Chapter 8 - The Interrogation
The smoke from the hallway cleared slowly as Damen dragged the conscious intruder into the center of the master bedroom, shoving him down hard onto his knees.
The man’s tactical helmet had been knocked loose, revealing a scarred, middle-aged face with a jagged tattoo of a coiled serpent along his jawline—the unmistakable insignia of the Giordano family’s private enforcement wing.
Damen stood over him, the barrel of his pistol resting casually against the man's forehead.
"Who sent you?" Damen asked, his voice dropping into a register so cold it made the air in the room feel sub-zero. "Did Antonio Giordano authorize a hit on my estate, or did my prospective father-in-law decide he wanted to renegotiate the merger with blood?"
The man spat a glob of blood onto the hardwood floor, letting out a harsh, defiant laugh. "You think old man Giordano ordered this, Moretti? Think again. You’ve got bigger rats in your own walls than you realize."
I stepped out of the bathroom, my arms crossed over my chest, staring down at the operative. "What are you talking about?"
The man looked up at me, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. "Ask your husband who was managing the offshore accounts while you were playing dead in a diner in Chicago, sweetheart. Someone inside his own inner circle sold the safehouse location to Vanguard and the Giordano syndicates simultaneously. You were betrayed from the inside before you even walked through that front door."
Damen’s jaw tightened so hard I thought the bone would crack. Without a word of warning, he pistol-whipped the operative across the temple. The man slumped sideways onto the floor, unconscious.
Damen slowly lowered his weapon, his mind racing through names, faces, and security protocols.
"Marco," Damen muttered, staring at the empty doorway. "Or Tomas."
"No," I said, stepping closer to him, my voice cutting through his spiraling thoughts. "It wasn't Marco, and it wasn't Tomas. They’ve bled for you for a decade. Look at the tactical pattern—the way they cleared the stairs. This wasn't local syndicate work. This was federal-grade extraction."
Damen turned his head, looking at me with sharp intensity. "What are you saying?"
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"I'm saying someone inside the U.S. Attorney’s office leaked our location," I said, the pieces clicking together in my mind with terrifying clarity. "Julian Vance didn't just come to our house to threaten us. He was a distraction. Someone else used his chaos to track our digital footprint right to this estate."
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