ALESSIO #2
I close the ledger. My mind races. The rescued women. The new identities. The dead buyers. The apology to Rachel. The safe. The torture. The missing ear. Every piece suddenly clicks into place.
I let out a slow breath. "Son of a bitch..."
Rossi looks at me. "What?"
I tap the list of names. "These aren't random victims. They're clients. Buyers. The men who paid for those women."
Understanding dawns across Rossi's face. "You think Flea..."
I do, my pointer finger moves up and down the ledger. "He wasn't running from Cesar. He was dismantling Cesar's empire from the inside."
Beccs whispers, "He was killing them."
I nod. "One by one."
Then I look at the folders spread across the table. The women. The names. The new lives. The dead buyers. Everything.
"Cesar didn't just want him dead." I glance toward the open safe. "He wanted this."
I rest my hand on the stack of files. "Flea..." I let out a humorless laugh, "you weren't just another biker." I look around the room. "He was waging a one-man war. And judging by the size of these files..." I flip another page, "he was winning."
Beccs is still staring at the piece of paper with the note I'm sorry attached to it.
With a determined expression, she starts looking through other folders.
Picks up one, then another. Rossi and I let her chase whatever lead she discovered, giving her space.
Even Valentina has fallen uncharacteristically silent.
After a few minutes, Beccs looks up. "Rachel was the first woman he gave a new identity to. About three years ago."
"Let me scan these and organize them," Valentina offers in a very un-Valentina kind of way.
"I don't understand..." Beccs murmurs, still staring at the note. She looks at Valentina. "Can you tell when the cartel database entry was made? The one marking Rachel as dead?"
Valentina pulls up another screen. "I can tell you to the second." Her fingers dance over the keyboard. "When did Rachel disappear?"
Beccs doesn't hesitate. "July twelfth." She gives the year.
Valentina nods, entering the date. Several windows appear across three monitors. Code scrolls. A progress bar flashes by too quickly to read.
Then... "There." She enlarges one entry. "The database wasn't altered until..." she tilts her head, "ten months, three weeks and four days later."
Silence.
Rossi is the first to speak. "So... Rachel was sold." He pauses, as if trying to line it all up. "Almost a year passes. Then somebody hacks the cartel database and marks her dead."
Valentina agrees. "Correct."
Beccs looks down at Rachel's file again. "The first new identity..." she flips to the front page, "was created almost exactly three years ago."
I walk over beside her. Three years. Three years ago... everything started. I look across the rows of files. Three years ago... the first rescued woman. Three years ago... the first fake identity. Three years ago... the first buyer on Flea's list died. I slowly exhale.
"Three years ago..." everyone looks at me, "something changed."
Rossi frowns. "You think Flea grew a conscience?"
"I think if he ever had one, it came later." I tap the ledger. "This... wasn't built overnight. This took planning. Money. Contacts."
He inclines his head toward the files. "And a hell of a lot of risk."
I look back at Rachel's folder. "For whatever reason... three years ago... Flea stopped helping Cesar. And started dismantling him."
Rossi scratches his beard. "What the hell makes a man turn on his own club?"
"That's the million-dollar question," Beccs answers quietly. She hasn't looked up from Rachel's file. Not once. But the moment she does… I know that look. Her chin lifts just slightly. Her eyes narrow. Determination. I've seen it before. Usually right before she does something reckless.
I groan. "You think your sister knows." It isn't a question.
She confirms it with an incline of her head. "I know she knows. She didn't tell us everything."
"No."
I look down at the note clipped to Rachel's file. I'm sorry. Two simple words. No signature. No explanation. Just... regret. Or guilt. Or both.
I meet Beccs' eyes. "We need to talk to her again."
"Only this time..." her fingers tighten around the folder, "I'm done asking the easy questions."
I glance at the files covering Valentina's workbench. Hundreds of women. Hundreds of stolen lives. A biker no one understood. A Collector moving pieces in the dark. And somewhere... Rachel was standing in the middle of all of it. Whether she wanted to be... or not.
A few hours later, I'm walking towards the conference room that overlooks the already full Strip.
Massimo stands at the floor-to-ceiling windows, hands clasped behind his back.
The city glitters beneath him. Like nothing in the world is wrong.
Gabe leans against the bar, bourbon in hand.
Enzo flips through one of the folders from Flea's safe.
Rossi. The other seconds and Valentina, who is plugged into three laptops. One chair remains empty. Damiano's.
Massimo notices me looking at it. "He'll sit this one out."
Nobody questions it. Nobody asks why. We all know that whatever is brewing, Massimo would have filled us in if he had wanted to. He turns away from the window. The entire room goes dead quiet. He looks straight at me. "The table is yours."
I step up to the satellite image projected on the wall. A sprawling ranch fills the screen: horse barns, landing pads, guest lodges, and a private airstrip long enough to hide a small army.
"This," I say, pointing at the main house, "is where the next auction is happening. First Friday of every month. Private invitation only."
Enzo folds his arms. "Catch me up, I've been in New York."
I give him and the rest of the table the rundown. Starting with my old man giving up Flea's safehouse. How we got there too late. How Flea had been tortured for the code to that safe.
"Which, in a stroke of genius, I got open," Valentina volunteers from her corner.
I ignore her and keep going. "Inside were the identities of every woman Flea managed to pull out, as well as a listing of their buyers, who were all killed in the most creative, gruesome ways possible."
Massimo opens the folder and stares at the lists.
"Cesar was after this," I tell them. "If he'd gotten that safe, they'd all be dead by now." I let that sink in before dropping the next bomb. "The entire trafficking operation…" I force the words out, "is being run by my mother, Luciana Vitali."
The room goes graveyard silent. Nobody asks if I'm sure. They know me better than that.
"The ranch belongs to her. Or one of her shell companies. But she's the one overseeing the auctions."
My eyes flick to Gabe. "And this is where the Collector, Cesar Manetti, comes in.
" Gabe nods. I continue. "Audra identified him during a gun deal between the Reapers and Los Hijos del Desierto.
After Gabe put a bullet in Javier Salazar, nothing in their operation changed.
No power struggle. No missed shipments. No chaos. The cartel didn't even fucking blink."
I tap the map. "Which tells me someone was standing behind the curtain pulling the strings."
Enzo leans forward. "It tracks. The fastest way to build real power these days isn't drugs anymore.
It's people. Sell enough women to the right buyers, and suddenly you own senators, CEOs, judges, the whole fucking system.
" He raises an eyebrow. "This was never just about trafficking or revenge.
It's about building an empire. And every woman sold is another brick in it. "
Massimo takes over, his voice cutting through the room like a blade.
"So much for the history lesson. Now let's talk strategy." He looks at me. "You think Cesar will be there tonight?"
I shrug. "I don't know. After we took that safe… I think he's somewhere licking his wounds and recalculating. But my mother will definitely be there."
Valentina clears her throat. "Documentation spans about three years. At least one hundred and twelve confirmed extractions."
The room goes dead silent. Gabe slowly sets his glass down. "One man…" he mutters, "rescued over a hundred women?"
I nod. "And then the buyers started dying."
I slide the ledger across the table. Sean Haggerty. William Remington. Senator Charles Boone. Three names. Three very dead men. Those were the most famous. There were others, of course, some minor celebrities, some small heads of companies, men who could afford to pay a million or two for a woman.
Enzo studies the list. "These weren't random."
"No. They all bought women."
Massimo flips through more pages, then slowly closes the ledger.
"So Flea wasn't running from Cesar," he says. "He was dismantling his business. One client at a time."
I nod. "Exactly. And Cesar finally caught up to him."
Massimo's eyes harden as he looks around the table. "We're not stopping an auction tonight." He places one finger on the ranch. "We're ending a fucking business happening on our turf."
The air in the room shifts, colder, sharper, more dangerous.
Massimo looks at me. "Luciana is yours."
No one objects. No one needs to.
Then his gaze moves to Gabe. "Cesar…" his voice drops to something lethal, "…is mine."
Enzo breaks the silence first. "How many women are we expecting?"
I glance at Valentina.
"Forty-three confirmed," she says. "Possibly more."
Enzo scribbles quick notes. "I'll have transport, doctors, trauma counselors, clothes, food, safe houses, burner phones, and emergency cash ready before the first helicopter even lands."
He doesn't ask if. He only asks when. This is why our empire works. Not because we have the biggest guns. Because every man at this table knows exactly who the fuck he is.
"I have a place for them to stay." I fill them in, thinking about the empty rooms at the mansion. They'll be full again. Charly and Beccs will have their hands full.
We make plans, decide tactics, how many men, how many choppers, how many vans, when a muffled shout echoes from somewhere outside.
"I said let go!"
A loud thump.
"What the—"