Chapter 7 #2
The silence inside the SUV was suffocating, broken only by the uneven rhythm of my breathing.
Finally, he muttered a curse beneath his breath.
“Clean your tears.”
The engine rumbled to life.
He pulled away from the bungalow without another word.
I didn’t move.
If anything, my composure unraveled even further.
The tears came harder now, hot and relentless, dissolving into ugly, broken sobs that shook my entire body.
I wiped helplessly at my face with the sleeve of my cotton nightshirt, only to smear the tears across my cheeks.
My nose stung, my chest ached, and a dull headache began pounding behind my eyes.
I hated crying.
I hated feeling weak.
Most of all, I hated that Romeo was the one witnessing me at my lowest.
Outside, the quiet streets of Florida slipped past in a blur.
Beside me, Romeo remained silent.
The soft glow from the dashboard carved sharp lines across his face, emphasizing the hard set of his jaw and the distant look in his green eyes.
His expression revealed nothing.
He simply drove.
The farther we traveled, the quieter the roads became.
The bright lights of the city slowly disappeared behind us, replaced by stretches of industrial buildings and chain-link fencing.
Eventually, Romeo guided the SUV onto a long private road bordered by towering security fences crowned with razor wire.
The vehicle slowed before a sprawling two-story glass-and-steel facility.
At first glance, it resembled a modern engineering company.
Clean architecture. Tinted windows. Polished metal.
But one look beyond the main building told a different story.
Massive cranes towered over stacks of reinforced shipping containers.
Heavy industrial presses, steel frameworks, oversized engines, forklifts, and loading docks filled the enormous yard.
Armed security cameras rotated methodically from their mounts while floodlights cast long, unsettling shadows across the concrete.
Nothing about this place felt like an ordinary factory.
It looked like a business built to manufacture legitimate products by day...
And facilitate far darker operations after nightfall.
Romeo shifted the SUV into park.
For the first time since we’d left the bungalow, he looked directly at me.
His gaze lingered briefly on my swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks before drifting back to the windshield.
“Will you stay in the car,” he asked quietly, “or are you coming inside?”
I blinked.
The question genuinely caught me off guard.
I’d expected an order.
A command to stay put while the men handled their business.
Not a choice.
I turned toward him.
“I want to come.”
My voice was still rough from crying, but the answer came without hesitation.
For a moment, he simply watched me.
Then he gave a slight nod and reached inside his suit jacket.
Instinct immediately took over.
Every muscle in my body tensed.
I recoiled before I could stop myself.
In our world, a man reaching inside his jacket rarely meant anything good.
It meant a weapon.
Romeo noticed.
His movement paused for the briefest fraction of a second.
Something unreadable flickered across his face.
Then, almost imperceptibly, one corner of his mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
More an acknowledgment that he’d understood exactly why I’d flinched.
Slowly, he withdrew a sleek black handgun.
Instead of aiming it...
He turned it grip-first and placed it gently into my open palm.
Our fingers brushed.
The contact lasted barely a heartbeat.
Yet the unexpected warmth of his skin sent a strange current racing through me.
I hated myself for noticing.
I curled my fingers around the weapon instead.
Its familiar weight settled comfortably into my hand.
“I believe you know how to use one,” Romeo said.
His tone remained neutral, though there was unmistakable scrutiny behind the words.
He wasn’t asking. He was testing me.
“I do.”
I checked the weapon with practiced efficiency before securing my grip.
“My father made sure of it.”
A slow nod followed.
“I thought as much.”
Romeo climbed out of the SUV.
“Come.”
Cool night air greeted me the moment I stepped outside.
The breeze swept across the industrial yard, raising goosebumps along my bare arms.
Without thinking, I tucked the handgun securely into the waistband at the back of my shorts, where it rested comfortably against my lower back.
The familiar weight grounded me.
Growing up as daughters in a Bratva family hadn’t spared Yarina or me from training.
Quite the opposite.
Because my father had no sons to inherit his legacy, he insisted that both of us learn enough to survive.
Our childhood had been divided between ordinary lessons and brutal discipline.
Early morning conditioning. Hours of self-defense. Martial arts until our muscles gave out. Firearms practice until loading and firing became second nature.
Situational awareness. Escape tactics. How to recognize an ambush. How to survive one.
My father had never allowed us into the inner workings of the organization.
Women weren’t trusted with that kind of authority.
But he had made certain that if danger ever found us...
We wouldn’t be helpless.
Standing beneath the harsh security lights with a loaded gun tucked against my back, I silently thanked him for every painful lesson I’d once resented.
Romeo strode toward the building without a single glance over his shoulder, as though he never questioned whether I would follow.
I did.
Keeping pace a few steps behind him, I crossed the concrete yard in silence, the cool night air brushing against my bare legs.
Every instinct told me I didn’t belong here. Yet somehow, walking behind him felt safer than waiting alone in that empty bungalow.
The massive steel doors groaned open.
The moment we stepped inside, the atmosphere changed.
The cavernous hall resembled the hollow shell of an abandoned factory, its iron walls stretching high above us.
Thick steel beams crisscrossed the ceiling while aging machinery, wooden crates, and stacked shipping pallets created narrow lanes and pockets of shadow.
This wasn’t just a meeting place.
It was a battlefield waiting for permission to erupt.
On one side of the hall stood a crew that was unmistakably not Irish.
They carried themselves with a different kind of menace — sharper suits, heavier gold, and the kind of quiet arrogance I had learned to recognize long ago.
They looked like men from the Chicago outfit.
Growing up in the Bratva and attending those annual underground mafia balls had taught me how to read the room.
You could tell who was who by the way they dressed, the way they moved, the way they carried their weapons — subtle tells that most people missed, but I never did.
There were fewer of them, but every man carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to violence.
Assault rifles rested casually against their chests, fingers never far from the triggers.
And right now, every instinct screamed that these were the men Romeo had come to meet.
The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on.
Across from them stood Romeo’s men.
There were considerably more Irish soldiers, their tailored dark suits giving them the appearance of businessmen rather than killers.
Yet the slight bulges beneath their jackets made it obvious every one of them was armed.
Their hands rested loosely near concealed pistols, their expressions unreadable as they watched the visitors.
No one smiled. No one spoke.
The silence itself felt dangerous.
I tightened my grip behind my back, where the handgun rested securely against my waistband.
A man in his fifties finally stepped forward.
His thinning hair had surrendered to age, leaving only a ring of gray around an otherwise bald scalp.
Though broad through the shoulders, he was noticeably shorter than Keegan and almost looked insignificant beside Romeo’s imposing height.
The cold intelligence in his eyes erased any illusion of weakness.
“You promised twelve thousand units,” his voice echoed through the warehouse. “My men counted eleven thousand.”
His gaze hardened. “I don’t appreciate being cheated, Romeo Flynn.”
A younger man moved to stand at the older man’s side.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
The same sharp jaw. The same calculating eyes.
His son, I presumed.
“I paid you every fucking cent you demanded. Not a dollar short.”
The older Chicago boss’s voice thundered through the hall, each word carrying the force of a gunshot.
“I told you exactly how many weapons I needed. I told you what was at stake. Your men counted every dollar of the cash I paid—in front of my fucking eyes. And then they had the audacity to look me in the eye and tell me the shipment is a thousand weapons short.”
His jaw flexed.
“So tell me...”
“Where the fuck are my thousand missing guns?”
The hall fell deathly silent.
“I flew all the way from Chicago with my son because I chose to trust your word.”
He jabbed a finger toward Romeo.
“That was my mistake. You call yourself a man? You can’t even honor the first deal you make with my organization.”
His son took a subtle step forward as the Chicago crew instinctively closed ranks behind their boss.
The older man’s laugh was short, bitter, and devoid of humor.
“You inherited an empire that’s hanging together by threads.You’ve got enemies circling like vultures. Half the underworld still wants your head after what happened to your own blood. And this...”
He swept a hand toward the crates.
“This is how you choose to introduce yourself to Chicago? You’re either a liar...”
“Or you’re too weak to control your own fucking empire.”
His eyes darkened with murderous intent.
“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to produce my thousand missing weapons. Right Now.”
He paused, letting the silence suffocate the room.
“Or every man in this warehouse dies before sunrise.”
Not even for a second did fear touch Romeo’s face.
If anything, the old man’s threat seemed beneath his notice.
The only crack in his composure was a fleeting flicker of bewilderment.
It vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
His gaze shifted to Keegan.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.