Chapter 27
ERRYN
Ihad lost.
The truth had begun to surface within minutes of the explosion. I’d underestimated the depths a man would sink to in pursuit of power, and in my line of work, that kind of miscalculation was unforgivable.
One of Theo’s team had been compromised by the Vanguard rot that was slowly eating pieces of the Triarchy from the inside out. I’d issued termination orders on every infected agent before the dust had settled.
Nine agents in total.
Fucking nine. And I dispatched most of them myself.
I was done with people thinking they could enter my domain and fuck with everything I’d worked so hard for.
I’d already suspected Hogan and used him to unearth the rest. Ordering him to terminate Theo’s team member triggered a domino effect of agents going dark, leading me straight to them.
Of the plethora of issues I had, Theo was one I hadn’t been prepared for.
She should have been in medical, but the pig-headed creature had discharged herself.
I’d been too late to warn her of the internal mutiny, and four of the agents went after her.
She had dispatched them all. I’d watched it over and over again on the surveillance system she had looped into our network, trying to get the right angle to see where she had been injured.
But two days had passed with her radio silent.
The last image I had of Theo was her stumbling into the elevator of her home, a bloody handprint smeared across the door.
Theo had always kept separate security systems, and I tried everything I could think of—everything Helena could think of—to get into her building. But it was fucking impenetrable, and her phone had stopped ringing four hours ago.
I was losing my fucking mind and trying desperately not to show it.
Helena’s phone rang, the sound cutting through the room like a knife as she pulled it from her pocket, and despite myself, I felt that brief, violent surge of hope before she looked at the screen.
Helena’s eyes flicked down to the display, and the faint shift in her expression told me it wasn’t to do with Theo. She slowly looked up at me, shaking her head once before turning and leaving with an abruptness that surprised me.
Seconds later, my own phone rang.
I lunged for it before the second vibration had finished, the withheld number giving me a sliver of hope.
“Loxley.”
“Good evening, Erryn.” William Vanguard’s voice slid down the line, smooth and utterly composed.
I leaned back slowly in my chair, forcing the surge of adrenaline down with a hatred that burned like a wildfire.
“William,” I said evenly. “I wondered when you would call.”
“I was a little tied up with media updates,” he said. “Nice touch by the way.” The faintest note of amusement colored his voice and it made me feel sick. “You’ve caused quite a bit of disruption over the past few days.”
“How do you live with the knowledge that you murdered your own daughter for your political ambitions?” I hissed.
“Her blood is on your hands,” he said coldly. “I knew what you had done when I received a call from her that she was in the country, as I had requested, and I knew you would have had an agent on her the second she touched down. So, I did what I had to do.”
My grip tightened slightly on the phone, but my voice remained level. “Sacrifice her.”
“It’s how the game is played, isn’t it?” he said coldly. “Pawns fall to keep the king safe. Octavia was never one to be caged, so you would have gotten to her in the end. I can’t have loose threads.”
There was a long silence while I processed what kind of monster could think like that about his own child, the guilt I was already feeling weighing heavier on me by the second.
“I’ll appreciate your complete support when we announce my election to London’s Chair the week following my daughter’s funeral,” he said.
“There are no more moves, Erryn. One step out of line—one word—and I dismantle this corporation and leave you with nothing but dust. Should anything happen to me now or in a decade, there is an automatic failsafe that will release the entire network to the NCA. You and every other person in this corporation will never see daylight again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” I said quietly.
There was a faint pause on the other end of the line, as if Vanguard had expected resistance, and when none came, his breath left him in a soft, satisfied exhale. “I’m glad we understand one another,” he said smoothly.
“So am I.”
“For what it’s worth,” Vanguard added, his voice thick with condescension, “you played the game well.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone, staring at the dark screen for a moment before placing it back on the desk in front of me. Then I threw it into the nearest wall.
For a long moment, I didn’t move.
The anger was there, coiled tightly beneath the surface, along with the guilt that had been gnawing at me since the moment the bridge had come down, but both felt distant now, muted beneath the heavier realization that if I wanted any chance of winning the war, I had to forfeit this battle.
He had been willing to burn everything—his daughter, the system, the delicate balance the Triarchy had maintained for decades—to force the outcome he wanted. For the first time since I had taken this Chair, I had been outplayed, and it was a fucking hard pill to swallow.
The door pushed open and Helena entered. She didn’t say a word, just crossed the room to lean against the side of my desk, toying with her phone.
“I’ll call a driver. It’s late.” I reached for her, needing to feel her closer, but she didn’t move as I ran my hand up the length of her leg.
“Erryn.”
There was something in her tone that had every alarm bell in my mind screaming, and my gaze snapped to hers. She looked…
Terrified.
I stood and cupped her cheek. “Lena, what’s wrong?” I could feel the rapid beat of her heart pounding through her body.
“Erryn…I…Fuck.” She turned away and wiped a hand down her face, closing her eyes for a long moment.
“Helena.”
“I need you to trust me,” she said, turning back to face me. There was an element of pleading in her voice that put me on edge. “I need you to trust that I love you.”
Her words hit me like a train, and I blinked. “Wherever this conversation is going,” I said, my voice wavering as I struggled to control it. “This is not the place. Let’s go home, and we can talk there.”
“No.” She backed up a step as I reached for her again. I just wanted her. And I wanted to be in our space, away from the horror of this one.
“Please,” I said finally.
“You aren’t going to want me there once I tell you what I’m about to,” she said, her voice cracking.
“What?”
“Do you trust me?” she pushed. “Truly trust me?”
“Yes,” I said, my mind in fragments. “What the hell do you mean?”
She grabbed my hand in both of hers, pressing it to her chest, right over her hammering heart.
“This is yours,” she said. “To do what you want with. Keep it. Stop it. I don’t care. It’s yours. You took it, and I don’t want it back. Not now. Not knowing what it feels like to be whole.”
“Helena—”
“You asked me who I was when we met,” Helena charged on. “I didn’t lie to you. But I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
I went silent, watching her, her heart thumping against my palm.
“The records you pulled about me. My file. It’s all accurate. My mother died and I was raised by my father, Hector Rossi, until I was seventeen. I left Italy and never looked back. Until we had no other choice.”
I had that feeling. The one where ice starts creeping through your veins, as if your body knows something awful is coming before you do.
“What do you mean no other choice?” I asked quietly.
“We weren’t going to find Octavia,” she said, tripping over the words as though they were fighting to get out of her. “We tried, Erryn. I did everything I could think of, but without the Triarchy systems, she was a ghost. Vanguard had buried her too well.”
She dragged a hand through her hair.
“My family doesn’t have that problem,” she continued hoarsely. “They have networks in places even the Triarchy can’t reach. Old ones. I thought…I thought if I used their resources, the cost would be mine to carry alone.”
Her laugh was short and humorless. “But they knew exactly who I worked for.”
My hand dropped slowly from where it had been resting against her chest.
“Who is your family, Helena?” I asked quietly. My voice sounded as distant and cold as the ice that now consumed me.
“My father’s name is Hector Rossi dei Vitale. My uncle is Mattia Vitale.”
My ears rang as I stared at her.
The Vitale crime family was one of the oldest surviving in Italy, older than most modern governments, and they had spent decades circling the Triarchy like sharks.
They had tried more than once to force their way into our systems, probing for weaknesses, looking for a door that would let them reach into the heart of the organization.
And Helena had just handed them one. She was the door.
I took a step back from her, searching her face, though I wasn’t even sure I knew what I was looking for.
“Lox, please,” Helena breathed, reaching for me.
“Don’t.” I snapped, drawing my gun. I kept it pointed at the floor, but she knew damned well not to come any closer. “Tell me now, and god fucking help you if you lie to me, Rossi. Are you a plant?”
“No!” she cried. “I walked away from them.”
“Not very far, it seems,” I snapped. Agony tore at my chest, a slow, vicious rending of something deep inside.
“My loyalty is to you,” she said. “It remains with you.”
“Then why,” I murmured, “the fuck, does it feel like you are about to hand what’s left of my corporation to one of the largest crime syndicates in the world? I have contracts out on nearly half of the Vitale senior figures. Your family. And you have deliberately withheld this information from me.”
“I haven’t handed them anything,” Helena said.
“The deal I made was to open a door to the relationship with my father. Something I would have told you about after this war. Anything else I would have rejected—to hell with the consequences. But you will want to hear what they have to offer. It’s the only thing I will risk losing you over. ”
I scoffed. “Here it comes.” My words stung.
I could see them land like a physical blow, but I was in too much pain to stop.
“You worked your way into my bed to get yourself right where you are now,” I hissed.
“So here is where you insist I can trust you and the Vitale family can conveniently make the Vanguard problem disappear the moment the Triarchy falls under their control.”
“They want to negotiate,” Helena said. “And I know what it looks like, I just hoped—” She broke off, swallowing hard. “One phone call,” she said. “Mattia is offering a solution, but you only need to hear him out. You can decline.”
“You’re fired,” I said coldly. “Get. Out.”
“Lox, please,” Helena begged. “I wouldn’t have brought this to you if I didn’t think there was a cha—"
She cut off as I raised my gun, my arm not wavering as I aimed between her eyes.
“I’ve terminated agents for far less,” I warned. “You did your job, that’s all I needed, and I can replace you just as fast. If I see you again, I’ll fucking shoot.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back.
“I never lied to you about how I felt,” she said. “Everything I have done was to protect what you care about.” Then she turned and left, taking the shattered pieces of my heart with her.