Chapter 29
I spend most of the drive back from Sacramento staring at the Central Valley, and not saying a word to Anton or Gabriel. There are no excuses, no apologies for what I've brought to our family.
I made bad choices to build good things, and somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that was just how it worked. That the end justified the means. That if the result was noble, the method didn't matter.
Over the years, watching criminals go down, even getting convicted for crimes they committed fifty years ago, I realized my faith forgot to mention something very important about God's forgiveness.
You can't wash away sin while you're still living.
You can't build something pure on a rotten foundation and expect it to hold forever.
You can pour everything you have into it — your time, your sweat, your every fucking waking hour, over a decade of doing things right — and it still won't hold.
Because the rot doesn't care how hard you worked after. It just waits to crumble.
My whole family knows the total scope of what I've done. I've had to be honest and reveal my true self for the first time. And damn is the feeling raw. My family's security, everything I built to protect them, is cracking at the base because of decisions I made.
I did this.
And their immediate concern for my safety, my future, makes it sting even more.
The gates close behind the car. I’m out before the engine stops, crossing the grounds with the focus. The weight of it all is like lead in my shoes as I head to the Monarch Hills offices to tell my brother Luther has just given me a promotion.
Enzo looks up as soon as I push through the door. He reads my face in about half a second and puts his coffee down.
"Where's Delilah?" I ask first.
"Just outside. Tina needed out. Vance is with her." He pauses. "She's fine."
I nod once. Drag a chair out and sit. "How far are we with evidence?"
He studies me. "How bad was it?"
"Bad enough." I glance at Ava. "Give me what you've got first. Then I'll tell you about Luther."
Ava turns from her screens. "Cheryl Hartman's address on Watt Avenue.
I've hacked into Ring doorbell footage from three neighboring properties, and I'm working through timestamps to find the right window.
I need to get to the day the women left Diamond Dolls and trace forward.
I've confirmed Rourke's vehicle at that address multiple times in the last ten days.
" She pauses. "I haven't got a visual on Isabel yet, but I'm close. With Gabriel and Anton back, we can get through the footage faster.”
"And Beatriz?"
"She’s still at her confirmed location. She hasn't been moved."
I nod. "The financial records?"
Ava pulls up another screen. "The girls have been sold." She turns to face me fully. "But the crypto transactions — the payments from the buyers — they're still processing through. The money hasn't landed in the final account yet." She holds my gaze. "So the women haven’t been handed over.”
The room goes very still.
They're still here.
A tightness releases in my chest but what rushes in isn't relief.
"How long before the transactions clear?" I ask.
"Hard to say exactly. Could be hours. Could be days. I can see how the money is being washed, but I can’t predict how many times they’ll do it before they decide it’s clean.
" She says. “We need to start the warrant process. Delilah’s an eyewitness. We need to see if the Feds have anything on IC already. Something we can latch on to by adding Delilah to the mix.”
Enzo stretches his arms overhead next to me. They've been at this for hours. Not just for the women, but for me. And Delilah. Guilt gnaws at my insides.
"We're getting there with the financial records," Enzo says, replacing his glasses. "I can tie both shell companies directly to Marcus. We're tracking the buyers, tracing back to see if we can find previous victims."
He's tired. I can see it in the lines around his eyes.
They’ve worked their asses off, but none of this is legally admissible. Only Delilah’s testimony can be handed over. It could be enough for a warrant, but it’s unlikely. We need more. Something we could have legally obtained.
The door opens before I can respond.
Delilah steps inside with Tina at her heel, her dark hair loose and windswept around her shoulders. Her eyes go straight to mine, and whatever she sees there makes her pause in the doorway for just a beat longer than normal.
She looks worried. I hate that I'm the reason for it.
She closes the door behind her.
"You're back," she says.
"Just now." I hold her gaze for a moment. There's too much in it to say in front of everyone and not enough time to say any of it. "Come sit."
She unclips Tina, who makes a beeline for my leg. Damn dog nearly makes me smile even in the middle of this shitstorm.
Delilah crosses the room and takes the chair beside mine. Her knee presses against mine and stays there. Neither of us moves away. I grab Tina from the floor and settle her in my lap.
"So what happened?" Delilah asks.
There's a version of this conversation where I don't say the next part. Where I find a way to handle Luther without her ever knowing what he said in that bar. But I won’t reduce her to a transaction between two men who think they get to decide.
She deserves the truth. A chance for agency. She always has.
"Luther knows you’re here and he wants you back tomorrow.” The words taste like acid.
She stills.
I place my hand on her thigh before she can spiral into whatever dark place that just sent her.
"That's not happening." The words come out low and absolute. "You're not his. You haven't been his since the second you walked into my office, and you're sure as hell not his now." I hold her gaze. "You're free, Delilah. Free to choose where you belong. And you belong here.”
Her expression cracks open, flooded with a feeling she’s never let me see. Hope.
She spent her whole life believing freedom meant leaving and belonging meant being owned. Nobody ever told her there was a third option.
Neither of us moves for a moment. The room is quiet around us, and I'm aware of Enzo and Ava giving us whatever space two people can give in a small office, their eyes carefully elsewhere.
But work needs to be done. Delilah can’t stay here at Monarch Hills just because I’ve said it.
Enzo clears his throat quietly. "What else did Luther want?"
I turn back to them. "Full GhostEye access.
Drug networks, distribution chains, real-time intelligence on competition.
" I pause. "That’s what Marcus gets out of the alliance. But Luther only talked about drugs and didn’t confirm that he had any idea that human trafficking was happening.
Thankfully, he did confirm that nobody but him knows about my involvement with Black Ridge. "
Enzo and Ava exchange a look of hesitant relief.
"We'll figure out what to do with that, hermano," Enzo says.
As always, my brother. A rock.
I know it all matters, but my main concern right now is Luther arriving at our gates tomorrow.” I try to keep the urgency out of my voice. I don’t want to worry or alarm Delilah because she’s safe here. I’ll make sure she’s protected.
"If Marcus gets raided or we can bring him into custody somehow — if there's real heat on him — the alliance stalls. The whole reason Luther needs her disappears. He only needs to marry Delilah to seal the alliance. Iron Covenant needs to crack before tomorrow."
The objective is clear, but the room falls silent because, without even a warrant in our hands at this point, that feels like a distant prospect. Even with Delilah as a witness, the federal process is slower. We can’t go local because of Marcus’s connections.
These problems exist even though, right now, with Luther staking a claim on Delilah, I’m ready to throw myself on the flames. But saving Delilah through my own sacrifice still leaves my family on hot coals.
"How close are we?" She looks at Ava directly.
"We’ll get there," Ava says flicking, her gaze back to me, urging me to explain to Delilah myself how complicated this is.
Delilah’s no fool and reads the room instantly. She glances down at her hands.
I reach over and cover them with mine.
“What about finding something else on Marcus? Not the women but the drugs. Another federal charge? Murdock owes us a fast track after the last case we helped her with.”
Enzo is already shaking his head. "Rio—"
I already know what he's going to say.
Impossible.
"Even if we get the warrant tonight, and that's not guaranteed, the Feds still need time to build on a case legitimately. Do it in a way that actually sticks." Enzo holds my gaze. "Luther's deadline is tomorrow. The warrant process alone could eat that entire window."
But I feel Delilah's hands under mine. I want to keep her here and away from Luther. Still, I also think about what it would mean to hand her those two women.
It’s a double-edged sword. If we compromise the trafficking case to keep Delilah free, her freedom will be choked by guilt.
Rushing doesn't solve anything.
It just makes me feel like I'm doing something.
Delilah gives me a soft smile that's something like defeat, a smile that’s meant to comfort me, but the sliver of resignation on the corner of her mouth sends a shiver creeping up my spine.
"What can we do about Luther?" Ava asks, circling back to the other clusterfuck. “Just to be sure I understand,” she continues. “He's the only one, Rio? The only person who knows about you and Black Ridge?”
“Apart from us.” I run my fingers through my hair. "I told him I wouldn't be in anybody's pocket but his. He confirmed. As far as I know, it's just him."
She nods, slowly, already calculating.
Enzo takes a quick sip of coffee. " Let’s not make decisions that don’t need to be made just yet.
Twenty hours is a lot. We have others in headquarters working on some of the legal routes.
David. And I handed him two people from my team as well.
Plus, Gabriel and Anton can run through footage and files once we pull them here. That’s a lot of hands on deck.”
Ava turns back to her screens. I don't miss her tight shoulders — my brother and his fiancée running themselves into the ground for something that started with my mistakes.
"Okay," I say. "We keep going."
The room goes quiet, save for the clicking of Enzo’s mouse and Ava's ASMR keyboard.
We have until tomorrow.
I've built an entire life on never being unprepared. On having the next move ready before I need it. On keeping everything controlled and three steps ahead. Right now, every move I can see leads somewhere I don't want to go.
The case needs more time than we have. Every professional instinct I've built over all these years is telling me the right call is to wait — be patient, build it properly, do this in a way that saves not just these two women, but every woman who came before, and prevent any from coming after.
But Delilah can’t go back there. She can’t.
"Rio—" Delilah’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
She stands, Tina in her arms, cutting through the spiral before it pulls me under completely. There's a certainty in her fierce gaze as if she already knows how this ends. It fucking scares me.
"We need to go talk about this somewhere else."