Page 23 of Fallen Empire

Hard truth was I knew he’d die anyway.

I’d always shifted my gaze to take me anywhere but the moment I was in. A fly on the wall. A blood stain on the floor. Each time I’d distract my mind from the brutal evil that was happening.

Evil I could’ve stopped, but for the sake of the operation, I had to let happen.

So yeah, I knew what those vans carried.

I knew what Bruce’s empire was.

And while my world lay here—barely clinging to life—I started dismantling everything he built. One shell company. One laundering pipeline. One offshore account at a time. Between the haze of liquor and grief, I acted.

When Millie went to get coffee, I made a call.

When Ben stepped out for the night, I made another.

Every quiet moment became a window. They thought I was just sitting here… drinking.

But I wasn’t.

Even with blurred vision and bourbon breath, I pulled strings, demanded shutdowns, and burned what shitty reputation he did have to the fucking ground.

Not because I had to. But because I couldn’t live with the thought of Bruce still leaving fingerprints on her life.

He was dead, but his reach didn’t die with him. His accounts were active. His contacts still moved shipments. His assets were dirty, still working. And the deeper I dug, the more I realized this went higher than anyone knew. Bigger than Bruce.

And if I didn’t stop it now—if I didn’t erase every single tie—then when Savannah woke up, she wouldn’t just be a target.

She’d be a message.

So I’d kept going.

No one suspected anything. Nic sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell them after what she’d witnessed. Even though I’d left her in the dark on most of it.

To them, I was just a wreck.

The truth was, I knew how to do this. Because once—I was this.

Ten years ago, I didn’t just disappear from New York for the military. I went under. Deep. Embedded in a world wherenames were traded like weapons and silence was more valuable than blood.

I didn’t tell anyone—not even Ben—because I was never supposed to come back from it.

For two years, I’d danced the edge of darkness with some of the most disgusting and vile humans I’d ever known—if you could even call them that. Men who walked this earth completely heartless. Soulless. As if humanity had been stripped from them at birth. Sociopaths that would put any known serial killer to shame. Because at least those murderers were caught, eventually. These men didn’t hide in the darkness.

They were the dark.

So when Nic said that name the day Savannah went missing, I knew exactly who he was. And I knew, right then, that the only way out of this was to finish what I started years ago.

Gavriel Costa.

I’d walked side by side with Costa for months. Ate with him, laughed with him, mirrored his habits until his world became something I could map blindfolded. He was the ringleader of the Italian Mafia, and I was buried deep undercover as part of an off-the-record black ops initiative.

No digital records existed. These files were tucked away in a classified vault nested within layers of clearance so deep, even the servers didn’t know they existed. Handwritten. Coded. Locked behind initials, not names. Because anyone looking would need more than a password. They’d need clearance… and a damn good reason.

To Costa, I was Knox. A loyal foot soldier with no name, no past. Just blood on my hands and an appetite for chaos.

My mission was clear: learn everything, burn it all down.

Because while the government can turn a blind eye to drugs, to gambling, even to murder… when a Senator’s grandchild goes missing, all bets are off.