Chapter Twenty-Two
Maverick
(Three days ago)
Chris Olsen sits at Patch’s kitchen table, his elbows braced on the scarred wood and his hands covering his face.
The man looks like he’s aged ten years since walking through the door.
“I can’t believe everything was a lie,” he says, voice muffled behind his palms. “I’ve been working for them almost a year, and they’ve been using me?”
Patch’s cabin is quiet around us.
Only men, weapons, and the kind of truth that ruins whatever peace a man thought he had.
“I need you to focus, boy,” I tell him.
Chris drops his hands and looks at me with red-rimmed eyes.
Truck driver. Father. Widower. A man who thought he was earning a living hauling freight for a company that paid decently and on time.
Now he’s sitting across from me with the knowledge that the cargo he refused to deliver this morning contained people.
Not boxes.
Not furniture.
People.
“Has your boss reached out about your truck not showing up to port this morning?” I ask.
“Not yet,” Chris says, blowing out a shaky breath. “But it’s only a matter of time.” His eyes lift to mine. “Are those people safe?”
“They’ve been transported to a hospital,” Stefano tells him gently. “You did the right thing reaching out to us.”
Chris nods, but it does nothing to ease the horror in his expression.
“I knew something was off,” he says. “I heard something in the back once.”
“What did you hear?” Spike asks.
Chris swallows. “A sound. Like something hit the wall. Maybe a cry. I don’t know. I told myself it was cargo shifting because that’s what they told me it would be.”
“They told you not to open the doors,” I guess.
He nods. “My boss said every time the trailer doors open, it logs into the system. He said if I opened them without authorization, I’d be fired and blacklisted from every decent trucking company in the country.”
“So you kept driving.”
His face twists with guilt. “I have a daughter. A mortgage. I told myself it wasn’t my business.”
“It became your business this morning,” Patch says.
Chris’s eyes close. “Yeah. I heard a noise, and I just knew it was a person.”
“How did you find me?” I ask.
His eyes open.
“Your name is still registered as the owner of my truck.”
The words sit in the room for a moment.
Beside me, Stefano goes completely still.
“My name?” I ask.
Chris nods. “I got pulled over a few months ago because of a broken taillight. I handed the officer the truck’s papers, and that’s when I saw it.
First time I’d ever had to touch those documents.
My boss told me everything was in order, and all I had to do was drive the truck where it needed to go. ”
All of those trucks were stored away after we closed the company.
“I thought maybe you owned the company,” Chris continues.
“Or maybe you used to. I didn’t know. But I felt that something was off.
Seeing your name on those papers and never hearing it from anyone at the company, I knew something wasn’t right.
I’ve been trying to find you ever since.
But your name is listed all over the country.
The fact that your men found me two days ago right as I started a new route shocked me, but I couldn’t be more grateful. ”
“Your boss’s name?” I ask.
Chris swallows.
“Victor Dane.”
Foster lifts his head from the laptop. “That’s not the name of the man you said was responsible for you closing the place down.”
“No,” I say, my attention moving to Stefano. “That was Mark Dane.”
My brother’s jaw tightens.
“Victor’s his father.”
The old air between us changes.
Not with surprise.
With recognition.
There are some names a family never truly buries. They may fade from daily conversation, but they remain somewhere beneath the surface, waiting for a reason to rise again.
Victor Dane.
The father of the man Stefano killed for betraying our rescue network.
The father of the man who tried to turn desperate people into profit.
“He says he’s just operations,” Chris says. “But everyone knows he runs the place.”
Stefano sits beside me, silent and still.
His eyes haven’t left Chris since the man began talking.
I brought my brother here for this exact reason. Stefano hears lies the way some men hear music. One wrong note, and he knows.
“Victor knew Maverick’s name was registered under all those trucks,” Stefano says quietly.
Chris looks between us. “What?”
“My brother’s name didn’t remain on that paperwork by accident.”
Spike nods. “Agreed. If they were trying to keep this clean, they would have transferred ownership through half a dozen shell companies and buried the original records.”
“They wanted my name found,” I say.
Skip pushes off the counter. “Why?”
I already know.
So does Stefano.
There is only one reason this boy would be hauling a truck through Palm Springs when there were a dozen shorter routes he could have taken.
Someone wanted him here.
Someone wanted that truck close enough to my world that I would eventually see it.
Stefano looks at me, and for one brief moment, I don’t see my gentle brother.
I see the man who stood over Mark Dane seven years ago and ended him.
“Victor wanted us to know,” Stefano says.
“I agree,” I say. “He wanted us to know that his son’s business didn’t die with him.”
“Things must have escalated within the past week. He killed our man,” Stefano says. “You think maybe Elio caught on to what they were doing right under his nose, so they ended him before word could get back to us?”
“The timeline doesn’t match,” Patch says. His attention shifts to Chris. “Kid says he’s been working for them nearly a year. Have you always driven the same truck?”
“Yeah,” Chris answers. “Same truck since I started.”
“So somehow,” I lean back in my chair, piecing the impossible together, “trucks we’ve had out of service and in storage for several years suddenly made an appearance a year ago, and Elio never knew?”
“Could he have sold the information?” Bones asks.
“No,” Stefano and I say together.
“Elio was loyal to me,” I continue. “I paid him more than enough. He didn’t need money.”
“Maybe he didn’t,” Foster says. “But what about the men working beneath him?”
My jaw tightens.
“They’re still my men.”
“I know,” Foster says carefully. “But are they your men because they’re loyal to you, or because your name signs their checks?”
“Brother,” Spike says, his voice low. “I hate to say it, but I think your Ohio chapter is compromised.”
I nod once.
Someone used my trucks.
Someone operated inside my territory.
Someone murdered one of my men.
And worse than all of that, someone took something my family built to save desperate people and turned it back into the very thing we once destroyed.
My fingers curl slowly around the arm of my chair.
Someone betrayed me.
Chris’s phone rings, and every man in the room freezes.
Chris stares down at the screen, and every bit of color drains from his face.
“It’s him,” he whispers.
“Answer it.”
His eyes lift to mine. “What?”
“Answer it,” I repeat. “Put him on speaker.”
Chris’s hand shakes as he picks up the phone. His thumb hovers over the screen for one second too long.
Stefano leans closer.
“Breathe,” my brother says quietly. “Then answer.”
Chris swallows hard and accepts the call.
“Hello?”
For one second, there’s nothing but silence.
Then a man laughs softly through the speaker.
“Hello, Maverick.”
Chris’s face twists with confusion.
Mine does not.
The voice is older. Smooth. Calm in a way that tells me the man on the other end of this call feels like he’s in control.
“It took you long enough,” he says.
Chris places the phone on the table between us.
“Victor,” I say.
Another soft laugh.
“There he is. The great Maverick Moretti. I was beginning to think you forgot about us.”
“I remember your family.”
“I should hope so. You made certain mine would never be the same.”
Stefano goes still beside me.
It doesn’t matter what he says; I know killing that man changed him. I saw it happen. I saw his eyes lose a little of the light he always carried.
I never asked him to do something like that again. I’ll carry all of the blood on my hands just so his can stay clean.
“Your son betrayed my family,” I say.
“My son was ambitious.”
“Your son sold desperate people to monsters.”
“Your family smuggled desperate people across borders and called yourselves saviors. Let us not pretend morality is what separates us.”
Skip gears up to say something, but I hold my hand.
Victor chuckles again, as if he knows he has the room’s attention.
“I wondered when you would figure it out. Nearly a year, Maverick. Nearly a year of my trucks moving through your territory. Nearly a year of your name sitting on paperwork while my people rebuilt what your brother destroyed.”
“My people will correct that mistake.”
“I’m sure they’ll try.”
“You killed Elio.”
“Elio asked too many questions.”
Victor continues as though he’s discussing the weather.
“He was loyal. I’ll give him that. Terribly inconvenient, loyal men. They die with so many unanswered questions.”
Stefano begins to rise.
I catch his wrist without looking away from the phone.
“Why call?” I ask.
“Because this was never only about trucks.”
“No?”
“No. The trucks were useful. Profitable. Amusing, even. But they were never the point.”
“And what is the point?”
“You.”
The word settles into the room like poison.
Victor’s voice lowers.
“You took my son from me.”
“Your son earned what he received.”
“He was my child.”
“He was a monster.”
“He was mine.”
The words scrape something raw inside me.
Mine.
I think of Adriana.
Elena.
The blood.
The silence.
The moment I realized I had arrived too late to save the two people I loved most in this world.
Victor lets the silence stretch.
Then he says, “You understand that kind of loss, don’t you?”
My body goes cold.
Of course he knows.
Men like him don’t make moves without studying their prey.
“You buried a wife and daughter once,” Victor says. “Tell me, does the ground feel different when the woman and child beneath it are yours?”
My vision narrows.
“Maverick,” Stefano says quietly.
I say nothing.
I can’t.
Because for one second, I’m no longer sitting inside Patch’s spare cabin.
I’m standing in blood.
Adriana’s hand lies open on the floor.
Elena’s hair is tangled across her cheek.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
Victor exhales, pleased with himself.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “There it is.”
My voice, when it finally leaves me, doesn’t sound like mine.
“If you speak of them again, I will peel the skin from your bones while you beg me for death.”
Chris flinches.
Victor laughs.
“That’s the man I wanted to hear.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No, Maverick. I made my mistake seven years ago when I underestimated what a Moretti would do for family. I will not make that mistake again.”
“What do you want?”
“To repay a debt.”
“You have my attention. Use it wisely.”
“I’ve been watching you.”
The room goes silent in a new way.
A colder way.
“You’ve built such a lovely life in Palm Springs,” Victor continues. “A beautiful estate. Loyal men. The Shadows at your side. Children running through your halls.”
My blood turns to ice.
“And then there’s the woman.”
Stefano’s hand closes around the edge of the table.
Victor hums softly. “Amelia Moore. Pretty thing. Soft heart. Works herself to exhaustion trying to save every broken animal that crosses her path.”
Rage begins to hum beneath my skin.
“And her daughter,” he adds breathlessly. “Olivia.”
My control fractures.
Only a hairline crack.
Enough for every man in the room to feel it.
“Careful,” I say.
“I’ve been very careful. That’s why you’re only hearing from me now when I’ve been in your shadow for years.”
Foster scoots the phone over and takes a seat at the table, his laptop open and running scans I know nothing about.
Victor keeps talking.
“When your brother killed my son, he didn’t only take Mark from me. He took my future. My name. My bloodline. My legacy. You Moretti’s understand legacy, don’t you?”
I look at Stefano.
His face is carved from stone.
“So I waited,” Victor says. “I rebuilt. I watched. I let your family grow comfortable. Then you found yourself another woman. Another little girl to tuck beneath your protection.”
My jaw locks so tightly pain shoots through my teeth.
Victor’s voice turns almost gentle.
“I was planning to take out the Shadows, you know,” he says. “I had everything in place. Men. Routes. Timing. All of it. But then I saw you with that beautiful woman and her very pretty daughter.” He exhales softly, like the memory pleases him. “Everything happens for a reason, Maverick.”
Victor’s voice lowers.
“Perhaps God was kind enough to give you a second wife and daughter so I could take them from you properly.”
“You think you can scare me with threats?” I ask.
“No.” Victor sounds pleased. “I think I can scare you with memory.”
Adriana.
Elena.
Amelia.
Olivia.
Four names slam through my head until I can barely separate past from present.
Victor lowers his voice.
“You failed once. Let’s see if grief taught you anything.”
The line goes dead.
For several seconds, no one speaks.
Foster breaks the silence first.
“Call bounced through too many relays. I couldn’t get a location.”
I don’t answer.
“Maverick,” Spike says.
Still nothing.
Every man watches me.
Maybe expecting rage.
Maybe expecting orders.
Maybe expecting the Don.
But inside my head, I see Amelia smiling over cute animals.
I see Olivia calling herself Don Livy with her chin lifted and her eyes bright.
I see all the children living on estate property laughing and running through the halls and all over the grounds.
Then they all disappear.
All the children. All the women.
My family.
Olivia.
Amelia.
Not fucking happening.
“Move every child into the main estate,” I say. “Double the guards. No school. No outside activities. No one enters or leaves without my approval.”
Stefano nods.
“Spike.”
“Locking down the compound,” he says.
“Luca,” I call to my ever-present and silent second. “Call the estate. Tell Rosa to prepare rooms for every child and every woman who needs to be moved to the main house.”
“Yes, Don.”
Stefano steps closer. “Brother.”
I look at him.
His expression softens, and that almost undoes me.
“He wants you afraid.”
“He succeeded,” I admit, not caring who hears.
Victor Dane aimed for the one wound that never healed and pressed his thumb directly into the center of it.
“Yes,” I say, looking at every man in the room. “I’m afraid.”
Chris stares at me like he can’t believe the words came from my mouth.
“But fear does not weaken me.”
I pick up my jacket from the back of the chair.
“It enrages me. It sharpens me. It tells me where to aim.”
Stefano’s eyes darken.
“And where are we aiming?” he asks.
“At anyone who can reach what’s mine.”
“Then we start with Ohio,” Foster suggests.
“No,” I say. “We start with home.”
Because Victor has been watching.
Because he knows Amelia.
Because he knows Olivia.
Because he knows the shape of my worst nightmare.
And because if he truly wants to make me relive the night I lost my wife and daughter, he won’t wait for me in Ohio.
He’ll aim straight for the heart.
I turn toward the door.
“Get the estate secure. Now.”