21. Roman
ROMAN
T he drive back to the estate felt like a funeral procession—silent, suffocating, heavy with the weight of decisions that couldn’t be undone. My knuckles were still tight from gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled rage coursing through my veins as two betrayals warred in my chest.
Pregnant. The word echoed in my skull like a death knell.
She’d hidden it from me. While I’d been laying my life on the line to protect her, she’d been keeping the most important secret of all. The heir to everything I’d built, growing inside her body, and she’d said nothing.
And somewhere in my organization, a mole was feeding intelligence to my enemies. Someone I trusted, someone who’d sat at my table and sworn loyalty, was working to destroy everything my father had built. Two knives in my back, twisting deeper with every breath.
The taste of betrayal was bitter as copper in my mouth.
The estate gates loomed ahead, wrought iron twisted into Celtic knots that spoke of old power and older secrets. Home. Or what passed for it in a world where sentiment was weakness and love was a target painted on your back.
Declan arrived a few minutes before me and was waiting in the marble foyer when I walked through the front doors, his pale eyes scanning my face with the efficiency of a man who’d learned to read danger in a glance. He didn’t comment on the way my shoulders carried violence like a second skin.
He just nodded toward the stairs that led to the basement levels.
"He’s downstairs."
Two words that carried the weight of judgment, of justice served cold in rooms where screams couldn’t reach the outside world.
I followed him down, past the wine cellar with its imported bottles worth more than most people’s houses, past the storage rooms filled with legitimate business records that masked the real empire underneath.
The interrogation room was stark concrete and exposed pipes, lit by a single bulb that cast harsh shadows across every surface. And there, tied to a steel chair in the center of it all, was Sean.
My personal bodyguard. The man who’d taken a bullet for me just days ago, who’d limped through that warehouse disaster with his leg torn open by shrapnel.
Fresh bandages wrapped around his thigh were already stained with blood—the wound had reopened during whatever struggle had brought him here.
His face was a map of fresh bruises, his lip split, and his eyes—those loyal eyes that had watched my back for more years than I could count—were bright with defiance.
"Roman." His voice was hoarse but steady. "Thank fuck. Tell this bastard he’s got the wrong man."
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because looking at him—really looking—I saw all the opportunities he’d had. All the conversations he’d overheard, all the meetings where he’d stood silent in corners, absorbing intelligence like a sponge.
Declan moved to a metal table against the wall, retrieving something wrapped in black cloth.
"Found this hidden in his quarters," he said, unwrapping a burner phone with the reverence of a priest handling sacred relics.
"Twenty-three calls to a known associate of the Torrino family. All made in the last month."
The phone looked innocuous enough—cheap plastic and worn edges. But in my world, communication was currency, and unauthorized contact with rival families was treason punishable by death.
"That’s not mine," Sean said immediately, his Irish accent thicker with stress. "I’ve never seen that fucking thing in my life."
"Liar." The word came out of me like a blade. I crossed the room in three strides, my fist connecting with his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. The sound echoed off concrete walls like a gunshot.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes never wavered. "Roman, I swear on my mother’s grave?—"
I hit him again. Harder. The chair rocked backward, and for a moment, I thought it might tip over completely. But Sean righted himself, spitting blood onto the floor between us.
"Loyalty doesn’t stutter, Sean," I said. "It doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t make excuses."
"I’m not making excuses!" His voice cracked with desperation. "I’m telling you the truth! Someone planted that phone, someone who wants you to think?—"
"Who?" I grabbed his shirt, hauling him forward until our faces were inches apart. "Who would want to frame you? Who has access to your quarters? Who knows your routines well enough to plant evidence?"
Sean’s eyes darted to Declan, then back to me. "Roman, think about it. The timing, the convenience?—"
"The timing is perfect," I snarled. "Three security breaches, three operations compromised, and you were present for all of them. You knew the warehouse location. You knew about the Torrino meeting. You were there when we discussed the Baltimore operation."
"So was everyone else in your inner circle!"
"But they don’t have access to my schedule. They don’t always sleep in the same house. They don’t know when I’m vulnerable."
The truth of it hit me like ice water. Sean wasn’t just my bodyguard—he was my shadow. He knew my habits, my weaknesses, my blind spots. If anyone could have fed intelligence to my enemies, it was the man I’d trusted to watch my back.
All the rage burning in my chest—Cassie’s betrayal, the mole in my organization, the constant weight of leadership crushing down on me—crystallized into something pure and lethal.
Every muscle in my body coiled tight, every nerve ending screaming for violence, for the kind of justice that could only be delivered with blood.
"The warehouse explosion killed four of my men," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than any shout. "Good men. Loyal men. Fathers and sons who trusted me to bring them home alive."
"Roman, please?—"
"Did they pay you well, Sean? Was it worth the blood on your hands?"
"I didn’t?—"
"Did they promise you territory? Power? A seat at their table once I was dead?"
"Roman, listen to me?—"
I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster, the weight of it familiar and comforting in my grip. Sean’s eyes widened, but he didn’t beg. Didn’t grovel. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t a coward.
"Last chance," I said, pressing the barrel against his forehead. "The truth."
"I am telling you the truth." His voice was steady now, resigned. "I never betrayed you. I never betrayed this family. And if you pull that trigger, you’re going to realize too late that you killed the wrong man."
For a moment—just a moment—doubt flickered in my chest. Sean had been loyal for over a decade. Had taken bullets, had stood between me and death without hesitation. But loyalty could be bought, and everyone had a price.
The gun felt heavier in my hand as I thought about Cassie lying in that hospital bed, her face pale with exhaustion and secrets. About the child growing inside her—my child—who would inherit a world where trust was poison and love was weakness.
I thought about my father’s voice, echoing across the years: "Betrayal is a disease, son. Cut it out before it spreads, or it’ll rot everything you’ve built from the inside."
The explosion of the gunshot was deafening in the concrete room.
Sean’s body slumped forward, held upright only by the ropes binding him to the chair. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and spreading, reflecting the harsh light like a mirror made of violence.
Silence followed. Complete, absolute silence that seemed to press against my eardrums like a physical weight.
I stood there for long seconds, the gun still warm in my hand, watching the life drain out of a man who’d once taken a bullet meant for me. The smell of gunpowder and copper filled the air, familiar as my cologne.
"You did the right thing."
Declan’s voice cut through the silence like a blade. I turned to find him watching the spreading pool of blood with something that looked almost like satisfaction. Not grief for a fallen comrade, not regret for a life lost—satisfaction.
The observation lodged in my brain like a splinter, sharp and uncomfortable. But I pushed it down, buried it beneath layers of justification and necessity. Sean had been the mole. The evidence was clear. Justice had been served.
I holstered my weapon and headed for the door without a word, leaving Declan to handle the cleanup. The walk back upstairs felt longer than the descent, each step carrying me further from the man I’d been and closer to something harder, colder.
By the time I reached the main floor, the mask had settled back into place—Roman Creed, untouchable and uncompromising, the kind of man who killed without hesitation when loyalty was questioned.
But underneath the armor, in the spaces between heartbeats, I couldn’t shake the image of Sean’s eyes in those final moments. Not the eyes of a traitor caught in lies, but the eyes of a man who knew he was about to die. I just hoped it wasn’t for someone else’s sins.