Chapter 18 - The Traitor Revealed
At two o'clock in the morning, the subterranean boardroom in the Loop was suffocatingly quiet, smelling of stale coffee, cold air, and sheer terror.
The four lieutenants sat around the mahogany table, guarded by six of Nikolai’s personal enforcers who stood by the reinforced vault doors with rifles at the ready.
No one had been allowed to leave their seats, check their phones, or speak to their drivers since Roman’s transmission from the mountains twelve hours ago.
The heavy steel doors hissed open, and Roman walked into the room alone, his overcoat removed, revealing his left arm secured in a black silk sling.
His face was a mask of absolute, freezing calm as he walked slowly toward the head of the table, his right hand resting casually in his trouser pocket.
Nikolai entered a second later, carrying a thick manila folder which he tossed onto the center of the polished mahogany table with a sharp slap.
“We recovered the communications relay from Viktor Sokolov’s satellite device before we left Washington,” Roman said, his voice quiet enough to force the men to lean in to hear.
“The coordinates for my flight path and the location of the bookstore in Port Townsend were transmitted from an encrypted server inside this building at 11:40 AM on Wednesday.”
The lieutenants looked at each other, their faces pale under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the underground bunker as the circle of suspicion tightened.
Roman reached out with his right hand, opening the manila folder and spreading five high-resolution bank transfer documents across the dark wood.
“Three million dollars was deposited into a shell company in the Cayman Islands registered to a dummy corporation called Waterfront Logistics,” Roman continued coldly.
His gray eyes slowly moved around the table, skipping Viktor, skipping the Detroit captain, until they landed squarely on the man sitting at the far right end.
It was Anton, the elderly treasurer who had managed the syndicate's internal accounts since the days of Roman’s father thirty years ago.
Anton’s hands began to tremble violently against the table, his face turning the color of wet ash as Roman’s gaze locked onto him like a predator.
“You thought I was going soft, Anton,” Roman said, his tone lacking any anger, sounding more like a judge reading a formal verdict of execution.
“You thought that because I spared Sienna and sent her away instead of killing her to clear a weakness, I was no longer fit to command the family.”
“Roman, please,” the old treasurer choked out, tears of panic spilling from his faded eyes as he pushed his chair back from the table.
“The Sokolovs promised they would leave the Chicago assets untouched! They only wanted the girl! They said she was a liability to our business!”
The mention of her name as a liability caused the temperature in the room to drop to absolute zero, Roman’s jaw hardening into solid granite.
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“She is not a liability, Anton,” Roman whispered, drawing his suppressed Sig Sauer with his right hand in a motion so fast the old man couldn't even flinch.
“She is my wife.”
