Chapter forty-eight
Dion
My father found us once more, walking closer as if this was a stroll in the park.
Riven looked seconds away from putting a bullet through my father’s skull.
Honestly? Part of me wanted him to. The underground chamber had gone eerily quiet after Naoya admitted Olympus approved the crash.
Bodies bled across the concrete floor while red emergency lights painted the cages and tunnels like something straight out of hell. And through all of it?
Naoya stayed calm. That was the worst part. Not angry, not defensive, not even afraid. He was calm. Like Nadia being half-dead upstairs in a hospital bed was just unfortunate collateral damage instead of a girl he’d been hunting her entire fucking life. Riven grabbed me again.
“You don’t get to walk away from this.” Naoya’s eyes shifted toward him slowly.
“I already have.”
Then headlights flooded the tunnel entrance behind us.
Everybody turned instantly. More SUVs, but these weren’t Olympus.
The first thing I saw was Pop stepping out of a black truck with a shotgun already in his hands.
Then Deck, followed by Abby, Shane, Skylar, Hatchet.
Even Roxy climbed out behind them, looking pale and furious.
The entire chamber shifted instantly. Olympus operatives raised weapons. So did ours. One wrong movement and the whole tunnel was about to become a massacre.
“What the fuck is this?” Deck barked the second he saw the cages.
Nobody answered him. Because honestly? How could you? How do you explain decades of trafficking, disappearances, gang manipulation, and buried tunnels underneath the town you grew up in? You couldn’t.
Pop’s eyes swept across the chamber slowly. I knew what he saw. The files. The restraints. The photographs. Then, Naoya. Recognition flashed across his face instantly. Recognition that soon molted into rage.
“You fucking bastard.” Pop sneered. Naoya looked mildly annoyed now more than anything else.
“Clive.”
“I always knew you were an old fucking coward.”
The soldiers around us stiffened as if the insult was hurled at them. Naoya’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Interesting. Because up until now? Nothing rattled him. Pop slowly stepped farther into the chamber.
“You hide under a mountain while kids kill each other for scraps upstairs?”
“You misunderstand the function of Stonebridge.”
“No,” Pop snapped coldly.
“I understand it perfectly now.”
The air between them suddenly felt ancient. Heavy, like whatever this was started long before any of us were born. Abby moved toward one of the walls covered in photographs, then froze.
“Oh, my god…”
Skylar covered her mouth instantly. Children, so many children. Missing faces from years of Stonebridge rumors and tragedies staring back at us from underground walls. Roxy looked physically ill.
“That’s the symbol.” She whispered suddenly. Everybody looked at her. She pointed shakily toward one of the folders stamped with the three pillars.
“My mom used to draw it when she was high.” Naoya’s attention shifted toward her immediately.
Sharp. Assessing. And for the first time all night? I saw genuine tension enter the room. Not because of Riven. Not because of Pop. Roxy.
“She said people followed her because of it,” Roxy continued quietly.
“Said they watched kids.” Naoya cut in immediately.
“Your mother was unstable.” Roxy flinched as he slapped her. Wrong move. Shane stepped in front of her instantly.
“The fuck did you just say?” Naoya ignored him completely. That same cold, detached expression returned.
“She was incapable of discipline.” Something dangerous crossed Pop’s face. Not anger, but hatred. Real hatred.
“You are standing in something much older than your gangs.” Pop scoffed bitterly.
“Yeah? And look how that turned out.” The soldiers shifted again uneasily.
Because this wasn’t going the way Olympus liked.
This was too emotional. Too exposed. Their secrets worked better in silence and shadows.
Not in rooms full of grieving people with loaded guns.
Deck crouched near one of the filing cabinets and yanked open a drawer.
Inside were stacks of financial ledgers.
Drug routes, weapons shipments, human movement. His expression darkened instantly.
“They’ve been funding everything.” Pop nodded once.
“Course they have.”
The realization spread through the room like poison.
The gangs weren’t independent. Never were.
Every territory war, every shipment, every race?
Olympus profited from all of it. The violence upstairs kept attention away from what happened below.
Riven suddenly laughed. Couldn’t be because anything was funny.
I think he was genuinely losing his mind.
“Nadia figured this out.” He muttered.
Nobody answered him. Because… yes. That’s exactly why they tried to kill her. Naoya finally looked back at me.
“You brought them here.”
“No,” I stared at him coldly.
“You did.”
That landed harder than I expected. Because suddenly I understood something awful: Olympus didn’t create Stonebridge alone.
People protected it. Ignored it. Benefited from it.
Stayed silent about it. Even now, standing inside a literal underground trafficking operation, Naoya still believed he was preserving order.
Pop suddenly raised the shotgun slightly.
“You should leave.” The operatives instantly aimed weapons, but so did ours. Naoya looked at the barrel pointed toward him, then at Pop.
“You would start a war?” Pop’s expression never changed.
“You started it years ago.” Thunder rumbled faintly through the mountain overhead. For one horrible second, I genuinely thought everybody was about to start shooting. Then Naoya adjusted his cuffs calmly.
“To continue this conversation now would be inefficient.” Riven took a step forward.
“Oh no, the fuck it wouldn’t.” But Naoya was already turning away.
And somehow? That scared me more. Because men like him only walked away when they still believed they were winning. Before anybody could stop him, the tunnel lights abruptly died. Darkness swallowed the chamber whole. Then smoke canisters hit the concrete floor.