Page 168 of Shadowed Sins: Nitro

The screens fill with cascading code. Everyone's breathing seems too loud in the small space.

"How long?" My voice carries that edge of desperation I get when forced to wait for critical information.

"Fifteen minutes, maybe—" Vanessa stops mid-sentence. Her face drains of color as a single folder materializes on Obi Wan's display. "Holy shit."

INSURANCE_POLICY_SS7.

Multiple subfolders appear with timestamps from the last six months. My stomach drops as I recognize the dates.

"Get everyone in here NOW." Vanessa's voice cracks.

Jax's hand tightens around mine. "What is it?"

Vanessa turns in her chair, eyes wide with something between shock and terror. "There's... footage. Video files. Recent dates. You all need to see this."

thirty-nine

Jax

The main screen flickers to life, and everyone shifts into position like we're preparing for combat. My leg bounces against the floor while Mira's hand finds my thigh, her fingers pressing just hard enough to steady me.

Her touch is the only thing keeping me from jumping out of my skin.

Kade stands at the center of our semicircle, shoulders squared and ready for whatever hell we're about to witness. Cole moves to the left side of the room, his eyes already analyzing angles and exits. Asher leans against the far wall, arms crossed, that cold focus settling over his features like armor.

The servers hum louder in the silence. Everyone's breathing sounds too sharp in the enclosed space.

"First file's opening now." Vanessa's voice carries that edge she gets when she's discovered something that's going to change everything.

She clicks on surveillance footage timestamped three weeks ago. My stomach twists as the video begins loading.

Whatever's on this drive made Sasha's contact risk everything to get it to us.

Mira's fingers tighten slightly on my leg. Her touch grounds me, but I can feel the tension radiating from her body. She's reading the room the same way I am—everyone's too quiet, too focused, too ready for something catastrophic.

"Here we go," Vanessa whispers.

The first image materializes on the screen—grainy surveillance footage from a parking garage. I lean forward, squinting at the timestamp. Two weeks after Roman's "death."

A figure moves across the frame, and something inside my chest stops working.

"That's..." My voice cracks. "That's his walk. The way he checks corners."

No. No fucking way.

The man on screen pauses at a pillar, his head turning left first, then right. Always left first. Roman drilled that habit into all of us during training, but he never broke it himself.

Vanessa clicks to the next file. More footage loads—different date, different location. Same figure.

Cole takes three steps toward the screen, his usual composed analysis crumbling. "The timestamp on this one—"

"Six weeks after," Kade's voice comes out flat. His mask of control develops hairline cracks.

My leg stops bouncing. Everything stops. Mira's grip on my thigh becomes the only thing tethering me to reality as more videos queue up in sequence.

"That's Roman." The words scrape out of my throat. "He's alive. He's fucking alive."

The footage shows meetings with unknowns, always in shadows, Roman's face partially obscured by angles and lighting. No audio on any of them. Just visual proof that the man we buried our hearts over has been breathing this whole time.