?” His voice was calm, but it was the kind of calm that meant danger. “Who told him?”
The man’s eyes darted everywhere but at Roman’s face. “I…I don’t know! I swear! He said he had a whisper, that the brotherswere coming. He laughed when he said it, said he wanted to see how fast you’d run after his shadow.”
Roman’s started to close his hand into a fist which has the courier choking out a wet gasp. “A whisper from who?”
“Didn’t say!” the man croaked. “Didn’t say! Just said your blood is full of holes, someone close would always bleed for him!”
That was all it took for the temperature to plummet. Lucien’s jaw locked. Draugr’s eyes narrowed into slits. Viking snarled low in his throat. And me? I felt something inside my chest snap.
Because he was right. Someone had warned Caesar. Someone had betrayed us.
We moved through the rest of the warehouse like wolves on a scent, every sense flaring, every breath fuelled by rage.
There was proof of a cleanup, there was burned papers, footprints wiped, a few devices smashed and left smoking.
But even through the mess, we found the unmistakable traces of demon work:
The residue of blackened silver…the kind used to bind changeling blood in ritual.
A small sigil carved into the concrete floor, still slick with something dark that wasn’t entirely human. And the faint, bitter burn of ritual oil in the air, the signature stench of demon handlers who had been here, only hours before.
Caesar had slipped the net. But not alone.
Roman was silent as we stood in the centre of that empty room, the air still vibrating faintly with what had once been power.
He stared down at the sigil, his jaw a hard line. When he finally spoke, it was low and deadly.
“He knew.”
“Yes,” I said, voice raw. “He knew everything.”
Roman turned, his eyes sharp as glass. “We planned this strike less than twelve hours ago. No one outside the family and our direct teams knew. That means…”
“There’s a leak, and it’s from someone close.” I finished for him.
His silence was answer enough.
Lucien stepped out of the shadows, wiping a streak of ash off his blade with clinical calm. “Someone fed him our timeline. The demons cleaned the trail, but not fast enough to cover the scent of fear. Whoever warned him wasn’t just guessing, they knew our entry points, our timing, our men.”
Viking’s fist slammed into the nearest crate, splintering it clean in half. “That bastard’s got a ghost in our ranks. I’ll gut every contact until I find them.”
Roman didn’t look up. “You’ll do nothing until we have proof.”
I clenched my jaw, forcing down the growl building in my throat. “Proof? You saw what we walked into…an empty den, blood still drying, his little flag left for us like a fucking joke. That’s all the proof I need.”
Roman’s eyes snapped to mine, sharp and cutting. “You think I’m not furious too? You think I don’t want his head nailed to the gates? But rage without reason will get more of us killed. We do this smart, or not at all.”
I stepped closer, my voice low. “He’s making a mockery of us, Roman. Of our name.”
Roman exhaled slowly, his hand flexing once at his side. “Then we take that name back. But we do it our way. We find the leak, and we use it.”
Draugr’s rumbling voice broke in then. “You think it’s Caesar’s men?”
Roman’s gaze flicked toward him. “No. Caesar’s too careful. He knows we’ll kill any of his rats. If he’s still breathing, it’s because someone he trusts, or someone we trust is feeding him. And that means this betrayal isn’t from the outside.”
A chill crawled up my spine. “It’s someone inside our network.”
