206 My Mafia Fiancé Made Me Give Up My Bridal Car For His "Childhood Best Friend"—So I Let Him Take the Fall and Smashed His Entire Empire to the Ground

"Don't pull the plug, Leo," I said quietly, watching the numbers climb. 94%.

Marcus looked at me in disbelief, his hand twitching on his belt. "Evelyn, if that data clears, we lose the primary chain of custody. We won't be able to touch the federal judges or the political network protecting the DeLuca family."

"We won't need the local drive to touch them," I replied, my mind racing back through every dinner party, every quiet conversation in this very room, and every piece of paperwork Adrian had carelessly left on his desk during our engagement.

Adrian thought he kept his secrets locked away in encrypted servers. But Adrian was arrogant, and arrogant men always keep physical backups of the things they are terrified of losing.

I walked past Leo, ignoring the glowing monitor, and stopped in front of a heavy mahogany bookshelf lining the back wall of the office. I reached up and pulled out a leather-bound volume of Shakespeare's complete works—a book Adrian had claimed his grandfather gave him.

Except the pages weren't paper. They had been carefully hollowed out to hold a thick stack of vintage Polaroid photographs and handwritten ledger pages, signed in ink by a very familiar hand.

I pulled the stack out and flipped through the pages. Every signature bore the formal, elegant handwriting of Judge Thomas Vance.

Marcus stepped over, shining his light down on the pages. His breath caught in his throat. "My brother's signature. Dating back five years. These aren't digital files, Evelyn. These are original, signed extortion receipts."

"Adrian never trusted digital storage for the really dangerous leverage," I said, holding the stack of papers against my chest. "He told me once that men like judges and politicians only understand ink and paper because it's the only thing they can't delete remotely."

Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the office swung open with a loud crash.

Lily Crawford stood in the doorway, flanked by two private security contractors wearing tactical vests and holding suppressed submachine guns. Her hair was slightly disheveled, her calm corporate veneer finally cracking into raw, furious panic.

"Put those down, Evelyn," Lily hissed, her voice sharp as glass. "You don't know what you're holding."

Marcus instantly drew his weapon, stepping in front of me and leveling his service pistol directly at the lead security guard. "FBI! Drop your weapons! You are pointing firearms at federal officers!"

The security guards hesitated, looking between Marcus's badge and Lily's desperate expression.

Lily didn't look at the guards. She stared straight into my eyes, her chest heaving. "You think you've outsmarted everyone, don't you, little rich girl? You think Adrian was the monster of this story? Adrian was just a dog I kept on a very short leash. If you hand those papers to the federal government, you aren't just destroying a crime family—you're collapsing the entire financial infrastructure of downtown Chicago. Half the banks, half the city council, and every major developer in this state will fall with it."

I looked down at the signed papers in my hands, then back up at Lily. The pieces finally formed a complete, horrifying picture.